Sustainability and policy - Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects - page 483

short, the savings the US regions are laudably proposing need to be genuine savings
without carbon leakage.
In addition to the aforesaid Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), there is
the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord. Launched on 1 January 2009,
the RGGI was the first mandatory market-based US cap-and-trade programme to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Regarding the science underpinning the policy the 2006 report Temperature Trends
in the Lower Atmosphere from the US Climate Change Science Program also signalled
a change in how the USA perceived climate change science. Up to 2006, the Bush
administration appeared reluctant to accept the IPCC's conclusions. This report, the
first of a number from the Climate Change Science Program, recognised some of
the apparent discrepancies of past climate data (such as from satellites). It concluded
that 'the most recent versions of all available data sets show that both the surface
and troposphere have warmed, while the stratosphere has cooled' (Climate Change
Science Program, 2006). This is what one would expect with a world warming due to
the effects of increased greenhouse gases. Although the report fell short of explicitly
spelling this out, it did call for more research and assessment of climate-related data.
The importance of this report is not that it said anything new as far as many US
climate-related scientists were concerned, but that it carried weight with US policy-
makers and so represented the beginnings of a shift in the way President Bush's
administration was likely to view climate science.
As a nation, in the first years of the 21st century the USA was very much on the
same energy track as it had been for more than 50 years. It continues to increase
its fossil consumption and enables this through fossil energy imports and so, on a
per-capita basis, continues to make a disproportionately large contribution to global
carbon emissions. In terms of Kyoto, by 2004 the USA had increased its fossil
energy consumption by over 18% above 1990 (the Kyoto base year). The 2005 US
administration had policies in place that would allow for emissions to rise by 30%
over the nation's 1990 emissions by the target window of 2008-12.
President Barack Obama replaced George Bush Jnr at the beginning of 2009
and Obama professed concern over anthropogenic climate change. He created the
White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. As noted earlier, Barack
Obama actually attended the Copenhagen COP meeting and helped broker an accord
(the Copenhagen Accord) with major greenhouse gas emitters and leading emerging
countries. However, he has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol as it is unlikely that he could
get approval for ratification from Congress and the Senate. He did try to introduce
an emissions trading bill - the American Clean Energy and Security Act - but this
did not get through the Senate. However, as of 2011 the mayors of over 400 US
cities with a combined population of 60 million (around 20% of US) agreed that their
constituencies should aim to realise the principles of the Kyoto Protocol.
8.3.2 Casestudy:Canada
Canada was a ratified signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, and in 2007 Canada's Kyoto
Protocol Implementation Act (KPIA) received Royal Assent. This bound Canada to
reduce its emissions as per its Kyoto obligations. Among other things it stipulated