Environmentalists raise concerns about cap and trade

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer
Advocates for low-income communities question California's plan for curbing greenhouse gases | Sunday, February 24, 2008 12:18 AM PST ∞

A coalition of 25 environmental groups is asking California not to use a market-based tool to curb greenhouse gas emissions, in its nation-leading campaign to combat global warming.

The coalition, which includes the San Diego-based Environmental Health Coalition, opposes the idea of a cap-and-trade program as unfair to poor and minority communities, an environmental injustice.

State officials, however, say they have yet to decide what kind of trading program to adopt and even whether the campaign will include a market component. They also say they are obligated by law to structure the program in a way that does not harm the poor and minorities.

California has proposed placing strict limits on emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which a majority of climate scientists contend are building up in the atmosphere and threaten to heat up the planet at an alarming rate. There are scientists who disagree with that prognosis, but they are increasingly in the minority.

Besides setting limits, or caps, California is considering setting up a market that would give generators of greenhouse gases an alternative to curbing emissions: They could buy credits from firms that are well below their caps.

The environmental justice groups suggest such a trading program is fraught with potential problems.

If utilities, factories and oil refineries are allowed to sell and buy the right to pollute, the groups say, there is little chance that California will reach its goals ---- and the state has some rather lofty ones. A landmark 2006 law mandated that the state slash emissions of carbon dioxide by 30 percent by 2020.

"We don't think (cap and trade) will work, in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions," said Leo Miras, a policy advocate for the Environmental Health Coalition.

State officials counter that they have every intention of making the program work. And the Union of Concerned Scientists, which supports creating a market where carbon emissions are traded, says that such a program can work if it is carefully designed.

"The good thing about cap and trade is that it ensures an aggregate reduction in emissions," said Chris Busch, an economist working on climate change issues for the science-based advocacy group in Berkeley.

However, if it doesn't work, there will be major consequences, the environmental groups say.

Not only will the fight against global warming wane, but poor and minority communities will suffer, they say, because their neighborhoods are likely to be harmed most by the effects of climate change.

The groups cite smog as an example.

They note that some of Southern California's worst air is in such communities, which are home to a disproportionate number of people who suffer from asthma. People with asthma find it particularly difficult to breathe when the air is dirty. And because smog is fueled by heat, as the emissions that form it cook in the sun, a hotter climate would serve only to make the air worse.

The groups also note that scientists have predicted huge crop losses and long droughts in the wake of global warming. Those conditions could shake up agriculture and tourism, sectors of the California economy that employ large numbers of the poor and people of color, they say.

Besides the concerns about direct consequences of global warming, the groups worry about the indirect consequences of not doing enough to fight it.

When carbon emissions are produced, so are ingredients of smog. And so, if firms curb their emissions of greenhouse gases, they are likely to clean the air in the process.

But if a power plant, for example, is allowed to buy a credit in lieu of reducing its carbon, there would be no associated reduction in emissions of nitrogen oxide, one of the key building blocks of smog.

In other words, it is not the carbon dioxide they are worried about from a public health standpoint, as the gas is not harmful and is an essential element of life. But they are worried that, in not reducing carbon dioxide, a power plant, factory or refinery might end up not improving the air around their facilities.

Mark Rodriguez, an electrical engineer who lives about a third of a mile from the 550-megawatt Palomar Energy plant in Escondido, is not part of the coalition. But he said he agrees with the premise that, if there are any air quality benefits to be gained from the global warming fight, they should occur where the greenhouse gases are being generated and not somewhere else.

"The community that is hosting a facility is the one that is paying the price environmentally and healthwise," Rodriguez said. "And therefore, the host city should be the recipient of some type of relief to the impact."

Stanley Young, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, said regulators are trying to prevent polluters from short-changing their neighbors when it comes to cleaner air.

The Air Resources Board is writing the rules that will govern California's global warming fight.

Young added that the landmark law, called the Global Warming Solutions Act, requires his agency to take the impacts on the poor and minorities into account.

"We are required by law to address environmental justice issues at every juncture in the planning and implementation" of the act, he said.

The injustice of not getting relief as a result of carbon trading is one of the biggest concerns for Miras, the policy advocate for the Environmental Health Coalition.

Miras said his group is lobbying for the retirement of the aging, high-polluting South Bay power plant in a lower-income section of Chula Vista. And if the plant stays in operation for several more years, he said the community should at least be able to count on some air quality improvement as an indirect result of efforts there to curb carbon emissions.

Similarly, residents of Escondido and Carlsbad should be able to count on improving air around the Palomar and Encina power plants, Miras said.

The Encina plant, like the one in Chula Vista, is roughly a half-century old and would have a tough time meeting the state's emerging carbon standards. However, the owner, NRG Energy Inc., is proposing to replace it with a modern, much cleaner 540-megawatt natural gas-fired plant.

The communities downwind from Encina are older but prosperous middle-class neighborhoods.

Escondido, on the other hand, is home to lower-income neighborhoods that are downwind from the Palomar Energy Center plant.

Rodriguez and other neighbors are hoping that the greenhouse gas campaign will translate into reductions in the nitrogen oxide generated there. Some neighbors earlier opposed a regional air agency's decision to allow the operator, San Diego Gas & Electric Co., to exceed emission limits during plant start-up.

But Christy Heiser, a SDG&E spokeswoman, said residents need to remember that the plant emits far less than the coastal plants.

"It's the cleanest plant that we have in San Diego County," Heiser said. "This is as clean as it gets for a fossil-fuel plant."

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, email addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.