New Jersey has adopted a Kyoto-type scheme that covers all economic sectors and is consistent with the type of plan that might have been required of the states if the federal government had ratified the international protocol on GHG emissions.
Climate Change Law is no longer a speculative international issue with little direct impact on the New Jersey business community. Concerns over climate change and its relationship to green house gas (GHG) emissions are the impetus for New Jersey’s recent Global Warming Response Act and for an emerging body of voluntary and mandatory initiatives and litigation-driven programs that will impact businesses in New Jersey. Climate change is a global concern regulated on the international level � most notably, the Kyoto Protocol, which requires signatory nations to meet specific goals for reducing GHG emissions from industrialized nations. The United States, although a signatory to Kyoto, did not ratify or mandate its goals. In the absence of federal legislation, states and private parties have taken it upon themselves to compel consideration of GHG emissions through local government initiatives, regional partnerships, voluntary pilot programs and litigation aimed at combating federal inertia and at redressing harms relating to GHG emissions. For the present and immediate future, the targeted communities will be subject to a variety of regulatory schemes that are comprised of both mandatory and voluntary goals for GHG reduction and which vary from state to state and region to region. Until such time as the federal government exerts authority on GHG emissions and establishes a uniform federal standard of regulation, GHG emissions will be regulated on a sporadic and inconsistent basis.