[LINK] "California, Quebec Seek Partners to Grow Carbon Market"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Frederic Tomesco and Lynn Doan describe how some subnational jurisdictions in North America, noting the apparent inability or unwillingness of national governments to try to manage greenhouse gas emissions, are trying to set up a continental network of subnational jurisdictions.

Less than a year after establishing North America’s largest carbon market, Quebec and California are aggressively recruiting the province of Ontario and other U.S. states to join, Quebec’s premier said.

Quebec is discussing a regional market with the governors of New England states and leaders in Ontario while California is working with Oregon and Washington in the western U.S., Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York.

California spent almost a decade searching for other U.S. states to help it establish a regional carbon market before beginning one on its own last year. States including Arizona, Oregon and Washington backed out of a regional initiative in 2011. On Jan. 1, California and Quebec established a joint market that regulates more than 180 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions from industrial plants including power generators, oil refineries and cement factories.

“Having a market with only California and Quebec is not ideal,” Couillard said. “We are working very hard to recruit new partners. If we just add a couple of Western states, a couple of provinces, Ontario, and maybe some New England partners, we think that’s good enough.”

The governors of New England states, particularly Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, are “very interested” in discussing a partnership with California and Quebec, Couillard said.

Vermont is part of a regional carbon market that regulates emissions from power plants known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. Other states in that market include New York, Maryland and Massachusetts.