Western States Lead on Carbon Market
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This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.
This week, seven U.S. governors and four Canadian premiers – partners in the fast-growing Western Climate Initiative (WCI) – released a draft design for what would be the largest cap-and-trade market for global warming pollution in North America. The outcome of many public workshops, the draft caps emissions for utilities and industry by 2012, and adds caps for residential, commercial and transportation sources by 2015.
WCI will present the draft at a stakeholder workshop and webinar in San Diego next week. Environmental Defense Fund experts Derek Walker, Jamie Fine and Martha Roberts will be there to speak in favor of a firm, binding emissions limit that declines over time, strict standards for offsets, and to remind participants of the economic benefits of action.
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“strict standards for offsets” is the key to getting the cap and trade idea to take root with the public, in my opinion. People have grown to distrust any new program because of decades of promises not being kept and wasted money.