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The West takes lead on climate change

Patrick O'Driscoll
USA Today
Monday, February 27, 2006

 

DENVER — Half a dozen Western governors impatient for more federal action on global warming are mounting state campaigns to deal with climate change on their own.

Driving their efforts are signs that harmful effects may be occurring in the West: record dry spells, millions of acres of dead forests, warmer winters, dwindling water and catastrophic wildfires. (Related item: Parched New Mexico gets a taste of climate change)

"Under the Bush administration, the United States is ignoring the world's best scientists on climate change," says New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat named in polls as a possible presidential candidate. "The real action ... is at the state and local level."

Politics is part of this debate: Five of the six governors are Democrats who have criticized the administration on this issue. The lone Republican is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. California also is the world's 18th-largest producer of "greenhouse gases," which trap heat in the atmosphere.

Schwarzenegger directed a "climate action team" in June to find ways to cut emissions by 2010, with further reductions by 2020. California's climate team is to release its plan in early March. Strategies may include a gasoline surcharge for research on alternative fuels and mandatory emissions reports by industries that generate carbon dioxide.

President Bush has emphasized voluntary measures and rejected the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty on global warming, saying mandatory cuts in emissions would hurt the economy.

Latest to join the effort is Montana, where a U.S. Geological Survey computer model says glaciers in Glacier National Park could disappear in 25 years if temperatures increase at the current rate. They could disappear by 2100 with no additional warming, the survey says.

Oregon and Washington plan to adopt California's limits on auto tailpipe emissions, the strictest in the nation. Arizona established a climate change panel to come up with an action plan by June 30.

Seven states in the Northeast pledged in December to limit emissions from power plants. This month, the California Public Utilities Commission announced plans to cap such emissions as well. Mayors in 202 cities nationwide, led by Seattle's Greg Nickels, have pledged to meet emission goals spelled out in the Kyoto treaty.

"Everything helps," says Steve Owens of Arizona's Department of Environmental Quality. "It took us a long time to get into this fix. It will take a long time to get out of it."