This week’s radio address features Governor Mills’ remarks as delivered to the United Nation’s General Assembly on Monday, September 23rd for the 2019 Climate Action Summit.
Distinguished delegates and guests, members of the General Assembly:
Maine won’t wait.
Our small state of 1.3 million people, which juts out of the northeast corner of this country, bordering Canada, bending toward Europe, 90% forested, with clean water, rolling hills, fertile farmlands, mighty rivers and deep ports, about 3,000 miles of bold rocky jagged bold coast.
Our whole state is experiencing climate change — our weather, our iconic lobster industry, our insect populations; the warming, rising fish-rich seas that bathe our shores.
Maine won’t wait.
So we have just enacted the most significant renewable standards in the country. We are investing in clean energy and conservation, electric vehicles and energy efficiency, community resiliency, sequestering carbon in our soil and forests with sustainable forest practices.
We are cutting our appetite for fossil fuels, on which we have come to depend so much for heat, electricity and transportation.
And we have invented the most innovative floating offshore wind platforms in the world.
These investments will not impair our economy; they will in fact improve it and bolster it.
We are doing these things now, because we believe the irrefutable science.
Maine won’t wait.
Will you?
We all have what it takes to combat climate change, to protect the irreplaceable earth we share and care for.
What is more precious than water, air, soil, the health and happiness of our children and our children’s children and yours?
For all of them, today, by Executive Order, I have pledged that the State of Maine will be carbon neutral by 2045.
And if our small state can do it, you can as well.
We’ve got to unite to preserve our precious common ground, for our common planet, in uncommon ways for this imperative common purpose.
Maine won’t wait.
Will you?
Thank you.