ALBANY - A coalition of 10 northeastern states this week will take steps to check global warming when it conducts the nation's first carbon auction, taking the same approach that curbed lake-killing acid rain.
Environmental groups, energy producers, and government leaders will be watching closely as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative sells carbon credits Sept. 25 in the first of a series of quarterly online auctions. The cap-and-trade greenhouse gas reduction program, which aims to hold carbon dioxide emissions steady through 2014 and then gradually reduce them, is widely viewed as a model for future programs around the globe.
“With the leadership vacuum in Washington, it has fallen to the states to take the lead on combating climate change,” said Richard Revesz, dean of the New York University School of Law and an expert on environmental law.
In July 2003, then-New York Gov. George Pataki brought together nine other governors to develop a regional strategy to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The bipartisan action followed President Bush's rejection of greenhouse gas reduction goals set under a 1997 United Nations protocol reached in Kyoto, Japan.
Governors in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont joined Pataki in the coalition known as RGGI, or “Reggie.” Other regional greenhouse gas coalitions, such as the Western Climate Initiative and the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord, are in earlier stages of development.
Both John McCain and Barack Obama support cap-and-trade programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, seen as key contributors to global warming.
The approach is patterned after the acid rain-reducing program targeting sulfur dioxide that began with a New York law in 1984 and was expanded nationally with amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990. RGGI caps the total amount of carbon that power plants in the 10-state region can pump out of their smokestacks at the current level - 188 million tons.
Electric power generators must pay for allowances covering the amount of carbon they emit and RGGI will provide a market-based auction and trading system where the generators can buy, sell and trade the emissions allowances.
The initiative will gradually reduce carbon going into the atmosphere by lowering the cap in several steps, until it is 10 percent below the current level in 2018. During that 10-year span, businesses will have to reduce their emissions.
“With the leadership vacuum in Washington, it has fallen to the states to take the lead on combating climate change,” said Richard Revesz, dean of the New York University School of Law and an expert on environmental law.
In July 2003, then-New York Gov. George Pataki brought together nine other governors to develop a regional strategy to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The bipartisan action followed President Bush's rejection of greenhouse gas reduction goals set under a 1997 United Nations protocol reached in Kyoto, Japan.
Governors in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont joined Pataki in the coalition known as RGGI, or “Reggie.” Other regional greenhouse gas coalitions, such as the Western Climate Initiative and the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord, are in earlier stages of development.
Both John McCain and Barack Obama support cap-and-trade programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, seen as key contributors to global warming.
The approach is patterned after the acid rain-reducing program targeting sulfur dioxide that began with a New York law in 1984 and was expanded nationally with amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990. RGGI caps the total amount of carbon that power plants in the 10-state region can pump out of their smokestacks at the current level - 188 million tons.
Electric power generators must pay for allowances covering the amount of carbon they emit and RGGI will provide a market-based auction and trading system where the generators can buy, sell and trade the emissions allowances.
The initiative will gradually reduce carbon going into the atmosphere by lowering the cap in several steps, until it is 10 percent below the current level in 2018. During that 10-year span, businesses will have to reduce their emissions.
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