Lieberman Could Hold Key To Rolling Back Global Warming

by Roger Smith

October 15, 2007, originally published in The Hartford Courant

Connecticut residents have a lot at stake when it comes to global warming. And Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman can play a critical role in the coming weeks in determining what kind of climate the next generation of state residents will inherit.

The recently released peer-reviewed report from the Union of Concerned Scientists and more than 50 independent scientists and economists shows that by late century, if global warming goes unchecked, Connecticut could be a very different place. Hartford could
experience nearly 30 days over 100 degrees every summer, increasing ozone smog days and health risks for its most vulnerable populations.

Residents also would face higher insurance premiums on their coastal property as insurers reduce their exposure to floods, rising seas and extreme weather events. But with Sen. Lieberman's leadership, we can get our nation moving to prevent the worst consequences of global warming.

Although the Bush administration has steadfastly rejected concrete cuts in emissions, there is growing pressure within both parties to adopt federal legislation limiting heat-trapping pollution. The senator is currently working on his own global warming bill with Virginia Republican John Warner.

This bill could pass out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee this fall, making it ripe for consideration by the full Senate. We urge Sen. Lieberman to ensure this bill is aggressive in cutting pollution and does not reward polluters at the expense of consumers.

The proposal creates a system to cap pollution by giving out a limited and decreasing number of pollution allowances, and allows trading between companies to reduce costs.

A well-designed cap-and-trade system would sell these allowances to polluters and make them pay for their pollution.

Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and other Northeastern states are requiring an auction of nearly all allowances for power plant owners under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Such auctions level the playing field as dirtier and less efficient energy producers will have to purchase more allowances to be able to pollute. This provides investors and entrepreneurs with an economic incentive to innovate to cut their global warming pollution.

The revenue from selling pollution allowances should be invested in programs that cut global warming pollution, help lower-income households cut energy costs, assist displaced workers and create new green jobs, and help vulnerable communities prepare for the effects of global warming that are no longer avoidable.

Giving away allowances, or handing the revenue from allowances right back to polluters, would reward them for their pollution, rob mitigation efforts of much-needed funding and undermine efforts to create a strong financial incentive to reduce global warming pollution.

An early draft of the Lieberman-Warner proposal would cut global warming pollution from most, but not all, polluters, resulting in overall cuts of 47 percent below 2000 levels by 2050. Scientists say the United States and other developed countries need to achieve reductions of at least 80 percent below 2000 levels by 2050 to have a good chance of avoiding dangerous warming.

We also need to ensure that we start cutting pollution fast enough. In order to make the deep pollution cuts we need, the United States needs to get a running start on addressing the global warming problem. Connecticut and New England have made a commitment to cut such pollution to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. If Congress sets significantly weaker targets, the country could be left playing a difficult and very expensive game of catch-up or end up unable to meet our goals at all.

Connecticut's state government already has taken a lead role in fighting global warming by joining a Northeastern initiative to cut power plant pollution, adopting clean vehicle standards, implementing a renewable energy standard and helping households and businesses become more energy-efficient. Early action on global warming will leave
businesses in Connecticut better prepared to take advantage of a strong federal climate policy.

We need Sen. Lieberman to bring our state's progress to Washington and write a climate bill that guarantees the 80 percent by 2050 pollution cuts needed to protect the future of Connecticut and the world.

Roger Smith directs global warming and energy programs for Clean Water Action, a nonprofit environmental health advocacy group based in Hartford.