States Growing Greenhouse Gas Initiatives

April 9, 2006 – Vol.11 No.3

STATES GROWING GREENHOUSE GAS INITIATIVES.

With the state of Maryland joining the U.S. Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and California working on a plan of its own to cut emissions, more than 26 percent of the U.S. population will be living in states whose governments are concerned about global warming and its potential impact on their economies.

Nations around the world have criticized the U.S. for not joining Kyoto but the states’ actions could effectively be like adding another country to the signers list. The RGGI states and California have a combined population of more than 76 million people, almost as many as Germany and larger than significant Kyoto signers such as the U.K., France, Spain or Italy.

There are those like the American Council for Capital Formation that aren’t denying global warming, nor its cause, but are cautioning about the economic impacts of taking action.

The group warned the California Environmental Protection Agency that it should not pursue Kyoto-like efforts such as cap and trade (CAT) systems for emissions reductions saying that if the U.S., as a whole, adopted Kyoto cuts of 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2010, rising energy prices in that state would reduce real state gross product by 3.0 percent in 2010, income would fall by $328 per person and there would be 278,000 fewer jobs. The state would also lose $11.5 billion in tax revenue.

The group also pointed to other studies showing the costs and difficulties European Union Kyoto-signing nations are having meeting their targets.

However, the California EPA’s Climate Action Team (also CAT) came up with nearly opposite results in a preliminary estimate of the macroeconomic effects of the 46 specific strategies recommended to cut greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020 CAT said that there would be a net increase of 83,000 new jobs and $ 4 billion in additional income primarily because of reduced, not increased, energy costs.

The California plan calls for a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, oil refineries and other businesses by 2020.

The initial premise of Kyoto was that global warming was just that, a global problem. The effects of climate change would vary, for better or worse, in regions around the world, but since the regional effects were unknown specifically, industrialized nations should work together in a global effort for mankind to mitigate the problem, if possible.

States involved in initiatives may say they’re concerned about their own possible problems but effectively they’ll be joining a global effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Visit the American Council for Capital Formation at http://www.accf.org/ , the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative at http://www.rggi.org/ and the California EPA’s Climate Action Team at http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/ and the California EPA at http://www.calepa.ca.gov/ .