Western Climate Initiative Cap and Trade Plan Released
(KCPW News) The most detailed plan yet detailing how the Western Climate Initiative will attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions came out yesterday. The design includes a regional cap and trade program that will begin in 2012, without Utah. Even so, Sarah Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Utah Clean Energy, says the plan is a step in the right direction.
“It’s just a matter of when we take our heads out of the sand and say, ‘When are we moving to a new energy future,’” Wright says. “Utah is falling behind; we are falling behind our neighbors. But my hope is that other states can lead the way and the plan was developed in a way that Utah can join in when we wake up.”
Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., signed the state onto the initiative in 2007. However, Governor Gary Herbert says he does not support the cap and trade component of the plan. Plus, the Legislature hasn’t enacted the necessary laws to allow it to go forward in Utah.
Michael Gibs, California’s climate change deputy secretary and the initiative’s co-chairman said yesterday the program goes beyond cap and trade.
“The materials released today are a comprehensive program that include core policies that use a market-based approach to cap most of the emissions in the economy. That’s the cap and trade program,” Gibs said. “But it also goes on to encourage emissions reductions in other parts of the economy that are not capped, through the offset program that is included.”
Seven western states and four Canadian provinces have joined the Western Climate Initiative. However, only five of these are prepared to implement the plan when it launches in 2012.
