Global Warming Policy 2007: Ten Victories

This post is by Sheryl Canter, an Online Writer and Editorial Manager at Environmental Defense.

Sometimes it can seem like we’re not making any progress at all on the global warming front, but we are! Here are ten important policy victories from 2007.

1. Supreme Court victories. We won two Supreme Court cases in 2007, but the notable one from a climate change standpoint was Massachusetts versus EPA. It all started because EPA claimed it didn’t have authority to rule on California’s waiver request. The Supreme Court said that, far from having no authority, EPA has a duty to regulate greenhouse gas pollution.
2. 18 states ready to adopt Clean Car program. It might seem strange to include this as a victory when EPA just denied California’s waiver request, preventing all 18 states (and counting) from adopting the stricter standards. But it’s not over yet. California is challenging the ruling, and having 18 states agree to the standards is a big victory.
3. U.S. DOT grants to cut traffic and pollution. Traffic jams mean a lot of idling cars spewing additional greenhouse gases. London achieved a 20 percent decrease in CO₂ emissions when it implemented congestion pricing. The U.S. Department of Transportation set aside $1.2 billion for U.S. cities to try it. New York and San Francisco have both received grants.
4. Big-city sustainability programs. Cities are taking other types of action, as well. New York’s Mayor Bloomberg has been particularly active in fighting global warming. His PlaNYC will quadruple bike lanes, convert taxis to hybrids, and impose a congestion fee for driving into Manhattan. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other mayors also have announced climate action plans.
5. State-wide mandatory caps on emissions. California enacted the first mandatory state-wide cap on global warming pollution, reducing their emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Other states have followed suit. New Jersey and Hawaii have passed emissions caps, and the governors of Minnesota and Florida have announced emissions targets.
6. Regional climate compacts. States have joined forces to fight global warming in regional initiatives representing more than half the country. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), for example, is a consortium of nine states in the northeast. The Western Climate Initiative (WCI) is a compact that several western U.S. states, Mexican states, and Canadian provinces have joined or are observing.
7. TXU coal expansion stopped. This wasn’t strictly a policy victory since it occurred in the business arena, but it was a huge victory nonetheless. Environmental Defense hammered TXU with court suits and a damaging television campaign for its plans to build new dirty coal plants. TXU’s stock price went down and a buyer took them over – contingent on approval by Environmental Defense and the National Resource Defense Council. Among the concessions was agreement to halt construction of eight new coal plants.
8. US-CAP launches and grows. The United States Climate Action Partnership (US-CAP) is a coalition of businesses and environmental organizations advocating national legislation for mandatory reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The membership list includes the CEOs of General Electric, General Motors, and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies.
9. Climate bill passed by Senate committee. This year saw the introduction of the most promising climate bill to date, featuring mandatory caps on emissions and a national carbon market. The subcommittee where it was introduced passed the bill in November, and the full committee passed it just a few weeks ago.
10. International agreement on ‘Bali Roadmap’. For a while it seemed like the U.S. delegation would never give in, but finally they did and international agreement on a roadmap for the future was achieved in Bali. The roadmap lays out a two-year process that hopefully will lead to the next international climate treaty.

We’ve got momentum on the climate change issue – there’s no doubt about it. And we’re seeing promising signs that a climate bill will be passed by the full Senate and House in 2008. Once nationwide mandatory caps are in place, we can really move forward.

Please share this list with anyone you know who feels despair about our chances of stopping global warming!