Counties have accomplished significant sustainability work and continually strive to do more. The state supports those ongoing efforts by:

• Understanding the challenges and opportunities to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in county operations
• Documenting existing greenhouse gas reduction measures already taken by counties
• Identifying and promoting success stories at the county level
• Developing GHG, infrastructure and data inventories for the counties to assist with informed decision making
• Promoting existing incentives and programs to counties to increase climate mitigation action

Our office is going to engage the counties in a few ways. First, DEP has applied for an Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) which will first fund the update of New Jersey’s existing climate plans and later help fund implementation of the policies, tools and measures identified in the plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful air pollution.  DEP will be in constant communication with the counties and the plan is for New Jersey counties to be eligible for implementation funds.

Tell Us About Your County Climate Plans

To lay the foundation for understanding where counties are in their sustainability and decarbonization journeys, we hope that you as representatives of county governments can answer a number of questions about energy, fleets, land and waste infrastructure in your county by clicking on the County Climate Poll button and answering the poll questions.

Your participation is crucial to the success of this project and making counties stronger, more fiscally sound and sustainable; all while protecting the environment.

Questions or Comments?

Contact Karl Hartkopf at CountyClimate@njdepwptest.net.

If you would like help gathering, preparing or submitting this data, we will be glad to assist you.  While financial resources are not currently available to complete the work identified in the poll, we expect that those resources will become available as part of this project, as well as tools that facilitate the collection and tracking of energy usage, emissions and climate data.

The department will consider your answers confidential to the extent allowed by law. Our default position is to keep your data internal to this project unless you give us permission to make it public. If the department receives a public records request which requires the department to disclose information provided by your county, the department will notify you prior to release. The department intends to use the information submitted to develop data, guidance documents, and eventually incentive programs to advance this important work.