MAINE PUBLIC • December 1, 2021
Last December, the Maine Climate Council released a lengthy "action plan" for achieving ambitious climate goals. Since then, the state has made significant progress on some fronts but still faces sizable hurdles on others. On Wednesday, Gov. Janet Mills gathered on the University of Maine campus in Orono to mark the one-year anniversary of the report and to highlight new initiatives that she said will help communities prepare for — and adapt to — the changing climate. Mills noted that 28,000 heat pumps were installed between July 2020 and June of this year. Generation of solar energy systems has increased four-fold in Maine since 2019. And more than 5,000 electric or hybrid vehicles are now on Maine roads — a 90% increase in two years but still a tiny fraction of the more than 200,000 electric vehicles that last year’s report said would be needed.