Calif. cap and trade plan cleared by court

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

An appellate court is allowing California to go ahead with a market-oriented cap-and-trade system of pollution credits to combat global warming while state officials appeal a judge's order to look harder at alternatives that some environmentalists prefer, such as a tax on carbon fuels.

The order by the state's First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco was a victory for the California Air Resources Board, which says it needs to keep planning in order to put cap and trade into effect by January as scheduled.

On Wednesday, however, the board said it was delaying enforcement against polluters until January 2013 to allow more time for preparation and fine-tuning.

The case arises from a dispute between state regulators and some environmentalists and antipoverty activists over how to implement California's global warming law, AB32. The law, the first of its kind in the nation, requires the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/0...

[bluestateguy]

1. Good for them

The policy won't work, but hey if it makes them feel good go for it.

[David Gill]

2. ?

Why not?

[pampango]

3. The EU "is the largest multi-national, greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in the world".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading#European...

"It is one of the EU's central policy instruments to meet their cap set in the Kyoto Protocol (Jones et al.., 2007, p. 64).

After voluntary trials in the UK and Denmark, Phase I commenced operation in January 2005 with all 15 (now 25 of the 27) member states of the European Union participating. The program caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from large installations with a net heat supply in excess of 20 MW, such as power plants and carbon intensive factories...

For Phase II, the cap is expected to result in an emissions reduction in 2010 of about 2.4% compared to expected emissions without the cap (business-as-usual emissions) (Jones et al.., 2007, p. 64). For Phase III (2013–20), the European Commission has proposed a number of changes, including:

the setting an overall EU cap, with allowances then allocated to EU members;
tighter limits on the use of offsets;
unlimiting banking of allowances between Phases II and III;
and a move from allowances to auctioning.

In January 2008 Norway, Iceland, and Lichtenstein, joined the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) according to a publication from the European Commission."

If the EU accepts it as viable climate change policy and republicans all seem to rail against it, cap-and-trade must have something to say for it.

From the OP:

Conservatives have defeated national cap-and-trade proposals in Congress. The California challenge, however, comes from grassroots environmental justice groups, which argue that companies that buy the right to exceed emission limits will also spew more conventional pollutants on nearby communities, mostly poor and nonwhite.

Their lawsuit accused the air board of giving short shrift to alternatives, such as strict, non-tradable limits on greenhouse-gas emissions and a tax on gasoline and other carbon-containing fuels. Most mainstream environmental groups support cap and trade and have stayed out of the suit.