By Timothy Gardner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seven northeastern
U.S. states said on Tuesday they had agreed on a model rule that would
create the country's first market for heat-trapping carbon dioxide by
curbing emissions at power plants.
The agreement of the states,
called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, is relatively weak
compared to the European Trading Scheme, the emissions trading program
set up by the European Union to meet its obligations under the Kyoto
Protocol on global warming.
But one expert said the states'
agreement was an important landmark as the region hopes to force the
federal government to take action on reducing greenhouse gases.
"It's a good first step, but the road is pretty long, and we are
going to need substantive greenhouse gas reductions," said Peter
Fusaro, a carbon markets expert and the CEO of Energy & Environment
Capital Management LLC in New York. "The limits are mild, pretty
negligible," he added.
States in the western U.S. are also trying
to form regional regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Fusaro said
the regions hope that companies that could face emissions reductions on
each coast would lobby for national regulation.
The RGGI would
cap carbon dioxide emissions at about current levels at power plants
from 2009 until 2015. Emissions at the plants would then be gradually
reduced by 10 percent by 2019.
The first round of the Kyoto pact
requires developed countries to cut greenhouse emissions by 5.2 percent
of 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.
REGULATION VACUUM
Continued...
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