Talk:Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Membership 2 3 Importance 4 Greenhouse Gas/Kyoto 5 Carbon Leakage

[edit] Membership

Neither the graphic nor the page contents reflects the current membership of the RGGI: http://www.rggi.org/

[edit]

Why is this page a redirect from the California Climate Action Registry? While they are similar, they aren't the same.

```` Chris

[edit] Importance

How much of the total emissions of the US is represented by these states? They are rather small states. And mostly not too industrialised, with the notable exception of New Jersey, but that only has a population of less than 3% of the US. So how big a difference does this initiative really make? And what difference would it make if California would actually join in? DirkvdM 07:48, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Taking the population numbers listed on Wikipedia, the states participating in RGGI have a combined population of 48,769,935. The United States has a population of 303,004,000. That means 16 percent of the U.S. population resides in these states—roughly one out of every six.

Cg-realms 12:19, 02 October 2007 (EST)

Just calculating participating states alone, they account for 19 percent of the national GDP (source: List of U.S. states by GDP (nominal)). California has the world's 6th largest economy were it a nation by itself, so if they were to join, it would be significant. —Tokek (talk) 17:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Greenhouse Gas/Kyoto

Anyone with any real knowledge of they Kyoto treaty would know that it has little to do with reducing greenhouse gases. One clear example of this is china who is quickly becoming the number 1 nation in greenhouse gas emissions is exempt from the treaty. There are many clear examples that they Kyoto treaty is more about redistributing wealth then reducing green house gases. Regardless if you agree with the above statement, the RGGI has never even hinted a support of the Kyoto protocol. After an hour of search I can't find a single governor or mayor that joined the RGGI that has stated on record that the US should ratify Kyoto. In all reality RGGI is an alternative to Kyoto. I know there are a handful of politicians that are on records supporting the ratification of Kyoto so I am sure someone could find some names I am just saying that I looked and found none.

My point is that the RGGI was set up as an alternative to Kyoto, as Kyoto is so flawed that most politicians who support Greenhouse gas controls reject the Kyoto Protocol.

Because of this I have deleted the 2 mentions of Kyoto from this article because Kyoto can not accurately be connected to Kyoto.Mantion (talk) 11:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Carbon Leakage

The article does not mention the issue of carbon leakage. Leakage means that a certain percentage of the CO2 abatement in RGGI states will be offset by growing emissions elsewhere - for instance, RGGI states will end up importing cheaper electricity from Pennsylvania or other states not subject to the regulation. A quantitative analysis of this issue in the RGGI context was done by Sue Wing and Kolodziej (2007). The link to the paper can be found here: http://people.bu.edu/isw/papers/rggi_leakage.pdf

In the context of Kyoto, here are some leakage-related publications:
1) Babiker, M. H. (2005). Climate change policy, market structure, and carbon leakage. Journal of International Economics 65, 421–445.
2) Babiker, M. H. and T. F. Rutherford (2005). The economic effects of border measures in subglobal climate agreements. Energy Journal 26, 101–128.
3) Babiker, M. H. (2001). Subglobal climate-change actions and carbon leakage: The implication of international capital flows. Energy Economics 23, 121–139.
4) Felder, S. and T. F. Rutherford (1993). Unilateral CO2 reductions and carbon leakage: The consequences of international trade in oil and basic materials. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 25, 162–176.