Lafayette
What if all corporations in Colorado were to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 2 percent a year? What about 5 percent? What if all the corporations in the United States were to do the same?
The air would be a lot cleaner, for sure, and the rolling snowball of global warming would get a sizeable chunk taken out of it.
What if there was a way that most corporations could make money while reducing emissions? Wouldn’t the emissions reductions be worth it then?
And what if it were mandatory?
Many methods of emissions reductions that can be economically beneficial for participants already exist. One of them, climate exchanges, is already mandatory in nations that are part of the European Union, and some American corporations have already voluntarily joined the closer-to-home Chicago Climate Exchange.
In a climate exchange, all members commit to reducing their emission of a greenhouse gas – usually carbon dioxide – by a certain percent during a certain time frame. In the Chicago Climate Exchange, for example, members reduced their greenhouse gas emissions from a 2001 baseline level by 4 percent last December, and will reduce them by 6 percent of the baseline level by 2010. Since all members, including the cities of Boulder and Aspen, New Belgium Brewing Company, Waste Management, Safeway, the Aspen Skiing Co., and the state of New Mexico had different levels of greenhouse gas emissions in 2001, they will reduce their emissions to different numbers of metric tons of gas.
That’s where the economic advantage comes in. Perhaps it is easier for a government body like the city of Boulder to reduce its emissions, since a portion of them come from police cars that can be converted to hybrid fuels, than for a multistate corporation like Safeway, which emits gases in heating its stores, many of which are in regions where no clean energy sources like wind power are available through local utility companies. Through the exchange, the city of Boulder could reduce its emissions below the mandatory level, and then sell its extra shares of carbon reductions to Safeway. The same numbers of metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions would be disposed of, and the city of Boulder would make a profit.
Which is why I propose that the Colorado legislature take a bold step and mandate that corporations in Colorado participate in a climate exchange.
As Eric Perramond, an associate professor of Southwest studies and environmental studies at Colorado College told me, “The potential impact of warming on such issues as winter snowpack and its influence on our ski tourist industry” is a close-to home-issue, and concerns about it have no doubt some been a factor in the decisions of businesses throughout the Rocky Mountain region that have already joined the Chicago Climate Exchange.
As a high school senior, I don’t profess to understand all the implications of such an action. Mandatory climate exchange participation would certainly pose many legislative problems, from negotiating levels of emission reduction to working what size of corporations would participate. But, as Ted Scambos, a lead glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told me, “I don’t think that climate exchanges can be the entire solution [but] it would stimulate innovation … and the sooner we take this kind of step and others, the better.”
He is right on all points. Climate exchanges are not going to even come close to solving the problems of climate change. But they can be an important first step in the right direction – a step that shows both American corporations and the American people that there are market-based and economically advantageous ways of combating climate change. Mandatory participation would help to work towards a long-term solution to climate change by inspiring innovation within corporations as they individually work to reduce their emissions. And it is certainly time to start instituting solutions to climate change, instead of just debating its existence and implications.
So while the nation is engaged in debate over the possible effects and dangers of climate change, mandatory climate exchange participation in Colorado would allow businesses to make money while taking care of the eventuality that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global climate change.
Because regardless of whether climate change exists and is a threat, isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?
Joel Minor (joelminor@comcast.net) is a senior at Centaurus High School in Lafayette.
