State's green ideas go nowhere

By Candace Page, Free Press Staff Writer • November 23, 2008

MONTPELIER — One year ago, Gov. Jim Douglas unveiled the recommendations of his Climate Change Commission and laid out ambitious plans to cut Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions while building a “green economy.”

Three ideas stood at the center of those plans: appointment of a Vermont Climate Collaborative to guide research and action; creation of a “Vermont Green Standard” to regulate the multimillion-dollar carbon trading market and create a new business sector for the state; and sale of carbon credits from open land and state forests.

The Douglas administration has taken smaller steps on other fronts since November 2007, including the harvest of more firewood from state forests and support of alternative energy research and testing projects.

But there is no evidence the state has made substantial progress toward — or will reach — the short-term goal set by the governor: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

“There is virtual inaction on climate change,” said Elizabeth Courtney, one of six members of Douglas’ Climate Change Commission and executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. “The governor seems to have climate-change reduction strategies in word but not in deed.”

“There is a lot of pent-up desire for action,” acknowledged John Sayles, deputy secretary of Natural Resources and the administration’s point man on climate change. “It is hard to create excitement over the incremental progress we are making — but we are making progress.”

He described the Vermont Climate Change Collaborative, a panel of university, state government and outside members, as the “signature piece” of the governor’s plans.

The collaborative will meet for the first time Dec. 8.

“A big part of what they will do is outreach to try and understand what is going on around climate change and then help academia, government and the private sector prioritize resources,” Sayles said.

He said the administration would not use more direct ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by changing private behavior through new taxes, mandates or regulations.

9 million tons of CO2

Vermont emitted 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2005 — an 11 percent increase since 1990.

In the atmosphere, carbon dioxide and other gases trap heat and contribute to rising global temperatures that already are changing Earth’s ecosystems.

“The climate change crisis may represent the most important and comprehensive global challenge of our lifetime,” the Governor’s Climate Change Commission said in its final report last year.

More than two-thirds of Vermont’s emissions come from gasoline, diesel and fuel oil used to power cars and trucks and to heat homes and businesses.

Though Vermont is an infinitesimal emitter in the global scheme of things — and the state’s forests and fields soak up more CO2 than the state emits — the governor and legislature have vowed to slash greenhouse gases.

To that end, Vermont joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), has sued the federal government to defend its adoption of California’s clean-car rules, and is launching a program to help homes and businesses reduce their fuel use.

‘We’re talking millions’

In his speech last year, Douglas endorsed the recommendations of his climate commission, but emphasized developing ways in which combating climate change would create income for the private sector and state government.

He proposed two new sources of income, the “Vermont Green Standard” and selling the carbon-storage value of the state’s forests. In a follow-up, spokesman Jason Gibbs told reporters, “we’re talking millions of dollars here.”

Both ideas were based on the carbon-credit market, in which individuals and businesses offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in projects — wind energy, reforestation and the like — that reduce global emissions.

Douglas’ idea was that Vermont would write a “green standard” for what constitutes a verifiable carbon offset, then certify the organizations that do the verification. He compared the idea to Vermont’s captive insurance market, which has brought substantial business and tax revenue to the state.

The idea was the governor’s own, not the climate commission’s. Skeptics scoffed, saying Vermont was an unlikely regulator of a global market. After some investigation by a UVM researcher, the administration reached the same conclusion.

“The landscape is vastly more complex than we thought,” Sayles said. “Others have a big head start and a lot more resources. California has 120 people working on this full-time.”

UVM Extension researcher David Kestenbaum won a $100,000 state grant to spend 18 months studying other ways Vermont might find a business niche in the carbon market.

No carbon sales

Douglas’ idea of generating millions of dollars selling offsets for all the carbon stored in Vermont’s forests also has gone nowhere, at least for now.

For one thing, the idea is highly controversial. Many regulators and advocates believe carbon credits should be bought and sold only for new sources of carbon storage — new or reforested areas. The RGGI, among other regulated carbon markets, does not allow standing forests to be used as offsets.

“We’ve backed away from that a little bit,” Jennifer Jenkins, the UVM professor who coordinates university-state efforts on climate change, said of the carbon-credit idea. “We aren’t ready to say there’s a strategy to do that.”

If the big ideas have not worked out — what has been accomplished to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the past year?

Perhaps the most significant step was expansion of Vermont’s successful electric energy efficiency program to include home heating fuel.

That program will launch soon, although an argument broke out last week over whether the program designed by the administration is broad enough to comply with the law passed by legislators.

Lower-level staff at state agencies have written a work plan to implement the 38 detailed recommendations of the Climate Change Commission.

They include steps like an all-fuels utility; more car pooling and public transit; improved building codes; increased wood energy production; and greater local food production.

At least some work is already being done on 190 of the 260 action items within the commission’s recommendations, Sayles said. He pointed, for example, to a recent symposium on grass as a source of fuel; to increased harvest of firewood in state forests; to research about on-farm fuel systems at farms around the state.

Other parts of the work plan require staff time and money the state does not have.

For example, the plan for meeting the goal of generating 8.5 percent of Vermont’s energy from wood by 2025 is estimated to cost $50 million to $150 million in state and private resources.

It will be up to the new Climate Collaborative, Sayles said, to set priorities for research and for implementation.

Critics say they fear the Climate Collaborative means more talk without serious attempts at action.

“We need to stop studying the things we might be able to do and start doing the things we know will help,” said James Moore, clean-energy advocate at the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
Ernest Pomerleau, the Burlington real estate man who chaired the Climate Change Commission, was more optimistic.

“A lot of this stuff is ready for liftoff,” he said of the action steps recommended by the commission, and the new Climate Collaborative will ignite the engines. It will put Vermont’s best brainpower to work, guiding research, encouraging ways to turn research into implementation and new “green” jobs, he said.

“I like to say that a vision without action is just a dream, but action without vision is running in place. The vision was our climate change study. The action plan is the Climate Collaborative,” he said.

Contact Candace Page at 660-1865 or This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it