Ecominds-a Mailing List: Re: EcoMinds: Letter to Waxman & Markey on Climate Bill

[Joe and Madalyn (joemadalyn]

Thanks Ralph. I haven't looked through the entire draft legislation, but I 
totally support the letter that takes issue with a large carbon offsets 
allowances.  I'd vote for EcoMinds to take on that position.  --Madalyn

-----Original Message-----
>From: Ralph Wyman <rwmuusja [at] gmail.com>
>Sent: Apr 27, 2009 5:31 PM
>To: Madalyn Cioci /FUS /612-926-5249 <joemadalyn [at] earthlink.net>
>Cc: Ecominds announcements <ecominds-a [at] muusja.org>
>Subject: [EcoM] EcoMinds: Letter to Waxman & Markey on Climate Bill
>
>Over the weekend I was in Boston, meeting with other UU State Networks and
>the UUSC and UUA.  One of the topics was coordinated Climate Change work.
>Much more on that in the future (lots to digest from the weekend, waiting
>for notes to be e-mailed, etc).  
>
>But Myrna Greenfield, Outreach and Mobilization Director for the UUSC, let
>us know that the UUSC had signed on to a letter to Waxman and Markey, key
>authors of an expected 2009 climate bill.  Below is that letter for our
>consideration of MUUSJA EcoMinds federal legislative policy position!
>
>-Ralph 
>
> 
>
>350.org, 1 Sky, Action PA, California Communities Against Toxics, Church
>World Service, Energy Justice Network, Essential Action, Friends Committee
>on National Legislation, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Indigenous
>Environmental Network, Institute for Energy & Environmental Research,
>International Rivers, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Public Citizen,
>Rainforest Action Network, Safe & Green Campaign, Sustainable Energy &
>Economy Network, UU Service Committee
>
>April 22, 2009
>
>The Honorable Henry Waxman 
>Chair, Committee on Energy and Commerce
>The Honorable Edward Markey
>Chair, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment 
>
>Dear Chairmen Waxman and Markey,
>
>We commend you on the effort you have undertaken in crafting your draft
>"American Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009." While there is much to
>applaud in this bill, there are also areas for substantial improvement.
>While we will be communicating to you separately with respect to other
>issues, our organizations are concerned in particular about one key element
>that threatens to undermine its integrity and effectiveness in addressing
>climate change: the large carbon offsets provisions of the draft bill. As
>pointed out in recent testimony before your Energy and Environment
>Subcommittee by the Government Accountability Office, quality assurance for
>carbon offsets is all but impossible to verify. To craft a bill that allows
>for 2 billion tons of offsets per year - roughly equivalent to 27% of 2007
>U.S. greenhouse gas emissions - is to allow for continued and dangerous
>delay in real action by our country at a time when the world is looking to
>the U.S. for leadership on climate change.
>
>Initial calculations suggest that allowing for 2 billion tons of offsets per
>year would mean that covered entities in the U.S. could use offsets to avoid
>curtailing their own significant greenhouse gas emissions until 2026. Given
>current climate science , such a delay in investing directly in new
>low-carbon energy infrastructure is unacceptable.
>
>Increasing evidence is revealing the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the
>world's biggest carbon offset market, is failing to deliver real climate or
>sustainable development benefits. Most fundamentally, the CDM has actually
>facilitated an increase in overall greenhouse gas emissions -undermining the
>most fundamental and critical goal of all - stemming the growth of
>greenhouse gas emissions in the Earth's atmosphere. 
>
>The draft bill intends to reduce emissions from tropical deforestation via
>two contrasting approaches. The first, called Supplemental Emissions
>Reductions from Reduced Deforestation, is a fund-based approach with the aim
>of slowing tropical deforestation emissions by at least 720 million tons per
>year by 2020. The fund approach as written into the draft bill could enable
>effective policies, activities and measures to slow tropical deforestation,
>which unfortunately would be undone through the second approach based on
>bringing hundreds of millions of tons of international forestry offsets into
>the U.S. carbon market each year. 
>
>Forest offsets as proposed in the draft bill fail to acknowledge forest
>governance problems, as well as the customary land and forest rights of
>Indigenous peoples including the rights of free, prior and informed consent
>of Indigenous peoples in forest regions to participate, or choose not to
>participate, in the new carbon commodity market. Forest credits have a
>well-recognized potential to destabilize carbon markets by introducing large
>volumes of cheap offsets, huge variations in estimates of carbon stocks and
>fluxes over time, and uncertainties over how to monitor emissions and the
>impacts of policies upon rates of deforestation and emissions. 
>
>Domestically, environmental justice organizations and activists are equally
>concerned that all offsets - whether in criteria pollutants or in carbon -
>will add to the pollution burden of already overburdened communities of
>color while increasing incentives for corruption. 
>
>As the United States moves forward on domestic climate legislation, we urge
>you to ensure that your basic reduction targets for greenhouse gases and
>other agents, such as black soot are bold enough and achieved quickly enough
>to keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius. We urge you
>to:
>
>1) Take the lead on strong action on climate change at home by opposing any
>international carbon offsets, including forest offsets, as part of any
>compliance regime on climate change; and
>2) Ensure that the domestic offset market does not become part of a
>compliance system to regulate emissions.
>
>Signed,
>
> 
>
>______________________________________________________________
>To unsubscribe , modify your subscription options or see archives, please 
>visit:
>http://lists.muusja.org/mailman/listinfo/ecominds-a