This is the first good news regarding global warming that I heard in a long time. Possibly ever.
I have been of the opinion that serious changes cannot be made until the government creates financial incentives (and laws). But it would appear that companies are taking initiative in much the same way local and state governments have been. Which is to say, in sharp contrast to our Federal government which continues to act as if there is somewhere safe they can go (heaven?) when the rest of us are suffering.
Energy industry preparing for limits
Monday, August 28, 2006
WASHINGTON -- When the head of the American Public Power Association spoke recently to electric utility operators in Minnesota, he had a straightforward message: Federal regulation of greenhouse gases is coming. Get ready for it.
"The issue is no longer whether there is a human contribution to global warming but the extent of that contribution," said Alan Richardson, president and chief executive of the group, whose members supply 15 percent of the nation's power. There is, he added, "an emerging public consensus and a building political directive that inaction is not a viable strategy."
For years, most industry groups have fought any effort to limit carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming, warning of dire consequences for the U.S. economy. But with growing public anxiety about climate change, major corporations are increasingly preparing for -- and in some cases lobbying for -- Congress to regulate emissions of heat-trapping gases.
The industry's response is evolving in spite of opposition by the Bush administration to limits on carbon dioxide.
...
"The scientific evidence is real," said Betsy Moler, vice president for government and environmental affairs at Exelon Corp. of Chicago, an energy firm that supports a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions. "When you have the likes of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, a conservative Republican, and he says he has seen the changes in his lifetime in the Arctic, there is just no doubt that something has to happen."
The trend became clear in April, when the Senate called America's top energy companies -- including some of the nation's largest emitters of greenhouse gases -- to testify about new legislation to regulate emissions.
Six leading energy companies went on record supporting mandatory limits on emissions of CO2, including Shell, Duke Energy, Exelon, General Electric, Sempra Energy and PNM Resources, a utility based in Albuquerque, N.M. Even the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, voiced its support for new limits on greenhouse gases.
...
"There is a split in industry -- there are the forward-leaners and the knuckle-draggers," said David Doniger, the top climate change official at the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Clinton, now a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"The forward-leaners are looking realistically at the future. Either they agree that global warming is real and needs to be addressed -- and that means regulation -- or they see it as inevitable that it will happen even if they don't agree," Doniger said. "Then you have the knuckle-draggers who are just trying to use their political force to put it off as long as possible."
Critics have noted the contrast between BP and another oil giant, Exxon Mobil Corp., which has spent millions of dollars funding groups that question global warming science and oppose carbon regulation.
...
The auto industry also has resisted climate-change legislation and is battling California in federal court over the state's landmark law limiting tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. But, as in the oil industry, there are divisions among the automakers.
In a speech at the National Press Club recently, Jim Press, president of Toyota North America, challenged other automakers to work with Congress to set reasonable goals for boosting fuel efficiency and curbing greenhouse gases.
"It's time for us to stop being the 'against' industry and to come out strong for something important, like a better Earth and a better quality of life," Press said.
Corporations are keenly aware that lawmakers' views on climate change are shifting. For years, hearings in Congress focused on whether global warming was real. But in June 2005, the Senate passed a non-binding sense of the Senate resolution stating that human activity is contributing to rising temperatures and that Congress should enact legislation to "slow, stop and reverse the growth" of greenhouse gas emissions.
