The New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center (NJCCRC) at Rutgers University has released the Proceedings of its March 2025 conference Sustaining Innovation in New Jersey Climate Change Policy: Past, Present, and Future which brought together 200 New Jersey leaders to engage in a dialogue about the state’s climate change goals and policies, challenges to reaching those goals, relevant lessons that can be learned from outside New Jersey, and opportunities that New Jersey can explore to further advance its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to changing climate conditions. The proceedings provide a synthesis of ideas presented, generated, and discussed to inform efforts in New Jersey to advance sound climate change policy.
The conference included dynamic presentations and panel discussions with 25 cross-sector experts on climate change mitigation and adaptation from within and outside New Jersey including specialists and elected leaders from academia, government, nongovernmental organizations and the private sector. RCEI Senior Associate Director, Marjorie Kaplan (NJCCRC Co-director) provided context on New Jersey’s progress toward its climate goals and the most current data on how climate is changing in New Jersey. RCEI affiliate Clinton Andrews spoke on New Jersey and U.S. action and policies that form a body of responses to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. RCEI affiliates Jennifer Senick and Robert Kopp participated in panels on accelerating climate change mitigation and resilience, respectively. RCEI affiliates Lucas Marxen (NJCCRC Co-director), Lisa Auermuller, and Rachael Shwom were panel moderators. The dialogue and feedback that emerged during the day-long conference was summarized by RCEI affiliate Karen O’Neill.
Conference participants provided input throughout the day on a gallery of historical timelines related to U.S. and New Jersey climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives as well as demographic and infrastructure milestones, and technology innovation that had been referenced in Professor Andrews’ remarks. Comments from conference attendees, additional research, and more recent policy actions since the conference guided the creation of an updated and standalone version of the Historical Timelines of Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Policy in New Jersey. Conference recordings are available here and more about the conference can be found here.