As long as it makes them feel better.
http://www.wtnh.com/global/story.asp?s=9047526Posted September 21, 2008
5:22 PM
Albany, N.Y. (AP) -- Connecticut and nine other northeastern states this week will take steps to check global warming by conducting the nation's first carbon auction.
Environmental groups, energy producers, and government leaders will be watching closely as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative sells carbon credits in the first of a series of quarterly online auctions. The cap-and-trade greenhouse gas reduction program, which aims to hold carbon dioxide emissions steady through 2014 and then gradually reduce them, is widely viewed as a model for future programs around the globe.
The approach is patterned after the acid rain-reducing program targeting sulfur dioxide that began with a New York law in 1984 and was expanded nationally with amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990.
RGGI caps the total amount of carbon that power plants in the 10-state region can pump out of their smokestacks at the current level -- 188 million tons. Electric power generators must pay for allowances covering the amount of carbon they emit and RGGI will provide a market-based auction and trading system where the generators can buy, sell and trade the emissions allowances.
The initiative aims to gradually reduce carbon going into the atmosphere by lowering the cap in several steps, until it is 10 percent below the current level in 2018. During that 10-year span, businesses will have to reduce their emissions. Those that can't, because of cost or technical hurdles, can buy allowances from companies that have achieved cleaner emissions.
