Designing a Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reduction Program for the U.S.

Eileen Claussen, President, Pew Center on Global Climate Change

In response to the goal of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, the United States has instituted a number of programs since 1992. These include voluntary greenhouse gas mitigation programs, research and development, and a subset of energy policies that focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy. More than a decade of experience with these programs shows that while they have at times inspired significant action on the part of individual companies, these measures have not succeeded in reducing, or even stabilizing, total U.S. emissions. U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased roughly 12 percent between 1990 and 2001, and are projected to increase another 12 percent by 2012. In order for the United States to achieve the significant greenhouse gas reductions necessary to address climate change, it must implement a mandatory greenhouse gas reduction program.

The Pew Center asked report authors Robert Nordhaus of Van Ness Feldman, P.C., and George Washington University Law School, and Kyle Danish of Van Ness Feldman to examine options for designing a mandatory U.S. greenhouse gas reduction program. Three options are specifically evaluated: (1) cap-and-trade programs, (2) greenhouse gas taxes, and (3) a “sectoral hybrid” program that combines efficiency standards for automobiles and consumer products with a cap-and-trade program applicable to large sources of greenhouse gases. In addition to identifying design issues unique to each type of program, the authors evaluate the options according to the following criteria: environmental effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, administrative feasibility, distributional equity, and political acceptability.

The analysis suggests that a comprehensive, upstream cap-and-trade approach (or a workable variation) and the sectoral hybrid approach are the most viable alternatives for a domestic greenhouse gas reduction program. While an economy-wide cap-and-trade approach may present the best option for low-cost greenhouse gas reductions, a sectoral hybrid approach building on existing programs may evolve. Whatever approach is taken, policy-makers should attempt to reach their environmental goal in a way that incorporates market mechanisms and minimizes administrative complexity.

With growing Congressional interest in programs to address climate change—including the recent introduction of economy-wide cap-and-trade legislation controlling greenhouse gas emissions—the analysis of U.S. greenhouse gas reduction program options is timely. In addition to this review, the Pew Center is simultaneously releasing a complementary report, Emissions Trading in the U.S.: Experience, Lessons, and Considerations for Greenhouse Gases, which examines six diverse U.S. emissions trading programs, drawing general lessons for future applications and discussing considerations for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

The Pew Center and the authors would like to thank Joe Goffman, Granger Morgan, Tom Wilson, Ev Ehrlich, and Billy Pizer for providing comments on a previous draft of this report, Anne Smith for reviewing the description of modeling results, and William Nordhaus for his useful insights. The views expressed in this report are the authors’ and not those of the reviewers, Van Ness Feldman, or its clients.