Alliance members are working to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius by reducing emissions, accelerating action, centering equity, and tracking progress. 

Explore Maryland's policies and actions across the Alliance's 10 key policy areas. Numbers presented below only reflect the number of policies in this database and thus may not reflect all climate policies pursued.

maryland

GHG Targets + Governance

Just Transition + Equity

Industry

Pricing Carbon + Valuing Damages

Electricity Generation

Transportation

Resilience

Natural + Working Lands

Climate Finance

Buildings

total

CH546: The Maryland the Beautiful Act

The Maryland the Beautiful Act of 2023 (CH546) established ambitious land conservation goals: conserve 30% of the state by 2030 (30 by 30) and conserve 40% of the state by 2040 (40 by 40). Through the combined efforts of state agencies, local governments, the federal government, and nonprofit land trusts, the first goal to conserve 30% of Maryland land (1,856,889 of 6,189,629 land acres) was achieved in 2024, well in advance of the 2030 goal year.

​The Maryland the Beautiful Act requires the Smart Growth Subcabinet (soon to be Sustainable Growth Subcabinet) to develop and publish the first five- year plan by July 1, 2024 to outline how to meet the goals in the legislation, provide an annual report on the state’s progress, and​ update the plan at least every five years through 2040.

Maryland achieved a milestone goal for land conservation required by state legislation six years ahead of schedule. The Maryland Department of Planning, in a 2024 update of the Maryland Protected Lands Dashboard, reported that Maryland has already met the 30% mark with more than 1.85 million acres of land conserved as of February. The state’s “30 by 30” goal is consistent with President Biden’s executive order which sets the goal of conserving at least 30% of the country’s lands and waters by 2030.

30 by 30 Land Conservation Goal

HB 1256 - DRIVE Act

Requires the Public Service Commission to (1) adopt regulations to establish an expedited process for interconnecting bidirectional electric vehicle systems to the grid and (2) develop a program for each investor-owned electric company to establish a pilot program or temporary tariff to compensate owners and aggregators of “distributed energy resources” for “electric distribution system support services.”

Maryland Joins the White House America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge

Maryland joined the list of over 160 partners participating in the White House’s America the Beautiful Freshwater Challenge. The initiative sets new national goals for wetland, river, and stream reconnection, restoration, and conservation, and calls on states, territories, Tribes, local governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations to advance their own actions in support of these shared goals.

The Maryland the Beautiful Act requires the Smart Growth Subcabinet (soon to be Sustainable Growth Subcabinet) to develop and publish the first five- year plan by July 1, 2024 to outline how to meet the goals in the legislation. Because the first goal to conserve 30% (1,856,889 of 6,189,629 land acres) of Maryland land was already achieved in 2024, this plan focuses on efforts towards the second goal to conserve 40% of the land in Maryland by 2040. The plan states that the 40 by 40 goal should be tightly coupled with existing state priorities to ensure strategic conservation.