By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 2002 (IPS)

With U.S. President George Bush and the Republican majority in Congress steadfastly opposed to the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the initiative for reform is being taken up by the states, says a report released here Thursday by a major climate group.

State governors and legislatures throughout the United States are intensifying efforts to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are believed by most scientists to cause global warming, says the 46-page report, ‘Greenhouse and Statehouse’.

”These initiatives outline possible elements of a long-term climate change strategy for the United States,” says the study, which was published by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington-based research and public-information group headed by the former top official on global warming in the Clinton administration, Eileen Claussen.

”Diffusion of innovation from one state to others is already occurring and clusters of contiguous states are beginning to consider cooperative efforts,” it adds.

The report, written by Barry Rabe of the University of Michigan, found that many policy innovations have strong bipartisan support despite the national Republican Party’s strong anti-Kyoto stance.

While Claussen cautioned that state, or even regional, policies should not be viewed as a substitute for a comprehensive national policy that includes mandatory reductions in greenhouse emissions, she stressed that the growth of laws and regulations across the country will create pressure on Washington to enact uniform national standards.

”Businesses will find (compliance with different regulations and standards) a big headache,” she said.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty that calls for industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions – caused mainly by the burning of oil, gas, and coal – by about seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Although former president Bill Clinton signed the treaty, Bush repudiated it early in his administration, claiming that such a reduction would hurt the U.S. economy. He has instead called for voluntary action by industry to ensure greater efficiency so that future increases in emissions lag behind the rate of economic growth.

The United States currently produces about one-quarter of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

But public concern about the possible impacts of global warming – increased intensity and frequency of violent storms, sea-level rise, long-term changes in climate affecting ecology and agriculture – remains high, according to opinion polls, which show that a strong majority of citizens supports efforts to reduce emissions.

Much of that concern is now being channelled into local and state efforts, the new report makes clear.

Based on case studies of nine states – Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin – the report found a variety of motivations behind the initiatives.

In New Hampshire, for example, state officials and the public are concerned about the prospect that warming temperatures will kill off the state’s maple trees and age-old maple syrup industry; in New Jersey, sea-level rise and storm surges have already eroded the seacoast and its barrier islands.

The state that has gained the most attention is California, which earlier this year passed law designed to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions by cars and trucks. Because California has the largest population and economy of all 50 states, analysts believe that others will follow suit.

New Jersey, whose former governor Christine Todd Whitman is currently chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also made important strides. In 1998, when Whitman was still governor, it set a goal of reducing total emissions to 3.5 percent below 1990 levels by 2005, taxed consumers’ utility bills to fund those reductions, and devised a number of other strategies to reach the target.

The most visible was the creation of ”covenants”, where companies and other corporate private and public entities pledge to meet that goal in their own operations. A number of large corporations, most of the state’s many colleges and universities, and more than 6,000 religious congregations have signed on.

Even in Texas, which emits more greenhouse gases annually than all of France, progress is being made, especially in developing wind power as an alternative to fossil fuels. In 1999, then-governor George W. Bush signed a major energy-restructuring bill that requires energy generators to increase the percentage of renewable energy over a number of years.

”What we’re seeing now in Texas is what is being called the ‘Texas wind rush’,” said Rabe. Power producers are surpassing initial targets set by the legislation and Texas officials are now pressing Bush and Congress to help them export Texas-based wind electricity to other states and Mexico.

States are not the only actors that have moved to fill the breach created by Washington’s rejection of Kyoto, experts say.

Cities and countries are also acting on their own. Seattle, for example, has a multi-faceted strategy to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, says Kim Drury, a city official.

These include stocking its transportation fleet with more hybrid vehicles, upgrading buildings and waste facilities with the latest technologies, and setting aside forested areas. The city’s publicly owned power facility, Seattle City Light, has also committed itself to produce no new net greenhouse gases.

”Seattle’s elected officials are on record as saying local governments must take action, particularly in the absence of federal leadership on the issue,” says Drury. ”But we’re not alone: local governments throughout the country are taking similar actions to reduce their own corporate emissions as well as those of the community.”

