ND: North Dakota climate plan being finalized in different world than the one it started in

A couple of years ago, the prospect of fossil fuel-loving North Dakota needing to draw down its emissions seemed to dominate conversations at both industry and government meetings.

In 2021, former Gov. Doug Burgum called for the state to be "carbon neutral" by 2030 at an oil and gas conference. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 included numerous measures that both expanded and extended subsidies for clean energy and emissions reductions. Regulations coming from the Biden administration imposed a variety of requirements that the fossil fuel industry make huge cuts to emissions, too.

That was then, this is now.

Nothing significant about the generally accepted science of climate change is different — the vast majority of scientists who study the issue say the planet is getting hotter due to the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere going up by around 50% since the use of fossil fuels became widespread during the Industrial Revolution.

But the politics around it have.

President Donald Trump's administration has moved to reverse multiple regulatory efforts to rein in emissions, decrease the number of environmental officials working under federal agencies, remove subsidies for clean energy and expand fossil fuel development.

It was in the context of policies from a few years ago that the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality applied for and received a $3 million Climate Pollution Reduction Grant to map out a future that the state could take to drastically reduce its emissions over the next 25 years. So far, about $1.2 million has been spent.

When officials presented the draft on Tuesday during a public video call, they acknowledged the changes in federal policy but said there is still interest in emissions reduction from state agencies, nonprofits and private companies.

No matter what federal policy is, DEQ spokeswoman Jennifer Skjod said, the plan represents a roadmap the state could take and not a mandate from the DEQ.

"This project is through 2050, so things change. They changed in 2023. They changed in 2025. Who knows what the future will hold, but what we are hoping is if we have this plan ... that somehow some of these projects can tie back to this plan," she said.

The DEQ will hold a second online meeting to gather more comments from the public on Thursday, and members of the public can comment on the draft until the end of July. To sign up for the information session or comment, visit https://www.deq.nd.gov/sustainability/. The plan will be submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency at the end of the year.

Reduction targets

If there is complete follow through on the plan, North Dakota could reduce its equivalent CO2 emissions 80% by 2050 compared to a baseline of 84.9 metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2019. Without any further efforts to reduce emissions, the state's greenhouse gas output would remain about the same through 2050, according to the plan.

Projections for emission reductions were completed prior to the changes that have happened in federal energy and environmental policy.

Just under half of emissions reductions in the plan would come from the deployment of carbon capture technology, drawing down just over 30 million metric tons of CO2 by 2050.

While state policymakers broadly support carbon capture, the use of the technology is still relatively minimal because of how expensive it is, and it has also faced some significant political backlash when pipelines have been involved in projects.

Moones Alamooti, an energy researcher with a doctorate from the University of North Dakota who also runs the geothermal energy company GeoTinkers, said the plan's writers "accomplished something truly remarkable with this draft framework," but she questioned the plan's heavy reliance on carbon capture for meeting emission reduction goals.

"While North Dakota is uniquely positioned for this technology, large-scale carbon capture projects globally have faced cost overruns and technical challenges," she said in an email.

Beyond carbon capture, many of the other measures listed in the plan that could have a larger impact on emissions have been hit with uncertainty due to changes in federal policy.

For instance, the plan calls for expanding low carbon energy development in the state, which would reduce emissions by 4.39 million metric tons by 2050. But tax credits for wind and solar energy — the forms of clean energy seeing the most growth — are now set to go away due to recent legislation pushed by North Dakota lawmakers.

State officials have shown recent support for some other low-carbon energy technologies such as geothermal and nuclear power. Both technologies are receiving a lot of attention, but the use of geothermal is still limited and only a handful of new nuclear plants have been built in the last few decades.

Another big area of potential emissions reductions come from the state's large oil and gas industry. The report found that the industry could decrease emissions by just over 5 million metric tons of CO2 by 2050 through more funding for well site reclamation, the use of geothermal energy in operations and better methane leak prevention — natural gas is mostly comprised of methane which turns to CO2 when it is burned, but traps much more heat when it leaks.

Despite multiple federal oil and gas regulations that would have addressed some of these issues being cut, delayed or defunded by the Trump administration, Scott Skokos, executive director at the Dakota Resource Council, said he thinks state officials could use the document to take more of a "middle ground" on regulating the industry's emissions.

Broadly, he said the DRC appreciated the plan put together by the DEQ, though he is also skeptical about the reliance the state has on carbon capture to lower emissions.

Skokos said he hopes some of the calls in the report for nature- and agriculture-related solutions are heeded. Combined, these could lower state emissions by just under 20 million metric tons of CO2 by 2050, both through conservation methods and reduced fuel or fertilizer use.

These too may be limited in the face of federal funding cuts and policy changes.

The North Dakota Farmers Union has served as the state lead for a "Climate-Smart Agriculture" initiative where farmers would receive federal dollars for conservation practices. NDFU is listed as a possible implementing partner for reducing agricultural emissions on the DEQ document.

Climate-Smart Agriculture is one of many federal programs that has seen funding freezes and changes. Chris Aarhus with NDFU said it is too soon to say how changes in federal policy will impact its rollout.

"It’s kind of a big question that we’re still reviewing ourselves, actually," he said.

The Department of Agriculture did not provide comment on Wednesday.

Bruce Kreft with the state Game and Fish Department, said expanding conservation of wetlands and grasslands would store more CO2 while also benefiting wildlife. The department will need more funding to expand its work with private landowners that own over 90% of land in North Dakota, he said. A lot of this funding comes from license sales, but cuts from the federal government are also limiting conservation expansion in the state, he said.

"I can't speak to whether it is a reachable emissions goal," Kreft said.

Seven of the plan's 15 suggestions would combine to decrease just under 5 million metric tons of the state's emissions by 2050. These include measures related to energy efficiency, public transit, electric vehicles and waste reduction.

While the potential impact of these measures would be lower, some, such as energy efficiency efforts, may be easier to achieve because they can save money, said Skjod.

She said there will likely not be many changes between the draft plan and the final plan, and the modeling will stay the same. A required update in 2027 could include some changes.