Global Warming Solutions News

Boston – The legislature’s joint Committee on the Environment and Natural Resources today had a public hearing at the State House to review legislation that would strictly limit global warming pollution from cars, trucks, power plants, and other sources.

Bills filed by Senator Marc Pacheco of Taunton and Senator Robert O’Leary of the Cape and Islands would adopt a comprehensive, economy wide cap on global warming pollution, and require emissions to be reduced 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. 

“We have to get started now to solve global warming, and every state has to do its part,” said Frank Gorke, Director of Environment Massachusetts, the new home of MASSPIRG’s environmental work. “The first step is to cap global warming pollution at levels that will enable us to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. That will ensure we use the tools that are in the toolbox now, and it will also send the right signals to inventors and investors that we have to start now to create the tools that will get the deep long-term pollution reductions we need.”

Bills filed by Senator Pam Resor and Representative Frank Smizik, the chairs of the committee, as well as other legislators, would put into law the details of an agreement among eleven northeast states, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), to require ten percent reductions in global warming pollution by 2018.

“The regional power plant plan is crucial to our efforts to solve global warming, and creates an important model for broader state, regional and federal policy,” said Gorke.

In September of last year, several months after eight northeast states announced the regional plan for moderate reductions from power plants, California passed the nation’s first comprehensive, economy-wide cap on global warming emissions, designed to tackle all pollution sources and reduce emissions sufficient to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.

According to data presented by Environment Massachusetts, global warming emissions in Massachusetts are expected to grow significantly between now and 2050 – the exact opposite of the pollution reductions scientists are saying will be necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. The chart also projects that emissions reductions from existing climate policies – the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and the California Clean Cars Standards, now being challenged in court by automakers – will be insufficient.

“We need to get RGGI right, and we need to defeat the lawsuit brought by the automakers,” said Gorke. “But that’s not nearly enough. Both policies effectively suspend themselves in about a decade, so we will never see the state-wide pollution reductions we need. To solve global warming, we need to pass a comprehensive global warming policy, like in the Carbon Cap legislation filed this session by both Senator Pacheco and Senator O’Leary.”

Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey is chairing a similar committee in the U.S. House, and is looking at parallel carbon cap legislation filed by Congressman Henry Waxman of California.

Notes on the Chart:

This chart shows a “business as usual” (BAU) emissions trend in the black line. Historic emissions (1990 – 2004) are calculated from US. EIA fuel use data. The BAU projections into the future are calculated from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections of Massachusetts fuel use data and regional energy use trend projections from 2004 – 2030. The 2030 to 2050 estimates are based on extrapolating the emissions increase trend of 2020 – 2030 in the EIA projections. http://www.eia.doe.gov/

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) emissions line is based on the 2009 – 2018 state budget numbers in the RGGI Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). It is assumed that the policy is unchanged after 2018 – in other words, that emissions from the electricity sector remain capped at the 2018 level. The red trend line rises in the out years because of rising emissions from other sectors. www.rggi.org

The “Tailpipe Limits” are based on analysis of the emissions reductions projected from adoption of the California limits on motor vehicle global warming emissions, which are currently being challenged in the courts by automakers. It is assumed that the policy is unchanged after 2016, which is the year by which automakers will be required to reduce global warming pollution from vehicles by approximately 30% from 2002 levels. http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/factsheets/cc_newfs.pdf

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