Greenhouse Gas

Led by California and New England, 31 states representing more than 70 percent of the U.S. population announced yesterday that they will jointly track and measure greenhouse gas emissions by major industries. The newly formed Climate Registry is the latest example of states going further than the federal government in taking steps to combat global warming. State officials and some affected industries and environmentalists say the registry is a crucial precursor to both mandatory and market-based regulation of industrial gases that contribute to warming.

A consortium of Northeastern states including Maryland has agreed to reset a power plant emissions cap to current levels and to tighten it annually starting in 2015, an action officials said would increase investment in energy efficiency and slightly raise electricity prices, besides cutting pollution. The change amounts to a 45 percent reduction in the cap's ceiling, which has far exceeded actual pollution levels because of improved energy efficiency, increased renewable power generation, mild weather and the slumping economy.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - The United States is the big odd man out as diplomats, scientists and environmentalists from more than 190 countries gather at the 10th meeting of the United Nations' Convention on Climate Change. The convention's Kyoto Protocol, with its mandatory reduction of "greenhouse gases" that cause global warming, goes into force next year. Discussions of new limits are expected to begin here when official delegations arrive Wednesday, near the end of the 12-day conference.

What if you could be greener and save money at the same time? Well, you can.  By switching your home's power to “green” electricity, you can reduce your household's contribution to climate change by 24 percent while also shrinking your utility bills. So what?  Though electricity changed the world for the positive, its big downside is that most U.S. power plants are powered by coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that spews carbon dioxide (CO¿), sulfur dioxide and mercury into the air. Power plants are the #1 source of man-made CO2 emissions in the U.S., accounting for 41 percent.

About 60 global warming protesters raised an oversized hourglass outside the State House in Annapolis yesterday, telling Gov. Martin O'Malley that "the time to commit is now" to sweeping cuts in carbon dioxide pollution. "Doing nothing is no longer an option," state Del. Kumar P. Barve, the House Democratic leader, told the sign-waving group in the sweltering heat. "Every major reform that has ever happened in American history has happened first at the state level and then percolated up to the federal level."

President Bush offered conclusive evidence this week that on the challenge of global warming, he just doesn't get it. Mr. Bush wants to begin reducing America's greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 - a date when most of the civilized world hopes to have achieved significant reductions. Mr. Bush's distant goal was greeted with derision by environmentalists, scientists, lawmakers and climate experts. But there is a serious, sensible proposal out there: a Senate bill that aims to reduce American greenhouse emissions by nearly a third by 2025.

The article "How cap-and-trade pays" (Dec. 16) should have been titled "How cap-and-trade plays." The idea behind cap-and-trade is that one party agrees to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in exchange for money that allows another party to increase greenhouse emissions. This makes it more expensive to generate greenhouse gases and more economical to reduce greenhouse gases. The Mid-Atlantic states' scheme described in this article does not do this. It takes money from power plant operators and uses 73 percent of that money to subsidize energy consumers through rate relief and low-income energy assistance.

Greenhouse gas bill can be a critical step It was good to read in Saturday's Baltimore Sun about the legislation that could help get Maryland moving to do its part in reducing greenhouse gases ("Md. climate bill seen likely to pass," Jan. 24). The 25 percent emissions reduction goal the bill would set is healthy, achievable and confidence-building. In the not-so-long run, the cluster of programs that will flow from this legislation will generate growth and curtail the damage we are causing our environment and would clearly emerge as the right course of action.

Maryland raised $18 million this week in an auction of rights for power plants to release climate-changing pollution, officials said yesterday. The bulk of the proceeds from Wednesday's auction in New York will finance energy-saving projects and help low-income residents pay their power bills. The auction of allowances for power plants in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic to emit carbon dioxide yielded a total of $106.5 million for the 10 states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

The Bush administration announced yesterday that it will block efforts by Maryland, California and 15 other states to cut emissions of global warming gases from cars and trucks. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said improved fuel efficiency standards passed Tuesday by the House of Representatives and signed yesterday by President Bush were good enough. Those standards - which had not been raised in more than three decades - require new vehicles to have an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, up from 25 miles per gallon today.

