North Carolina bill under consideration may curb greenhouse gases

North Carolina bill under consideration may curb greenhouse gases

Jul. 5--By Bruce Henderson, The Charlotte Observer, N.C. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

A climate-change bill before the N.C. House this week would place North Carolina among states that aren't waiting on federal solutions for a warming world.

The bill creates a study commission to recommend whether the state should take action to curb greenhouse gases. Most climate scientists believe carbon dioxide and other gases from man-made sources are trapping the Earth's heat, driving up temperatures and sea level as polar ice melts.

"Water rising 14 or 15 inches on the coast gives you something to think about," said state Sen. Charlie Albertson, D-Duplin, who sponsored the measure. "It's too scary for us not to take action."

After negotiations among business and environmental groups, the bill easily passed in the Senate in May and, slightly modified, in the House environment committee last week. Committee Chairman Jim Harrell, a Democrat from Elkin, said he's confident the measure will clear the House, which is scheduled to vote today.

N.C. carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 30 percent since 1990. Utilities, motor vehicles and industries release most of the state's greenhouse gases by burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

The state's largest business group, N.C. Citizens for Business and Industry, reluctantly supported Albertson's bill after winning a key compromise. The version now before the House says the commission may recommend a greenhouse-gas reduction goal, but doesn't require one.

Many businesses aren't convinced that climate change poses a problem, said Rolf Blizzard, the group's vice president for governmental affairs.

"Our membership is of the very strong opinion that just doing something in the state of North Carolina is not going to correct anything," Blizzard added. Members worry that state measures could place N.C. businesses at a disadvantage with competitors in other states.

Neither the federal nor state governments regulate carbon dioxide. The Bush administration has resisted mandatory emission limits, but pledges to seek voluntary reductions in the "intensity" of greenhouse-gas releases.

Some companies, however, believe restrictions on those gases are inevitable.

Duke Energy chief executive Paul Anderson startled other utilities in April by calling for a new carbon-dioxide tax to reduce emissions. Chemical maker DuPont has pledged to reduce its greenhouse emissions 65 percent by 2010.

Eight states, chiefly in the Northeast and West, have taken significant steps to curb gases, says the advocacy group Environmental Defense. This month California set statewide targets to drop greenhouse-gas emissions 25 percent by 2020. New Mexico enacted similar goals.

North Carolina's 2002 Clean Smokestacks Act, which will reduce ozone-forming pollutants from coal-burning power plants, also ordered the state air-quality agency to study carbon dioxide emissions. The agency will recommend ways to curb emissions, and estimate the costs, to the legislature in September.

"The science is clear that the planet is warming, mainly due to human contributions of global warming pollutants," said Environmental Defense air-quality analyst Michael Shore of Asheville. "The federal government has its head in the sand, so many states feel like they have to take action."

Energy efficiency, conservation and alternative-energy technologies could reduce emissions while creating new business opportunities for N.C. companies, Shore said. Early action could also position businesses to profit from a future market for greenhouse-gas "credits," he said, in which high-polluting companies buy emission allowances from cleaner companies.

Albertson compares his bill to Clean Smokestacks, which legislators passed after seeing proof of the air pollution that shrouds the N.C. mountains. Hazy mountain views and dying trees could have been avoided, he said, "if only we'd been a little more alert, more observant."

Albertson said N.C. action on greenhouse gases could inspire other Southeastern states, as Smokestacks was intended to do. "If we step up to the plate," he said, "other folks will do the same thing."

CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE CAROLINAS: Global temperatures rose about 1 degree over the past century -- but not, ironically, in much of the sunny Southeast. Average annual N.C. temperatures showed virtually no change between 1895 and 2004, although three of the 10 warmest years occurred in the 1990s.

Climate models vary widely in predicting the future, and a minority of scientists say they're alarmist. But widely cited models say Southeastern temperatures will go up 4 to 10 degrees by 2100 -- transforming the N.C. climate into something like that of central Florida, says a Duke University scientist.

Melting polar ice, meanwhile, is expected to make sea levels rise 17 to 19 inches over the next century. A 14-inch sea-level rise, by one estimate, would inundate 770 square miles of the N.C. coast.

THE N.C. GLOBAL WARMING ACT:

--What it does: Creates a 30-member commission from the legislature, utilities, universities, business and environmental groups.

--Purpose: Assess potential climate impacts and the costs of state action to address them. The commission would report to state legislators in November 2006.

--Possible recommendations: A statewide greenhouse-gas reduction goal; expanded conservation measures and alternative-energy resources; collecting industrial greenhouse-gas emission data (utilities already report).

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