NC wants to cut greenhouse gases. That could mean changes in your home and garage.

To slash climate impacts, North Carolina will need to quickly put electric vehicles on the road and electrify buildings while also replacing polluting electricity generation with renewable energy, according to a new state report.

The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Analysis from Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration sets out three routes to reducing statewide greenhouse gas emission reductions 50% from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050. Electrification of buildings, transportation and industry is the key tactic in one; a larger role for green hydrogen and advanced biofuels has a more significant role in another; and the third looks at what kind of carbon offsets would be necessary to use land and forests to reach net zero.

Thursday’s report describes an economy-wide effort that will need to play out over the next 27 years in order to reach net zero.

By 2035, it says, most new cars will need to be electric, with a robust charging network built out to service them statewide. Building codes will need to be updated to encourage electric-powered heat pumps and water heaters. And the generation of electricity will need to continue to move toward non-emitting sources — including the familiar solar and wind but also potentially new technologies like hydrogen or long-term energy storage.

“We’ve laid the groundwork that is going to be durable and that can survive whatever partisan storm, either way, we might have in the future because it’s putting money in people’s pockets, and at the end of the day a cleaner economy and a healthier population is going to be a positive thing,” Cooper told The News & Observer.

North Carolina is very likely to get between 2 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by the end of this century, according to the most recent N.C. Climate Science Report. That will bring hotter summers and warmer nights, as well as making it very likely that extreme rainfall will become more frequent because the atmosphere will hold more vapor.

Emissions of greenhouse gases are already causing temperatures to warm and storms to grow wetter, the report says, with the severity of future impacts dependent on how much those emissions can be reduced.

‘Parallel fronts’

The strength of creating three routes to net zero, Cooper said, is that officials can choose a different course depending on the economics of certain options, political headwinds or other factors.

“There are a lot of different ways that we can go to reach our goal to make sure that we reduce greenhouse gas,” Cooper said.

The decarbonization analysis provides North Carolina with a “road map” but also emphasizes that more action is necessary, according to one environmental nonprofit.

“Our fight against climate change requires persistent progress on a number of parallel fronts,” Will Scott, the Environmental Defense Fund’s director of Southeast climate and energy, wrote in a statement. “This new analysis is an important step to helping us realize the opportunities for climate progress across sectors that we know must be achieved to avert the worst consequences of climate change.”

States like California, Colorado and New Mexico have conducted similar analyses, said Amanda Levin, interim director of policy analysis in the Natural Resources Defense Council’s science office.

Levin was one of the people who helped shape the report. It is important, Levin said, that the report contemplated not only what it would look like to decarbonize power generation and transportation, but also more difficult areas like industrial facilities and agriculture.

“Thinking now about what it will take, what are the potential levers in each sector, gives us time and flexibility to determine what and when we can move on these different areas, and I think you do see that in the report,” Levin said.

Finding ways to make society’s transition equitable was also highlighted in the report, which noted that things like electric vehicles and heat pumps offer long-term savings but come with significant up-front costs that could make it difficult for middle- and low-income households to make the switch.

Incentives and financing will be key, the report said, as will keeping the concerns of local communities around industrial facilities, trucking depots or other sites of significant greenhouse gas emissions.

“It is essential to build the kind of discussion, participation, the collaboration processes and networks now so that we have those in place before all of these big questions need to be answered,” Levin said.

The report also urges North Carolina policymakers to “prioritize solutions” for powerful but shorter-lasting greenhouse gases like methane and hydrofluorocarbons. In recent months, dozens of scientists have called on Cooper to take more action to prevent Duke Energy from building new methane-powered natural gas plants.

Plan to reduce carbon emissions

In December, the N.C. Utilities Commission approved the first version of a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, settling on an “all of the above” approach that requires Duke Energy to add new solar and storage while also planning for new natural gas plants. The plan directs the state’s largest utility to retire its six remaining coal plants by 2035 and explore the possibilities of wind farms both on- and offshore.

As the Utilities Commission approves future versions of the plan, Cooper said he believes it will need to select more solar and wind generation resources in order to meet carbon dioxide reductions set out in state legislation that passed in 2021.

“We know that natural gas pricing is volatile, we know that the natural gas supply for our state is questionable, so building these new gas plants could end up costing consumers a lot more at the end of the day because of the volatility and because the technology is going to be moving so rapidly to support these renewables,” Cooper said.

Electricity accounts for about 30% of North Carolina’s energy demand today, according to the report. That rises to between 57% and 67% in the three proposed decarbonization scenarios.

Levin hopes that North Carolina policymakers continue to focus on energy, treating the House Bill 951 goals as a floor. That could mean taking advantage of federal grants available through the Inflation Reduction Act to more quickly overhaul the state’s power generation — and thus the other sectors that already rely or could come to rely on electricity, she added.

“Those near term implementation needs in the power sector would be my main priorities because, one, it lets us cut emissions as quickly as possible today, and two, it is essential for unlocking the decarbonization potential of so many of the other sectors,” Levin said.

Cooper called for the decarbonization analysis in Executive Order 246, which he signed in January 2022 at N.C. A&T University. Other goals in the order included the development of a Clean Transportation Plan, as well as increasing the number of zero-emission vehicles registered in North Carolina to 1.25 million by 2030.

The executive order is one of several the governor has signed in an effort to boost clean energy or curb climate impacts.

A key difference between the executive orders and the carbon plan process is that the executive orders consider all greenhouse gases, while the legislation that created the carbon plan process, House Bill 951, directs the Utilities Commission to solely consider carbon dioxide.

“North Carolina has become a leader in clean energy and the fight against climate change, and this comprehensive analysis will help us solidify that reputation and also help us bring the economic development that we all want,” Cooper said.

This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.