Regional leaders unite to limit greenhouse gas

Stepping in where the Bush administration has refused to tread, six Western governors, joined by two Canadian provincial leaders, pledged Wednesday to enforce a tough regional cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the Western Climate Initiative, the leaders agreed to slash emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-warming pollutants to 15 percent below 2005 levels in their states and provinces within 13 years – about the same percentage as California’s commitment under last year’s landmark global warming law. Overall, the region would cut emissions by 350 million metric tons – the equivalent of more than 100 new coal-fired power plants.

The Western Climate Initiative consists of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington and the provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba. Several other states are observing and could join in the future.

To achieve their goal, the partners, including both Democratic and Republican governors, committed to designing a carbon-trading system within a year. That approach, now in use in Europe, allows industries to trade pollution credits among themselves. Seven Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states are also designing a so-called “cap-and-trade” system, but that initiative will be limited to power plants.

“Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution,” California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in announcing the accord. “Our collective commitment will build a successful regional system to be linked with other efforts across the nation and eventually the world.”

California officials took pointed aim at the Bush administration’s refusal to enact a national program to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “The federal government needs to step up to the plate, but the states aren’t waiting,” said Linda Adams, California’s secretary for environmental protection. “Ideally, we would have a cap at the federal level.”

Although the Bush administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, a global climate pact, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that the charges of federal inaction are “false” and that Bush is “supportive of actions by the states and respects the role governors play.”

The administration, she said, has supported billions of dollars in incentives for clean-burning technology and retrofitting buildings, a legislative proposal to cut the nation’s traditional gas use by 20 percent over the next decade, as well as an effort to slow the growth of greenhouse emissions nationwide.

But in contrast to the administration’s embrace of voluntary emissions targets, Schwarzenegger has traveled the West in recent months, cajoling other political leaders to join in a commitment to fixed cuts. Besides the states and provinces which have signed up, several others official “observers,” still considering whether to commit to the intiative’s stringent goals. They include: Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, Wyoming, Ontario, Quebec and Sonora, Mexico.

One goal of the regional pact is to prevent polluting industries from playing off states with stiff anti-pollution regulations against those without. In recent years, for instance, Nevada has advertised itself as a haven for businesses fleeing California.

Under the initiative, the partner states have signed up with a national climate registry to measure how much greenhouse gas they emit. They are free to design how to cut their own emissions to meet the cap. To slash fossil fuel consumption, which produces climate-warming carbon dioxide, states are mandating more energy-efficient buildings, increased use of solar and wind energy, less sprawl, and more hybrid cars in government fleets.