In the news today are accounts of the US’s two biggest efforts at stemming carbon emissions via cap and trade. Economists tend to say, just slap a tax on it, but what do they know? So, with government-mandated limits and marketable permits to help industries buy and barter their way to an efficient way to toe the mark, off we go down the path other nations already are on. It worked in the last century to reduce US sulphur emissions from coal and now it’s CO2’s turn.

Two consortia are busy. One is the  Western Climate Initiative. Its members, so far, are seven western US states and four Canadian provinces. Its immediate goal is to dial carbon emissions from a broad industrial range back to below 2005 levels by 2020 – rather a modest one, but a start. The other is the older and somewhat similar but hardly identical Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, or “Reggie”) pursued by ten participating states in the US northeast. It aims to cut power plant emissions ten percent under current levels in ten years. While the western project is just starting to auction permits, the eastern one is inaugurating the actual trading of futures and options on such things. Before listing some of the stories, and to avoid The Tracker’s inevitable fumble in trying to summarize the differences of the two efforts, a fine explainer is on the NYTimes’s new Green Inc. blog by reporter Felicity Barringer.

Stories (broken into two groups by main focus, but some describe both efforts) :

Western Climate Initiative Rollout

– Los Angeles Times Margot Roosevelt reports Calif “is well on its way” to curbing emissions but other consortium members will have a tougher time and notes that US financial rigidity and bail out talk may hobble carbon trading’s debut ;  San Francisco Chronicle David R. Baker says the participants “unveiled” the plan yesterday. Details are newly public, the general outline has been around for awhile ; Arizona Republic Shaun McKinnon ; AP Jeff Barnard ; Vancouver Sun Scott Simpson ; Vancouver Sun Vaughn Palmer reports the plan is short of what some in BC wanted ; Seattle Times Warren Cornwall ; Salt Lake Tribune Robert Gehrke, Patty Henetz ;

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Auction

– Financial Times (UK) Fiona Harvey ; Christian Science Monitor Mark Clayton ; Boston Globe Erin Ailworth ; Wall Street Journal Jeffrey Ball ; Hartford Currant editorial ; NYTimes Felicity Barringer, Kate Galbraith (Sept. 15 advance story) ;

Grist for the Mill:

RGGI Press Release ;  WCI Press Release ;

Pic source ;

-CP

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