A Comparison of Legislative Climate Change Targets in the 110th Congress

PUBLICATION

December 7, 2007

A Comparison of Legislative Climate Change Targets in the 110th Congress

Summary:

This analysis compares targets in current legislative proposals of mandatory cap and trade programs for greenhouse gas emissions, in terms of annual and cumulative emissions.

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Overview

Overview

The World Resources Institute’s analysis of emissions targets and cumulative emissions budgets attempts to fairly and accurately compare explicit carbon caps in Congressional climate proposals. Emissions from regulated sectors are calculated based on the text of the respective draft legislation. For sectors that are not covered by the legislation, emissions are estimated to continue to grow. This analysis uses a single set of data and methods carefully selected to provide a consistent comparison across all current climate proposals in the 110th Congress. As a result, information contained in this analysis may differ from other WRI analyses due to the use of different underlying data and methodology. This analysis is not a projection of actual emissions under the various proposals nor is it an analysis of economic impacts resulting from the enactment of these policies.

Comparison of Legislative Climate Change Targets in the 110th Congress (Figure 1) compares targets for legislative proposals of mandatory cap and trade programs for greenhouse gas emissions. This chart is a revision of a similar analysis originally released during the 109th Congress and updated through September of this year. Two significant changes have been made since the last iteration, released in September. Most importantly, the analysis of the proposal by Senators Warner and Lieberman has been updated to reflect the legislative language as passed by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection. Furthermore, emissions growth rates from uncovered sectors have been recalculated using data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Comparison of Cumulative Emissions Budgets under Legislative Climate Change Targets in the 110th Congress (Figure 2) offers a different perspective on the same data. This chart depicts the cumulative greenhouse gas emissions budgets for the proposals over two different time periods. While the speed with which emissions reductions are implemented is an important determinant of the efficacy of climate change legislation, cumulative emissions reductions are an essential indicator of the environmental stringency of a policy proposal. Time periods of 2010-2030 and 2010-2050 were chosen to evaluate how ambitious the proposals are in both the short and long term. In addition, for the Lieberman-Warner and Bingaman-Specter proposals, optimistic and conservative scenario are presented to account for changes in U.S. emissions that may result from cost containment mechanisms, conditional targets and complementary policies included in these bills.