The US Department of Energy wants advice on sprucing up a voluntary greenhouse gas reporting program. Public comments are due June 5.
DOE's latest action seeks to defuse lingering criticism of President George W. Bush's decision to abandon the Kyoto Protocol. Last year he sided with several US energy companies that argued the scientific link between rising carbon dioxide levels and climate change was not strong enough to risk steep energy price spikes the US might suffer alone if the treaty were approved in its current form.
Clear Skies
This year the White House called on businesses to voluntarily reduce CO2 emissions as part of a clean air reform plan called the "Clear Skies" initiative that called for a reduction in US "greenhouse gas intensity" by 18% over the next 10 years. (Greenhouse gas intensity is the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to economic output.) The Clear Skies plan also places mandatory reductions on the industrial pollutants sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury.
A competing proposal by Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Jeffords (I-Vt.) places mandatory controls on those same pollutants and CO2. Environmentalists maintain CO2 is just as dangerous to public health and safety as other smokestack emissions because they see strong evidence to suggest more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may affect future climate patterns.
Under the White House plan, CO2 emissions are expected to still rise, but at a much slower pace then what could occur if industry did nothing at all. That's not good enough for green groups and their allies in Congress.
The White House knows this and is preparing to negotiate. "Implementation of the President's Clear Skies and Global Climate Change Initiatives will require the resolution of multiple policy, technical and legal issues," DOE said May 6.
Nevertheless officials are also making clear they will go only so far.
"Improving our greenhouse gas reporting system will benefit our environment without requiring a radical overhaul of our existing energy systems," said Sec. of Energy Spencer Abraham.
Auto role
If and when a specific link between growing fossil fuel use and climate change is proven, some oil companies want a CO2 emissions policy that reflects a "well to wheels" approach. Large improvements in vehicle efficiency may be needed to offset production emissions, they say.
ExxonMobil Corp., a leading critic of the Kyoto treaty, made that point at an energy conference cosponsored by the Department of Defense and the American Petroleum Institute last month in Washington, DC. Greenhouse gas emissions are a global issue, but definitive answers are not easy and results are very sensitive to input assumptions, the company argued. Ongoing research is needed.
Policymakers should remember that conventional fuels, although carbon-rich, require a relatively small proportion of energy for their manufacture, ExxonMobil said. Alternative fuels may have less or no direct carbon emissions, but producing those fuels may create "substantial" energy use that results in added greenhouse gas emissions.
