Coloradans love playing outdoors. But if residents want to keep on enjoying the state’s recreational bounty — and continue enjoying the $13.2 billion the recreational industry pumps into Colorado’s economy — it’s time for the state to lead the way cutting carbon pollution. Fortunately, says a report released this week, Colorado is in a good position to do just that.

That was the message delivered on Tuesday by Environmental Colorado, several outdoor recreational organizations and Speaker of the House Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder.

Climate change has already shortened the state’s ski season, according to Phil Huffeldt of Snowriders International, an organization of snow sports and outdoor recreation enthusiasts. The ski season is about 20 days shorter than it was in the 1970s, he said, and he fears that, without major changes, there will be no skiing left in Colorado by the end of the century. This year, for example, warmer temperatures meant ski resorts opened later, and a dry March meant many closed up earlier.

Nikki Hodgson of the Outdoor Industry Association said the effects of climate change on public lands and water are a growing concern, adding that the industry looks to Colorado to continue to lead on the issue.

Environment Colorado on Tuesday released Path to the Paris Climate Conference: American Progress in Cutting Carbon Pollution Could Pave the Way for Global Action. The report contends that state and federal policies already in place could reduce carbon dioxide pollution by 27 percent by 2025, taking levels down below where they were in 2005.

Colorado has the ability to make those reductions right now, according to PJ Higgins of Environment Colorado. He told reporters there’s no question that the impact of climate change is evident here, pointing to the frequency and destructiveness of wildfires in the past several years and diminishing snowfall in the mountains.

But Higgins maintained that climate change isn’t just about Colorado — it demands global solutions. That could come in December, when the United Nations convenes a conference in Paris. It’s expected to result in a binding, universal agreement on climate, capping roughly two decades of negotiations.

“The best way to lead is by example,” Higgins said, adding he believes Colorado is already ahead on efforts to reduce carbon pollution. Hullinghorst said she agrees.

The reduction in fossil-fuel emissions envisioned by the report will require action at all levels of government. That means changes in land-use planning and laws, more state government support for clean energy technology, and more federal support for renewable energy sources and less reliance on coal, oil and gas consumption.

The federal government is already working on a program to cut fossil-fuel emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency last year proposed rule changes on carbon pollution from power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan, expected to be finalized this summer. The plan requires a 17 percent cut in greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants in Colorado and “compels state leaders to accelerate the transition to clean energy sources such as wind and solar,” Environment Colorado said.

The Republican-controlled state Senate this year tried to move a bill to require the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to review any state plan to comply with the Clean Power Plan. It died in the Democratic-controlled House in the last week of the session.

But fossil-fuel interests, including the coal and utility industries, are trying to block the Clean Power Plan. Environment Colorado pointed out that the U.S. House and two key Senate panels voted this month to derail the plan.

Hullinghorst told reporters Tuesday that Colorado has already done a lot to reduce climate change. The state boosted renewable energy standards for utilities, including rural electric co-ops and was the first state in the country to regulate methane in oil and gas production. Climate change is becoming a big issue in Colorado, she said. “It’s obvious our constituents are calling on leadership to do something about it.”

There might be legislation on this issue in the next session, according to Hullinghorst, but it won’t be easy to craft a compromise with the Senate.

Stuart Sanderson of the Colorado Mining Association told The Colorado Statesman that the plan is bad for Colorado on a number of fronts.

The regulations proposed by the EPA will be the most expensive in the entire history of the Clean Air Act, Sanderson said. He pointed to Monday’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to toss EPA rules on mercury emissions for power plants. The Court sent a clear message to the President and the EPA, Sanderson said: “You do not have a blank check when it comes to adopting regulations. You have to prove they’re cost-effective and that the environmental benefits are not meaningless.”

Sanderson said the Clean Power Plan, which seeks to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, will be as meaningless as the mercury rules. The rules won’t reduce global temperatures and, at best, will only lead to miniscule reduction in carbon emissions, he said. That’s because the United States represents just 4 percent of worldwide emissions — the big problem is emissions coming out of China and other developing nations.

Those countries want to have what the United States has, Sanderson explained, including access to affordable electricity, which the U.S. enjoys, in part, because of its rich supply of coal reserves.

The industry has always supported advanced coal-generation technologies that will provide more efficient use of coal, Sanderson said. “That needs to be considered in the energy mix.”

If the EPA rules are implemented, Colorado consumers will notice the difference, he said – a doubling in the cost of electricity. Instead, Sanderson argued, Colorado should join other states suing the EPA when the rules are finalized later this summer.

— info@coloradostatesman.com