10 Years of RGGI
WASHINGTON, DC—Resources for the Future (RFF) Senior Fellows Karen Palmer and Dallas Burtraw today posted a blog noting the 10-year anniversary of an American success story in reducing emissions from electricity generation plants that contribute to climate change.
That success story is known widely yet simply as RGGI—the Regional Green Gas Initiative. The new blog is entitled, Marking a Decade of Climate Cap and Trade Policy Leadership.
Among RGGI’s various achievements and milestones over the course of the last decade:
*It was the first mandatory carbon cap-and-trade program in North America.
*In typically bipartisan fashion, it began by pooling the efforts of nine eastern states to control greenhouse gas emissions workably and effectively.
*Although the program is modest in reach and in stringency, it can claim substantial emissions reductions and has had an outsized influence on carbon policy internationally.
*Prior to RGGI, emissions cap-and-trade programs, including the sulfur dioxide program created under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, mostly distributed allowances for free. The RGGI states chose instead to auction allowances—a model that’s since propagated to all major carbon trading programs.
The authors state: “The region can celebrate the durability and success of the trading program. As importantly, the program has offered a model that has influenced other cap-and-trade programs around the world.”
Read the full blog post: Marking a Decade of Climate Cap and Trade Policy Leadership.
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