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The Gov. Charlie Baker Administration announced on Friday it was allocating $433,381 to three Central Massachusetts towns newly designated as Green Communities under the state’s program.
The three Central Massachusetts towns to receive the designation include Clinton, Hopedale and Princeton, which received grant funding totaling $164,753, $137,759 and $130,869, respectively.
Nine new towns were added to the Green Communities list, in total. With the additions, 87% of the state’s population now live in towns and cities who are part of the program, which has distributed over $137 million in grant funding, according to the announcement.
Under the Green Communities Act, the state’s Department of Energy Resources may provide up to $20 million annually to qualifying cities and towns to support investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.
In Massachusetts, there are many ways towns can become energy efficient, deploy solar energy and save taxpayers money at the same time. There are state funding programs, numerous incentives and ways for systems to pay for themselves.
One program in Massachusetts is called the Green Communities Designation & Grant program (GCDG). Started in 2008, âthe Green Communities Division of the MA Department of Energy Resources (DOER) wanted to help municipalities become more sustainable, control rising energy costs and incubate the clean energy technologies and practices that will put Massachusetts cities and townsâand the commonwealth as a wholeâat the center of the 21st-century clean energy economy. Envisioned as a way to encourage municipalities to make clean energy decisions, the division is mandated to offer grant opportunities to municipalities designated as âGreen Communities.ââ (1)
Massachusetts is a leader in this country and in the world in climate change resilience (coping with the impact of) and mitigation (doing all we can to stop climate change through stopping greenhouse gas emissions).
Resilience was addressed by 80 percent of Massachusetts towns through a planning process called the Municipal Vulnerable Planning process. Many towns on the Cape participated in this.
Working toward mitigation, in 2008, the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) was passed in Massachusetts. It sets state-level goals for each decade to achieve net zero energy statewide until 2050.
Letâs explore the meaning of net zero. Global warming results from burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas and propane, and their gases are emitted into the atmosphere. An excess of these has formed a layer around the Earth and that causes warming. That is why these are gases called greenhouse gases (GHGs). Science has tracked the increase of these gases back to the industrial growth period i