Climate Plans by New York, Florida Prod U.S. on Global Accord
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Adam Satariano

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) — President George W. Bush is pressing allies in Europe for a global warming agreement based on voluntary targets for pollution reduction. State officials in the U.S. have already left him behind.

Twenty-two U.S. states with about 145 million people are exploring mandatory carbon-dioxide caps and emission-credit markets similar to one in the European Union. The proposals are pressuring Congress to pass legislation that would supersede the state and regional programs with a single national plan.

New York, California and Florida also threaten to undermine Bush’s efforts as the U.S. today begins hosting in Hawaii a Major Economies Meeting on climate change with the world’s biggest polluting nations. Those states agree with most industrialized countries that mandatory pollution caps are needed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming.

The actions by the individual states are “an enormous source of support to those of us in Europe and elsewhere in the world who believe that the climate-change issue is a direct and pressing responsibility for us all,” former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said in an interview in Miami on Jan. 18.

Ten Northeast states including New York and New Jersey will impose pollution caps on utilities beginning next year. Climate coalitions have also been formed among states in the Midwest and western U.S.

California, the most populous U.S. state, created the country’s first enforceable economy-wide cap on emissions. Florida Governor Charles Crist last year signed a series of executive orders committing the state to cut greenhouse gases.

`Clear Message’

“The clear message from the states is that we need mandatory action,” said Elliot Diringer, director of international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. “There appears to be consensus within the U.S. and abroad that we need to move beyond the voluntary approach.”

Representatives from the EU, United Nations, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and the U.K. were invited by the U.S. to attend the two-day conference in Honolulu.

Negotiation topics this week will include easing trade in clean-energy technology such as wind turbines, and developing a long-term global goal for emission cuts “consistent with economic development objectives,” said James Connaughton, the Bush administration’s chief environmental adviser.

An energy bill signed by Bush last month requires efficiencies in gasoline use and electrical appliances that will lower pollution without curtailing economic growth, he said.

Cap-and-Trade

In Hawaii, “there will be a lot of questions about broad- based cap-and-trade proposals that essentially repeat or potentially undermine the national mandates that have already been agreed to” in Congress, Connaughton said in an interview.

In his State of the Union address Monday, Bush committed $2 billion to deploy clean-energy technologies in developing countries. He failed to endorse climate change legislation under debate in Congress that would cap emissions.

“American business and the American public are calling for mandatory federal action,” Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center, said in a statement. “The White House must go much further if it wants to be seen as a leader on climate action.”

At climate-change talks in Indonesia last month, the U.S. agreed to help write a new accord to replace the emissions- limiting Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The plan calls for developed nations to take on binding “commitments or actions,” while also requiring developing nations to make efforts to limit output of greenhouse gases.

Driving Debate

In getting ahead of federal policy, states also are competing against one another for clean-energy companies that bring jobs, said Daniel Kammen, who was involved in drafting California’s climate-change law as director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. A million U.S. jobs could be created in renewable energy and efficiency programs, he said.

“It’s not going to take a lot more states doing this before the imperative for the U.S. government is to actually catch up,” said Kammen, a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Governors aren’t just talking to each other. In October, California, New York, New Jersey and seven other states agreed with countries including those in the EU to cooperate on a worldwide emissions-trading system.

States are “the front-runners in changing the attitude of the U.S. toward climate change and climate protection,” said Michael Schroeren, a spokesman for the German Federal Environment Ministry.

Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, said efforts by the states on global warming will eventually join other important changes in U.S. policy that were started by states instead of the federal government, including voting rights and consumer safety laws.

“None of those started in Washington, they started out in the country,” Wirth said. “That is what is happening here.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at  jefstathiou at bloomberg.net ; Adam Satariano in San Francisco at  Asatariano1 at bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 30, 2008 00:13 EST