Thursday, 23 Aug 2007

All Pact and Ready to Go

Six Western states, two Canadian provinces agree to regional climate pact

Yesterday, the leaders of six Western states and two Canadian provinces agreed to their own regional climate pact, aiming to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The Western Climate Initiative aims to have a cap-and-trade system in place by August 2008 and wants to partner with other trading systems like the European Union's and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the U.S. Northeast. While the 15-percent target isn't quite ambitious enough for some, greens are hopeful that the growing movement to set even relatively weak state and regional climate standards will eventually influence the feds to adopt a national program. At least half of the U.S. states involved in yesterday's agreement -- California, Oregon, and Washington -- already have state climate standards that exceed the modest WCI goal. The other pact members are Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Canada's Manitoba and British Columbia.

My My, Is It 2007 Already?

Judge requires feds to submit climate research plan, impact assessment

The Bushies are big stinkin' lawbreakers, a federal judge ruled this week. A 1990 federal law requires the U.S. government to provide a scientific report every four years on climate change and its effects on the environment, the economy, and public health, but the Bush administration chose to ignore its 2004 deadline for such a report. Green groups sued, and U.S. District Judge Saundra Armstrong ruled in favor of timeliness, demanding the required impact assessment by May 31, 2008. The laggardly administration also owes a plan to guide federal climate research, which is due every three years and hasn't been submitted since 2003; Armstrong asked that it be submitted by March 1, 2008. To the Bushies' argument that they determined "only recently that the initiation of a process to revise the research plan has become necessary and advisable," Armstrong responded, "News flash: you're not above the law." In legalese, of course.

Living in Deforest

Amazon land settlement said to increase deforestation

The Brazilian government is looking into accusations that sketchy sustainable-development deals may have led to increased logging in the Amazon rainforest. After an eight-month investigation, Greenpeace has reported that Brazil's national land-reform agency housed thousands of poor families in rainforest areas valuable to the timber industry, then looked the other way when settlers sold logging rights to major companies. Under the settlement scheme, families are permitted to log 80 percent of their land under a strict forest-management plan -- but the plans are now dictated by Big Timber, which doesn't tend to be keen on following sustainability guidelines or paying market value. The news comes on the heels of Brazil's announcement last week that as of July 2006, the overall Amazon deforestation rate had fallen to its lowest point in at least seven years. We're smiling on one side of our mouth and frowning on the other.

With a Cherry on Top?

Judge allows Klamath River lawsuit to go forward

If we may paraphrase: Energy company PacifiCorp has asked a federal judge, "Pretty please, can you dismiss a lawsuit claiming our Klamath River dams are polluting the river and killing salmon?" and the judge has responded, "No, sirree, see you in court." The Klamath, which runs along the California-Oregon border, was once the third-biggest salmon producer on the West Coast; last year, the fish count was so low that the commercial fishing season was all but shut down. PacifiCorp says the toxic algae blooms blamed for killing the salmon are, like, totally common in watersheds, and unrelated to the dams.

Brown Knows

San Bernardino County, Calif., will account for greenhouse-gas emissions

One of the largest, fastest-growing, most sprawl-happy counties in the U.S. will have to measure its greenhouse-gas emissions and set targets for reducing them by 2010, according to a legal settlement announced Tuesday. California's San Bernardino County had been sued by State Attorney General Jerry Brown after county officials updated a 25-year growth plan without accounting for emissions. Both sides expressed satisfaction with the settlement, and enviros crossed their fingers that the ruling will set a precedent for other counties and municipalities to limit sprawl and create denser communities. Because driving a mile to borrow a cup of sugar just seems silly.