Excerpt:

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Nov 14 2002 (IPS)

With U.S. President George Bush and the Republican majority in Congress steadfastly opposed to the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the initiative for reform is being taken up by the states, says a report released here Thursday by a major climate group.

State governors and legislatures throughout the United States are intensifying efforts to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are believed by most scientists to cause global warming, says the 46-page report, ‘Greenhouse and Statehouse’.

“These initiatives outline possible elements of a long-term climate change strategy for the United States,” says the study, which was published by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington-based research and public-information group headed by the former top official on global warming in the Clinton administration, Eileen Claussen.

“Diffusion of innovation from one state to others is already occurring and clusters of contiguous states are beginning to consider cooperative efforts,” it adds.

The report, written by Barry Rabe of the University of Michigan, found that many policy innovations have strong bipartisan support despite the national Republican Party’s strong anti-Kyoto stance.

While Claussen cautioned that state, or even regional, policies should not be viewed as a substitute for a comprehensive national policy that includes mandatory reductions in greenhouse emissions, she stressed that the growth of laws and regulations across the country will create pressure on Washington to enact uniform national standards.

“Businesses will find (compliance with different regulations and standards) a big headache,” she said.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty that calls for industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions – caused mainly by the burning of oil, gas, and coal – by about seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Although former president Bill Clinton signed the treaty, Bush repudiated it early in his administration, claiming that such a reduction would hurt the U.S. economy. He has instead called for voluntary action by industry to ensure greater efficiency so that future increases in emissions lag behind the rate of economic growth.

The United States currently produces about one-quarter of total global greenhouse gas emissions.

But public concern about the possible impacts of global warming – increased intensity and frequency of violent storms, sea-level rise, long-term changes in climate affecting ecology and agriculture – remains high, according to opinion polls, which show that a strong majority of citizens supports efforts to reduce emissions.

Much of that concern is now being channelled into local and state efforts, the new report makes clear.

Based on case studies of nine states – Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin – the report found a variety of motivations behind the initiatives.

In New Hampshire, for example, state officials and the public are concerned about the prospect that warming temperatures will kill off the state’s maple trees and age-old maple syrup industry; in New Jersey, sea-level rise and storm surges have already eroded the seacoast and its barrier islands.

The state that has gained the most attention is California, which earlier this year passed law designed to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions by cars and trucks. Because California has the largest population and economy of all 50 states, analysts believe that others will follow suit.

New Jersey, whose former governor Christine Todd Whitman is currently chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also made important strides. In 1998, when Whitman was still governor, it set a goal of reducing total emissions to 3.5 percent below 1990 levels by 2005, taxed consumers’ utility bills to fund those reductions, and devised a number of other strategies to reach the target.

The most visible was the creation of “covenants”, where companies and other corporate private and public entities pledge to meet that goal in their own operations. A number of large corporations, most of the state’s many colleges and universities, and more than 6,000 religious congregations have signed on.

Even in Texas, which emits more greenhouse gases annually than all of France, progress is being made, especially in developing wind power as an alternative to fossil fuels. In 1999, then-governor George W. Bush signed a major energy-restructuring bill that requires energy generators to increase the percentage of renewable energy over a number of years.

“What we’re seeing now in Texas is what is being called the ‘Texas wind rush’,” said Rabe. Power producers are surpassing initial targets set by the legislation and Texas officials are now pressing Bush and Congress to help them export Texas-based wind electricity to other states and Mexico.

States are not the only actors that have moved to fill the breach created by Washington’s rejection of Kyoto, experts say.

Cities and countries are also acting on their own. Seattle, for example, has a multi-faceted strategy to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, says Kim Drury, a city official.

These include stocking its transportation fleet with more hybrid vehicles, upgrading buildings and waste facilities with the latest technologies, and setting aside forested areas. The city’s publicly owned power facility, Seattle City Light, has also committed itself to produce no new net greenhouse gases.

“Seattle’s elected officials are on record as saying local governments must take action, particularly in the absence of federal leadership on the issue,” says Drury. “But we’re not alone: local governments throughout the country are taking similar actions to reduce their own corporate emissions as well as those of the community.”

Excerpt: