California Carbon Market Gets a Test Run

With the successful online test auction held yesterday, all systems seem ready to go for the launch of California's cap-and-trade carbon market this fall, reports Tim McDonnell. 

"The plan,
which officials hope will put the country's most populous state on
track to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050, isn't the
first carbon trading scheme in the U.S.: The Regional Greenhouse Gas
Initiative (RGGI), a collective of several northeastern states
(including Massachusetts, which rejoined a
few years after being forced out by then-Gov. Mitt Romney), has been
auctioning carbon credits, called allowances, since 2008."

"But unlike
RGGI, which applies only to power plants, California's plan extends to
all sectors of the economy, which means businesses from paper mills, oil
refineries, and universities to pharmaceutical manufacturers, steel
mills, and food processors like PCP will have a stake in California's
campaign against climate change," writes McDonnell. 

"'It's like some brave new adventure,' said Mona Schulman, a PCP vice
president, as she waited for the fall of the digital gavel (the auction
is held online) to start bidding. 'Everybody's in favor of clean air and
the environment being healthy, but there's a lot of uncertainty down
the road.'"