Three regional greenhouse gas cap-and-trade programs are either in the planning stages or operational in North America. This brief discusses each of the programs.

What is happening on the regional level and why is this significant?

Twenty-three U.S. states and four Canadian provinces are actively participating in the design and implementation of three regional cap-and-trade programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Participating U.S. states account for one-half of the U.S. population and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and one-third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The Canadian provinces account for more than three-quarters of the Canadian population and GDP, and nearly one-half of Canadian GHG emissions. These efforts are formally observed by another 14 states and provinces across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Regional cap-and-trade programs account for the most significant domestic greenhouse gas regulatory efforts to date. In developing these programs, the regions have demonstrated innovation in policy design and program implementation that will inform national climate policy development in the United States and Canada. For basic information on cap-and-trade programs, please see The Bottom Line on Cap-and-Trade.

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By Gregg E. Carrington, Melissa L. Lyons, and Steven C. Lachowicz
As a result of joining the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) in 2007, Chelan County Public Utility District (PUD) has earned more than $900,000 in financing from its 1,300-MW Rocky Reach hydro project. CCX is a voluntary carbon-trading market launched in 2003 that allows companies to buy and sell carbon financial instruments (CFIs) to manage their carbon-producing activities.

CCX members voluntarily sign a legally binding agreement to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions on an annual schedule. CCX helps by allowing members to buy and sell CFIs as needed, perhaps to offset more carbon emissions than were expected in business operations. The CFIs are available because other CCX members reduce emissions and thus have offsets for sale.

Chelan County PUD owns three hydro projects, all of which are undergoing upgrades and environmental improvements: 48-MW Lake Chelan, 624-MW Rock Island, and Rocky Reach. CCX issues CFIs based on the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from project upgrades and improvements. The benefits are calculated as offsets of carbon-emitting resources. Chelan County PUD’s offsets are calculated based on a portion of incremental clean hydropower produced at Rocky Reach on the Columbia River in central Washington. Chelan County PUD recently upgraded the turbines and generators in all 11 units at this plant and invested more than $100 million in downstream fish-passage improvements in 2003 that also save water for power generation.

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According to a “New Orleans Green Building Assessment” released by the Sierra Club, the devastation of 2005 has provided the city with a unique opportunity to develop a national model for rebuilding with sustainability in mind.

The report’s five goals were to profile key agencies, catalog current and past green building projects, evaluate the capacity and needs of businesses and organizations, assess the current green building situation and develop a directory of green building service providers.

Researchers from Monterey, California, spent three weeks in New Orleans in January to develop a plan for the green building assessment. They worked with an environmental justice organizer in Sierra Club’s New Orleans’ office and conducted interviews and surveys.

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FPL Group reported a successful second quarter, despite the difficult economy, based mostly on the performance of its renewable energy development company, NextEra Energy Resources.

Chairman Lew Hay explained NextEra’s good quarter in a July 28 conference call.

“The principal drivers were the company’s investment in new wind energy projects, which were up by 1,370 megawatts year over year,” he said, “and the positive effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which allows us to take the value of federal wind production tax credits in the form of cash grants, and strong performance from our wholesale marketing and trading business.”

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