Changing Climate: How CT did in 2024 environmental report card
May 21, 2025
Changing Climate: How CT did in 2024 environmental report card
The state’s environmental quality report is in for 2024. How did Connecticut score?
The state’s annual report on the condition of our air, water, land and wildlife for 2024 has been released.
Generally, Connecticut’s environment is better than it was 10 years ago, and significantly better than 50 years ago.
WATCH HERE“In the 1980s, our air quality was horrendous, and it has improved massively since then. The Clean Air Act worked,” explains Keith Ainsworth, the acting chair of the Connecticut Council on Environmental Quality.
The group issued the report, studying 40 different indicators on the health of Connecticut’s environment.
SIGN UP “If we look at air quality, we’ll look at CO2, we’ll look at vehicle miles driven, we’ll look at industrial sources, emissions, and we’ll break that down into different categories so that we can see where things are coming from and where we’ve seen improvement or where we’ve seen degradation,” describes Ainsworth.
The use of electric vehicles and public transportation to lower greenhouse gas emissions continues to be a focal point to improve our air quality. Unfortunately, warming temperatures, heavier rain events and contaminant runoff are negatively impacting our ecosystem.
“The species that live here, the cold climatized species have decreased,” says Ainsworth. He adds, “The warm climatized species have increased, but the ecosystem hasn’t evolved fast enough to keep up with that.”
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There are actions and programs that are helping, such as The Clean Air Act, animal reintroduction, and protection of core forests.
“The acquisition of open space and preservation of core forests and agricultural land contributes to a better quality of life better quality of the environment,” suggests Ainsworth.
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