Despite the Bush Administration's refusal to act against the threat of global warming, hundreds of cities, counties, states, colleges and businesses are moving ahead on their own. In the process they are saving huge amounts of money and helping reduce America's dependence on fossil fuels.
Yesterday, in the biggest single initiative anywhere in the U.S. to date, the state of California--the world's fifth largest economy--announced an enormous new effort to reduce greenhouse gases.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan would reduce the state's emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) to year 2000 levels by 2010; to 1990 levels by 2020, and 80-percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Schwarzenegger's goal is to actually go beyond the targets set in the Kyoto Climate Change accord, which the Bush Administration has rejected.
"The politics of global warming are shifting in the United States. In just the past month, the Republican governors of the nation's two largest states and the CEO of the nation's largest company have made important announcements about steps to tackle this problem. The Bush administration is increasingly out of the mainstream on this issue," David Sandalow, director of the environment and energy project at Brookings Institute, told BushGreenwatch.
To implement the plan, Gov. Schwarzenegger has created a Climate Action Team, consisting of the secretaries of most of the state's major departments, such as business, transportation, housing, environment and agriculture. The team will be responsible for implementing global warming emission reduction programs. It will issue its first progress report next January, and bi-annually after that.
Schwarzenegger also established a "scenario planning effort," which will assess the impacts of climate change on California's water resources, agriculture, coastline, public health and forests.
Although the Bush Administration opposes Kyoto-driven actions on the basis that they will allegedly hurt the economy, the California EPA estimates that worldwide demand for new technologies to reduce GHG emissions will create a market worth over $180 billion annually.
Figures released by the state point out, for example, that DuPont has reduced GHG emissions by nearly 70 percent since 1990 and realized a net savings of $2 billion. IBM reduced GHG emissions by 65 percent, for a net savings of $791 million.
With transportation being the single largest source of GHG in the state, California aims to reduce auto emissions 30 percent by year 2016. The governor's office notes that California already leads the world in the development and implementation of energy efficiency technology, and in programs to shift energy production to renewable resources.
"Climate change," says a statement from Schwarzenegger's office, "will adversely affect public health, the environment and the economy in California." Hence the far-reaching plan announced yesterday.
###
