The UNFCCC Compliance Committee recently suspended Greece from trading carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. The Committee determined that Greece does not reliably observe and measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as required by Kyoto. This marks the first time that a country has been sanctioned under the UN system for inadequate GHG reporting.

Greece is now ineligible to participate in the Kyoto Protocol’s flexibility mechanisms, meaning it cannot buy credits to meet its own emissions targets or sell credits from domestic projects that generate excess emissions allowances.

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Three events this week are likely to be the focus of climate change policy in the Congress. First is the likely unveiling of the much negotiated, and long awaited, 2008 Farm Bill. What is known, from a climate and energy perspective, is that this farm bill will have a larger focus on energy and biofuels than previous iterations. The House and the Senate had substantial differences on biorefinery loan guarantees, renewable energy provisions, and incentive payments to bioenergy producers. Once a bill is released, ClimateIntel will publish a rundown of its most pertinent climate change policies.

On Tuesday, at 10:30 AM, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing on “International Deforestation and Climate Change.” Stewart Eizenstat, a former Clinton Administration official and current partner at Covington and Burling will testify. Also testifying will be Kevin Gurney, the associate director of Purdue University’s Climate Change Research Center; and David Hayes, former deputy secretary of the Interior. Deforestation and forest management are a focus of post-Kyoto climate negotiations.

On Thursday, at 10:00 AM, the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing examining the tax aspects of an economy wide cap-and-trade system. This will be the first foray into this topic by one of the two tax writing committees, and will help create the revenue blueprint for implementation of any auction of carbon credits. Depending on the level of the cap, the revenue in the initial years of the system could reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars. The witnesses slated to appear are Peter Orzag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, which published a report in February on “Policy Options for Reducing CO2 Emissions;” Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities; and Henry Derwent, the president and CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association.

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President Bush’s speech announcing a new national goal to stop the growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 received mixed reactions from U.S. Congressional leaders. The quotes below provide excerpts of international reactions to the President’s announcement.

Andrej Kranjc, Slovenian Undersecretary For Environment And Spatial Planning, Speaking For EU: “We expected more from the American president’s statement … The goal needs to be more ambitious. … We hope for improvement in the target announced yesterday.” (Francois de Beaupuy and Alex Morales, “EU `Expected More’ From U.S. on Climate, Slovenia’s Kranjc Says,” Bloomberg News, 4/18/08)

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel: “[Bush is] lagging hopelessly behind the problems with his proposals … [his speech] does not do justice to the global challenge. His speech follows the motto: ‘losership instead of leadership,’ … We are glad that there are other voices in the U.S.A.” (”US official says German minister’s criticism of Bush climate speech unwarranted,” The Associated Press, 4/18/08)

Yvo De Boer, Executive Secretary Of The U.N. Framework Convention On Climate Change: “It’s not clear how the Bush plan would fit in with the goals set out by scientists … But for now, it’s good there is a proposal on the table from the U.S. Let’s see where this goes.” (Leila Abboud, “U.S. Climate Plan Is Panned,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/18/08)

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The California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently estimated that approximately 25% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity generation. In response, the California legislature established a wide variety of programs to reduce electricity consumption, to implement emission performance standards (SB 1368), and to increase the use of renewable electricity sources, such as solar and wind power (SB 1078 and SB 107). The California legislature also directed CARB to adopt rules and regulations to reduce all sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the state to 1990 levels by the year 2020 (an estimated 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from business-as-usual estimates). Despite these significant steps to address global climate change, one group thinks California can do more.

Earlier this month, proponents of a renewable energy initiative submitted 735,000 signatures to qualify for the November ballot. The initiative, entitled the Solar and Clean Energy Act of 2008, would require that all utilities in California achieve 40% renewable electricity by 2020, and 50% by 2025. By comparison, current law requires that retail sellers, including investor owned utilities (IOUs), increase their share of renewable electricity by 1% per year so that, by the close of 2010, 20% of retail sales are generated from renewable energy sources (pending legislation would increase this standard to 33% by 2020). Notably, as of 2006, California’s IOUs generated only about 13% of their electricity from renewable sources.

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In remarks delivered this afternoon, President Bush announced a new intermediate national goal for stopping the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. The goal would be accomplished by encouraging technological innovation with “long-lasting” “technology-neutral” and “carbon-weighted” incentives for the most promising low-emissions energy technologies. The President further emphasized the role for innovation in second generation fuels and focused on solutions including nuclear and clean coal to ensure that power sector greenhouse gas emissions peak within 10 to 15 years.

The President recognized the need for a coordinated regulatory approach to managing greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that the major federal environmental laws (e.g., the Clean Air Act) were not designed to regulate global climate change. The President called on Congress, in its climate debates scheduled for later this year, to take an approach to regulation that sets “realistic goals for reducing emissions consistent with advances in technology,” promotes “more emission-free nuclear power,” “encourages the investments necessary to produce electricity from coal without releasing carbon into the air,” and ensures that “all major economies are bound to take action and to work cooperatively with our partners for a fair and effective international climate agreement.”

Citing this week’s Major Economies Meeting in Paris, the President called for the “meaningful participation of every major economy” in any future climate agreement, and proposed that countries set individual national goals in the context of an “environmentally effective, economically sustainable” global treaty.

Reactions to the President’s Announcement:

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