SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- California regulators formally adopted a plan Thursday to regulate and cut the state's greenhouse-gas emissions by about 15% by 2020.
The plan, approved by the California Air Resources Board, calls for expanding energy-efficiency programs, requiring utilities to use renewable sources for 33% of the power they sell, and developing a cap and trade program that will allow polluters to buy and sell emission allowances.
"Adoption of the...plan is a great moment for California's environment and for our economy," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "It also provides a roadmap for the rest of the nation to follow."
California's climate change rules will boost the state's economy, Schwarzenegger said, citing a study by the University of California, Berkeley, that predicted the rules could create more than 400,000 new jobs and boost household incomes by $48 billion over 12 years.
Under the cap and trade program, greenhouse-gas emitters would have to cut their emissions over time, by increasing the efficiency of products, such as cars and trucks, and processes, like industrial production and livestock management. Polluters, from power plants to dairy farms, would be able to buy and sell emission allowances with other emitters in California and in six other U.S. states and four Canadian provinces that plan to launch the Western Climate Initiative regional carbon market in 2012.
Emissions from sources that together represent about 85% of California's total CO2 emissions, will be capped at 365 million tons of carbon dioxide a year starting in 2012, under the plan. Emission caps for power plants, including plants in other states that provide electricity to California, will start in 2012, while emission caps for cars and trucks, refineries and other fuel processors, and commercial and residential fuel users will start in 2015.
The plan is part of California's 2006 climate change law that requires the state to cut its CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
- By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6468; cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com
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Publié le 11 Décembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones