Carbon Accounting 101
The stars appear to be lining up for passage of federal climate change legislation in the next year or two. We could back this prediction with a wonkish reading of congressional tea leaves, e.g., industry support for climate change legislation through coalitions such as the US Climate Action Partnership, a Democratic majority in both houses, and pressure by Republican incumbents on the president not to veto climate change legislation because they fear that a presidential veto could hurt their chances in the 2008 elections, but instead we will press on to an equally compelling consideration.
The climate change issue appears to be following the typical trajectory of new environmental laws. First, scientists identify the environmental threat. Then environmental activists amplify the scientists’ findings, usually aided and abetted by dramatic, illustrative harms. Today it’s arctic melt and Hurricane Katrina. Next, the environmental issue is featured on the cover of Time Magazine. Progressive states, typically California and/or New Jersey, enact laws. The resulting patchwork of state regulation causes Congress to begin the search for a national solution. Finally, additional environmental insults (Love Canal, Bhopal) tip broad public opinion from ambivalence to insistence that Congress act.
Climate change has now crossed most of these familiar thresholds. Most scientists had reached consensus on the human role in climate change by the start of the twenty-first century. Former Vice President Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, certainly amplified the scientists’ findings. Climate change stories have graced the cover of Time Magazine on numerous occasions during the past few years. Today, the deluge of coverage resembles the streams gushing off melting glaciers. As we go to press, for example, PBS’s Frontline is airing a devasting critique of governmental inaction and obstruction in the face of mounting scientific evidence that the climate challenge must be faced.
Government, in fact, is responding. In 2006, California enacted Assembly Bill 32, which mandates that state sources of carbon dioxide (CO2) reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. In 2007, there were more than 110 climate-related hearings in Congress and 150 bills addressing climate change. For coverage of developments in Congress, see Energy and Environment Daily, or Pew Center on Global Climate Change, What’s Being Done in Congress. All that remains to complete the cycle is the climate-change-driven cataclysm, although some have painted Hurricane Katrina as that event. [summary]
