NEWS GOVERNMENT International carbon dioxide trading proposed by UN agency Creating a world market in carbon dioxide emissions credits is the cheapest, most efficient way of controlling greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent report by the Geneva-based United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Such a system of tradable permits or rights to pollute would also create a mechanism for transferring resources from industrialized nations to help developing countries reduce their emissions. A pilot scheme proposed in an UNCTAD report released in February would include the United States, the European Union, and Japan—producers of 40% of global C0 2 emissions—and a handful of developing countries in a "liquid and viable" market worth more than $8 billion a year. The system would define an overall target for C0 2 emissions for all
participating countries that is considerably below current usage. Developing countries initially would hold a surplus of permits, and industrialized nations a deficit. Companies in the richer regions would buy permits if that was less expensive than implementing reduction measures. Poorer nations could sell permits to pay for, or exchange for, cleaner technologies or increases in their emissions. UNCTAD, with advice from a Wall Street finance company and academic economists, has drafted model regulations and details of certification, monitoring, and enforcement. Although the details are still under discussion, permits could be allocated by per capita emissions or by a country's energy efficiency. Frank Joshua, head of UNCTAD's global interdependence division, hopes that the 10-year voluntary pilot scheme
will be up and running in 1998. Governments would be encouraged to participate in the system, but it would not require their involvement, says Joshua. Companies could trade directly with other companies or with governments. Joshua hopes to learn from the U.S. S0 2 trading market that developed in the early 1990s. According to Michael Grubb of London's Royal Institute for International Affairs, "the UNCTAD scheme, at least in its initial stages, would differ from the U.S. sulfur scheme in that they are looking first for voluntary initiatives between companies, from which a more formal structure could evolve. The key question is whether there are any potential 'buyers' out there in the absence of a negotiated intergovernmental framework." —MARIA BURKE/London
DOE cleanup agreements criticized as "unrealistic" The Department of Energy (DOE) is fending off criticism of its remediation plans from two fronts. The General Accounting Office published a report in March calling DOE's cleanup agreements unrealistic. The same month, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee released a study commissioned last fall calling DOE's cleanup at Hanford (Richland, WA) unworkable. The Senate study was conducted by Steven Blush and Thomas Heitman, former director and special assistant, respectively, in DOE's Office of Nuclear Safety. It finds that the agreement DOE signed with EPA and the Washington Department of Ecology, called the TriParty Agreement (TPA), conflicts with current environmental laws and regulations, says a committee staffer. TPA signatories anticipated a 2018 cleanup completion date, the report says, but none of the parties "fully appreciated the difficulty of combining EPA and state regulations
with those of DOE." As a result, "Hanford is foundering in a legal and regulatory morass," report the authors of Train Wreck Along the River of Money. "The list of regulatory problems that must be solved . . . is a long one." "The report downplays the substantial cleanup progress that has been made at Hanford," Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary counters in a written response to the report. "It suggests simplistic solutions to the problems that, as the report acknowledges, are extraordinarily complex." The TPA is part of a larger trend in DOE cleanup agreements, GAO says. TPA, DOE's first such agreement, was hastily entered into and contained many milestones, such as the removal of tritium from groundwater, for which no capable technology exists, GAO says. DOE did not ensure that it could meet funding requirements or schedules, GAO reports, because the department
2 0 8 A • VOL. 29, NO. 5, 1995 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
was pressured by regulators to address environmental issues. Through 1994, DOE misred nearly 20% of the cleanup agreement milestones at all DOE sites, GAO finds. DOE has done little cleanup, focusing primarily on characterization. Only 13% of the 856 cleanup projects have been completed, GAO reports. James Werner, director of Strategic Planning and Analysis for the Office of Environmental Management, says the GAO report has caused little concern because it was not conducted by "the normal GAO staff that has developed an expertise in DOE environmental restoration." Unlike most GAO investigations, this one was not conducted at the request of a member of Congress, he says, but as a general management review. Although DOE is dismissing the GAO report, the Senate is taking its report seriously, a Senate staffer says. The Senate committee has held hearings on both. —DANI SHANNON
