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The Bush administration unveiled on February 12 a set of voluntary agreements with industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming. Dubbed Climate VISION (Voluntary Innovative Sector Initiatives: Opportunities Now), the program is intended to further the administration’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas “intensity”—expressed as the change in emissions divided by the growth in gross domestic product—by 18% within 10 years. Government sources say the agreements are a significant shortterm step toward the broader goal of climate stabilization. “The approach is consistent with the uncertainties in the science [of climate change],” says James Connaughton, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “We need sensible and economically rational measures to reduce emissions now while we work toward the trans-
The Bush administration has asked key industries to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emission “intensity” by 18% within 10 years, but that will leave the United States well above its Kyoto protocol target.
forming technologies that will enable even greater reductions.” Participants in the program are currently limited to trade associations acting on behalf of their member companies. These associations include the American Petroleum Institute (API); the Business Roundtable, a private sector association of CEOs; and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Each group is producing a target for compliance with the administration’s goal. API, for instance, has agreed to a 10% improvement in oil refinery efficiency among member companies by 2012; the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers has a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. manufacturing facilities by 10% by 2012. According to Larisa Dobrianski, the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Energy Policy, participants in Climate VISION are each devising their own methods to reduce their emissions. Oil companies, for instance, are investing in carbon sequestration technology while checking pipelines and oil fields for leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Electric utility companies are investing in forest preservation and researching alternative energy sources. “These are voluntary efforts,” stresses Dobrianski. “We never prescribed the kinds of measures that industry should take, but we were firm with the groups that approached us. We told them it wasn’t enough to merely establish action plans. We wanted them to set targets that could be measured in terms of the president’s goal.” According to Dobrianski, companies will report their emissions reductions on a database managed under the National Energy Act. DOE plans to also launch a website
News Briefs Climate plan needs vision The U.S. plan for researching and responding to climate change represents a “good start”, but it lacks a clear guiding vision, charges a report released by the U.S. National Academies’ National Research Council (NRC). The authors of the NRC report faulted the government for failing to authorize new funding for the initiatives called for in the draft Climate Change Science Plan (CCSP) unveiled last November (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2003, 37, 86A–87A). Planning Climate and Global Change Research praises the draft CCSP, which builds on the decade-old U.S. Global Change Research Program (GCRP), for its emphasis on the need for science to address national needs. The draft plan identifies many of the cutting-edge research activities that are necessary to improve understanding of the earth system, according to the NRC report. As written, the draft plan misses an opportunity to improve cooperation with other countries on research, observation networks, and future assessments because the plan is too focused on U.S. activities, according to the report. The report recommends that the CCSP prioritize the activities it proposes and present clear goals in its Climate Change Research Initiative. The scientific implications of the mitigation technologies under consideration for the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) component of the CCSP plan should be assessed, and the links between the CCSP and the CCTP need to be clarified, according to the report. The final version of the CCSP is due in April. To see the NRC report, go to www.nap.edu/catalog/10635. html?onpi_newsdoc022403.
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United States’ greenhouse gas reduction scheme
Environmental▼News devoted to the Climate VISION in the spring, she says. President Bush announced the 18% intensity target while introducing his global climate change plan last year, which provides $4.6 billion over five years to fund research in renewable energy, clean coal technology, fuel efficiency, carbon sequestration, and hydrogen fuel cells, among other areas (see budget stories starting page 128A). With Climate VISION, Dobrianski says, companies will gain experience in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while researching technology advancements that she says hold the real keys to climate stabilization.
Environmental groups are generally critical of the president’s climate change plan, in part because the 18% intensity reduction target is pegged to economic growth and allows actual emissions to increase substantially. Annual greenhouse gas emissions under the plan could be 130 million metric tons greater in 2012 than they are now, according to DOE’s Energy Information Administration. On the other hand, mandatory reductions under the Kyoto Protocol would have reduced U.S. annual emissions by 321 million tons over the same period. Bush administration officials argue that reductions based on in-
tensity don’t compromise economic growth, while allowing for investments in climate control technologies. However, critics charge that absolute emissions reductions are not necessarily harmful to the economy. “There’s nothing wrong with basing reductions on intensity as long as the reductions are real,” says Eileen Claussen, director of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. “Energy efficiency can both strengthen the economy and help to stabilize climate. The issue here is whether the intensity target is good enough. And the president’s target is an emissions growth target.” —CHARLIE SCHMIDT
Trading in greenhouse gases
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dited, Sandor says. “The whole purpose of being The first voluntary cap-and-trade issued a four-year stream of tradtransparent and regulated by an enprogram for reducing and trading able emission allowances equal to tity like the National Association of greenhouse gas emissions in the their declining emissions budgets, Securities Dealers [the regulator of United States should see its first says Mike Walsh, CCX senior vice NASDAQ] and having independent trade this spring. The Chicago president. They can also receive verification and monitoring is to Climate Exchange (CCX) announced credits, or offsets, for programs such create credibility and allow for the in January that 14 of the country’s as reforestation projects in Brazil, possibility of linking up with other largest companies had signed up, and landfill methane recapture or schemes,” Sandor adds. The United with a second round due to be ancustomer-based energy efficiency Kingdom and Denmark already nounced in the next few months. schemes. Offset projects in Canada have schemes, and the EU plans CCX’s members, into start a transnational scheme in 2005. cluding American Electric Participating in CCX Power (AEP), Dupont, and is a “natural next step” Ford Motor Co. each made after the successful expericommitments to reduce ence of trading acid rainby 2006 their emissions of causing emissions, says greenhouse gases, by 4% below the average of their Dale Heydlauff, senior 1998–2001 baseline. The vice president of AEP, the gases included are CO2, largest electricity generaCH4, N2O, fluorocarbons, tor in the United States. and SF6. The response “The market-based apfrom companies has been proach has produced SO2 “overwhelming”, says reductions faster, cheaper, U.S. companies are showing overwhelming interest in greenRichard Sandor, CCX’s and deeper than predicthouse gas emissions trading, CCX’s Sandor says. chair. The first 14 memed,” he says. Through its bers to join account for CCX commitment, AEP half of the United Kingdom’s emisand Mexico will be added during expects to reduce or offset an sions of CO2, he says, adding that the year. Participants can also reestimated 18 million tons of CO2 participants expect to expand the ceive partial credits based on past emissions, and AEP officials expect program after the first year. reductions undertaken in the midthe company to be a net buyer of CCX will provide a trading sys1990s under the Clinton administracredits. tem for members to buy and sell tion’s voluntary reduction program, Participants view CCX as a policredits. There will be a central regafter verification by CCX. cy experiment and hope lessons istry, which will serve as an official CCX has developed methods for learned from it will encourage the holder of trades, linked to an elecequating the benefits produced by government to create a markettronic trading platform on which all reforestation projects to credits, based reduction program, if the trades will occur. Members will be which would be independently auUnited States decides to control 124 A ■ ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / APRIL 1, 2003