All those bucolic scenes of gas wells set against a blue sky are fantasies. I know because I have a farm in upstate Pennsylvania in Tioga County. Nearby there are many dirty, polluting gas wells. They spew out carcinogenic chemicals, some radioactive. Tons of methane gas, 20 times worse than carbon dioxide, contribute to greenhouse gas, according to the EPA. Children near gas wells in Texas had three times the rate of asthma as those in other parts of the state. In Pennsylvania more than 1.3 billion gallons of fracking fluid, which was originally clean drinking water, had been sent to wastewater plants, which were not equipped to handle the toxic and radioactive chemicals.

One can just imagine the future "Jeopardy" TV quiz show answer: The name of the international conference that took place in early December of 2012 that critics universally panned for accomplishing little despite overwhelming evidence of a global ecological catastrophe on the horizon. "Alex, what is the Doha Climate Change Conference?" would be the winning question and surely worth a lot to the right contestant. After all, the planet is already in "double jeopardy" - not only from climate change but from the continuing failure of the wealthiest nations to do much about it. As President Barack Obama is looking to come up with $60-to-$80 billion to offset the worst effects of Hurricane Sandy, a storm that practically shut down New York City, the world's media center, one would think the call to avoid more such costly catastrophes in the future would be deafening.

Every four years, presidential candidates tell the American people that this election is a turning point for the country. This year they might actually be right. To be sure, there are always differences between candidates. On a range of issues, from health care to tax reform, voters face a real choice about two different approaches to governing. But the most profound turning point in this election may be the fact that the neither candidate is talking about one of the most critical issues of our time.

Tuesday's victory by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in federal appeals court in the District of Columbia has once again demonstrated that the science of climate change, while famously "inconvenient," is virtually impossible for fair and reasonable people to deny. In upholding the agency's right to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, under a handful of cases, the three-judge panel recognized climate change as the legitimate threat to public health and safety that it is, and that the Clean Air Act gives the agency appropriate authority to regulate it. This shouldn't have come as much surprise to opponents, as the decision is in line with the Supreme Court's 2007 decision affirming the EPA had that power.

With summer starting to heat up, city officials are floating a "climate action plan" this evening (Tuesday) that aims to curb Baltimore's greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent by decade's end. Easing the city's climate impact is one of the goals of Baltimore's sustainability plan . The draft strategy, prepared by a 25-member advisory committee, ticks off more than three dozen ideas for reducing the city's carbon footprint, some as simple as...

In recent years, the natural gas industry plunged into a reckless gold rush across communities nationwide with dirty, dangerous drilling and "fracking" practices that are exempt from many clean air and water laws. Now the gas profiteers have realized that there's even more money to be made by liquefying the gas and shipping it overseas - and so what if that sends gas prices here at home through the roof? The proposed Dominion LNG export facility in Calvert County's Cove Point provides a good case study of why this practice is bad for the environment, for people and for our nation's fragile economy.

Congress is finally getting serious about global warming. But ironically, the approach it is considering would hasten, rather than slow, environmental calamity. The Senate opened debate this week on legislation known as the Warner-Lieberman bill. It would limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 to 2005 levels, and reduce those by 70 percent in 2050. Unfortunately, by encouraging energy-intensive American industries to flee to developing countries, this bill would penalize U.S. businesses that could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and thus accelerate global warming.

Maryland is on track to reduce climate-altering greenhouse gases 25 percent by the end of the decade, according to a state environmental official. In a preview of the state's overdue plan to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, George S. "Tad" Aburn Jr., head of air management for the state Department of the Environment , told members of the House Environmental Matters Committee Wednesday that Maryland should exceed the goal set in a 2009 law if all 65 control programs laid out in the draft blueprint work as planned.

Maryland is on track to reduce climate-altering greenhouse gases 25 percent by the end of the decade, according to a state environmental official. In a preview of the state's overdue plan to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, George S. "Tad" Aburn Jr., head of air management for the state Department of the Environment , told members of the House Environmental Matters Committee Wednesday that Maryland should exceed the goal set in a 2009 law if all 65 control programs laid out in the draft blueprint work as planned.

State officials have missed their first major deadline for complying with a three-year-old law calling for Maryland to curb its emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases. Under the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act, the Department of the Environment was required to give the governor and lawmakers a draft plan by the end of 2011 for scaling back statewide releases of carbon dioxide, methane and other climate-affecting gases 25 percent by the end of the decade. But Environment Secretary Robert M. Summers wrote Gov. Martin O'Malley and legislative leaders late last month that the draft plan would be "slightly delayed" until mid-February.