Climate experts to devise new clean air protocols

 

May 2 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Abram Katz New Haven Register, Conn.

The governor's climate experts will meet with environmentalists to work out a new clean air plan to supersede one that has been gathering dust for about two years.

Roger Smith, Connecticut Climate Coordinator, said government agency representatives will sit down with business leaders, environmental groups, academicians and others in the next few days to jump-start the state's Climate Change Action Plan.

One goal of the meeting will be to select aspects of the plan to put into action first, and to establish a priority among other ambitious ends, Smith said.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell said: "My proposal will dramatically reduce the harmful emissions that cause global warming, and protect our environment now and in the future."

Clean Water Action, with 11,000 Connecticut members, issued a report recently finding that of 55 policies outlined in the state plan, 14 account for 90 percent of total carbon emission reductions.

Out of the top 14, only six are being carried out, said Smith, who also is a campaign director at Clean Water Action in Hartford.

"We're doing nothing for energy efficiency, the program to educate homeowners or the incentives to make homes more 'energy tight,'" he said.

"The biggest thing is power plants," he said, which account for 25 percent of the carbon reductions in the state climate plan.

"The climate plan is not driving actions," he said.

Laws could be passed to implement the plan, but environments are avoiding a bruising political battle in hopes a mandatory federal climate law is enacted by 2010, Smith said.

Otherwise, it does not seem likely that the whole state plan will be adopted, he said.

Rell proposed legislation in March to implement the plan, which includes a nine-state regional agreement to cut greenhouse gases.

This Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The initiative contains plans to put a lid on carbon emissions from electric plants of greater than 25 megawatts in 2009, followed by a 10 percent reduction by 2014.

The restriction would be accompanied by a carbon "cap-andtrade" program with which Smith and other environmentalists are already dissatisfied.

"As an added benefit under RGGI we will be using the free market to further encourage energy efficiency and energy conservation for the benefit of our current and future generations," Rell said when she announced the plan in March.

In theory, power plants and other large emitters of carbon dioxide would be required to obtain permits per ton of carbon produced.

As they reduce emissions, they could then sell the permits.

The unresolved question is whether the permits will be given to the power plants, sold to them or auctioned off.

"Connecticut could potentially set a bad precedent if it gives permits away," Smith said.

The current plan would sell a limited number of permits and then let electric utilities sell them for profit.

The costs of buying permits and improving plants could be passed on to consumers.

Meanwhile, the simplest way to reduce carbon emissions is conservation and increased efficiency, Smith said.