Six Western states and parts of Canada join to cut greenhouse gases

[bananas]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/22/BAGMQRNACP21.DTL

Six Western states and parts of Canada join to cut greenhouse gases

Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

(08-22) 12:04 PDT SACRAMENTO -- A coalition of six Western states and two Canadian provinces will announce this afternoon that they have set a regional goal to fight global warming - a goal similar to last year's California legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Six months ago, governors in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington signed an agreement to create the Western Climate Initiative partnership to improve the environment by reducing carbon emissions. Since then, Utah and Canadian provinces Manitoba and British Columbia have also joined the effort.

The partners today will announce that they have set a goal to reduce the region's greenhouse gas emissions about 25 percent by 2020, which is similar to California's AB32 legislation that passed with much fanfare.

The region's new standard was based on some existing goals that the states and provinces have set to reduce their emissions, said Sarah Cottrell, energy and environmental policy adviser to Gov. Bill Richardson in New Mexico.

<snip>

[razzleberry]

1. nice to see states, doing their job .n/t.

[hatrack]

2. Sadly, without Alberta this is fundamentally meaningless in terms of emission volumes

Potentially useful legal framework, however . . .

[NNadir]

3. Bullshit.

It's Governor Hydrogen Hummer talk, all of it.

It's easy to talk about what's going to happen when you're out of office and won't be held responsible for the big empty promises you made.

In 1990 it was just great to talk about ZEV's in 2003. The problem with all of it is that 2003 <em>happened</em>, and is now 4 years in the past.

These kind of announcements are all Amroy Lovins type talk. They have no connection with reality and in fact couldn't care less about reality.

In California, the disconnect from reality is so pathetic that even as late as May 29, 2007 they're still talking "clean coal" when anyone who isn't high from smoking Lovins' 1976 bullshit fantasy papers knows that there is no such thing as "clean coal" and never will be any such thing.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007_energypolicy/notices/2007-05-29_committee_workshop.html

[razzleberry]

4. delayed effect, seems to be the norm ...

consider the Kyoto Treaty.

negotiated in late 1997
numerical targets take effect* in 2008

(* or are meaningless, depending on your point of view)