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cause acid rain. The process would begin by setting a cap on total national CO2 emissions that would shrink over time. Then each polluter would get a permit to emit a certain amount of CO2. Owners who find ways to reduce their emissions below their permitted levels would be free to sell the surplus to other players in the market. Such a "cap-and-trade" system "is in our own best environmental and economic interests," says Lieberman, and "will also earn respect and support around the world."
However, with the historic vote approaching as Audubon went to press, prospects looked dim. Climate advocates took heart, though, noting that the last time the Senate took a climate-related vote, in 1997, not a single member supported action.
Still, at least 27 states have adopted policies to take on climate change, reports the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, in Arlington, Virginia. New England states and neighboring Canadian provinces, for instance, have promised to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010. New Jersey aims to cut emissions statewide by 3.5 percent by 2005. Oregon is requiring polluters to avoid or offset some carbon emissions. California will require more cars that don't produce CO2. (Industry is challenging the rule.)
But the initiative attracting by far the most attention is being led by New York Governor George Pataki, a moderate Republican and a staunch ally of President Bush. Last April Pataki invited 10 governors, from Maine to Maryland, to develop a regional cap-and-trade system to cut CO2 emissions from one key source: power plants fueled by coal, oil, or natural gas. "The debate about global warming has often been marked by confrontation," he said in unveiling the idea, which echoes the McCain-Lieberman approach. "We are pursuing a course of cooperation."
So far every invited state except Maryland has opted to participate, with the aim of having some sort of agreement in place by 2005. But it's not clear how stringent the pact will be, skeptics say, and any trading system could take years to implement. Still, Pataki's effort shows "that states are filling the leadership vacuum and forcing the action," says Michael Marvin, head of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy in Washington, D.C. "If members of Congress see state policy makers doing something and surviving politically, it makes it a lot easier for them to act."
If Pataki is trying to grow a financial carrot for power companies to combat global warming, officials in other states are trying to whittle a legal stick. Recently the attorneys general of Maine, Connecticut, California, and Massachusetts announced that they will sue the Bush administration to force it to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Clinton administration had decided that the law covered carbon dioxide; the current administration and its allies disagree.
After announcing his state's participation in the suit against the Bush administration, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said: "Thankfully, New England's governors have recognized carbon dioxide's danger and are acting to reduce greenhouse gases even as the federal government abdicates its responsibility."
Like Pataki's plan, these states' lawsuits could ultimately be overtaken by action in Congress, which has been debating a major overhaul of clean-air laws. Most of the proposals--including the White House's Clear Skies initiative--focus on just a trio of pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. But a few add carbon dioxide to the mix. And one of those "four pollutant" bills--advanced by Republican Senators Lincoln Chafee (RI) and Judd Gregg (NH), and Democrat Thomas Carper (DE)--has begun to attract support from Republicans outside the Northeast. Last summer, for instance, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander joined the Carper camp, saying the White House proposal did not "go far enough, fast enough."
Alexander's decision was driven, in part, by business executives and investors worried that the administration's delaying tactics could create market mayhem. In particular, they worry that in the absence of a clear U.S. climate policy, U.S. companies could soon face a dizzying and expensive patchwork of state and international rules. The European Union is already setting up its own cap-and-trade system for CO2. "Investors loathe uncertainty," says Doug Cogan, who has studied how corporations are responding to the issue for the Investor Responsibility Research Center in Washington, D.C. "Who is going to invest a billion dollars in a power plant without knowing if they are going to have to spend even more later to comply with carbon controls?"
Indeed, some two dozen companies, apparently deciding that a cap is inevitable, have recently adopted (and in many cases surpassed) emissions-reduction targets. British Petroleum, for example, has cut its
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