The Sleeping Giant Awakes? US Actions to Mitigate Climate Disruption

Abstract

This paper, prepared for the Hamburg Conference on International Environmental Law, reports on US progress in mitigating global climate disruption. It concludes that the US has begun to move forward on this issue, but has not fully awakened to the danger climate disruption poses. This paper compares US policies at the federal, state, and regional levels with similar programs in other countries. The most significant nationwide initiative to date, by far, turn out to be recently revised Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards. Although these standards constitute something of a miracle politically and promise very significant emission reductions, both the EU and Japan have stricter standards on the books in terms of absolute levels if not in terms of total emission decreases. The US picture is consistent with trends elsewhere in that environmental benefit trading programs constitute the symbolic center of efforts, but in practice have achieved relatively little, because caps have been lax and problematic offsets have been available. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has realized significant emission reductions, primarily because of use of revenues raised through the sale of emission allowances to fund energy efficiency, even though the cap was overallocated. California’s trading program, which just came on line, is designed to achieve less emission reductions than a number of the California Air Resources Board’s sector specific programs. The RGGI states’ decision to auction off 100% of the allowances constitutes a significant policy advance, but the US programs, like other programs, have put about 50% of the achievements available through caps at risk through liberal offset policies. This paper also discusses the role the Clean Air Act will likely play in future nationwide efforts. It concludes that absent a comprehensive climate bill, which will not pass Congress absent major political change, progress will likely remain very slow, fragmented, and unsatisfactory, because of the difficulties involved in reliance on administrative actions to address climate disruption.