LOADING

Type to search

Washington to Impose Limit on Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Companies

Washington to Impose Limit on Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Companies

  • Washington state is holding its first carbon-allowance auction on Tuesday, marking a key step forward in a statewide program that will impose a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and make it more expensive for companies to emit carbon pollution.
  • Washington’s cap-and-invest program was established under the Climate Commitment Act, signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2021.
  • The program imposes a statewide limit, or cap, on greenhouse gas emissions. It also requires businesses to purchase pollution allowances that will become increasingly costly and act as an incentive for businesses to curb emissions.

Washington state is holding its first carbon-allowance auction on Tuesday, marking a key step forward in a statewide program that will impose a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and make it more expensive for companies to emit carbon pollution.

Washington’s cap-and-invest program was established under the Climate Commitment Act that was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2021. The program imposes a statewide limit, or cap, on greenhouse gas emissions. It also requires businesses to purchase pollution allowances that will become increasingly costly and act as an incentive for businesses to curb emissions.

The new law requires businesses that emit more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually to buy emissions allowances at the Washington Department of Ecology’s auction. The department will create only as many allowances as the program’s limit allows, and the cap will be lowered each year. Washington joins 14 other states that have imposed some form of a program that imposes caps on company emissions.

In 2013, California was the first state to establish a cap-and-trade system, and Oregon enacted a program last year. Washington has set a goal to curb carbon emissions by 95% below 1990 levels by 2050 — an even more aggressive target than California’s plan to achieve an 85% reduction in emissions by 2045.

The revenue from the state’s auctions, which are projected to be roughly $1 billion each year, will go toward efforts including advancing clean energy projects and climate-adaptation measures.

See related article: Amazon commits $100 million for affordable housing in western Washington near light rail stations

Pam Kiely, associate vice president for U.S. climate at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the program makes Washington the “front-runner on climate action, setting the most ambitious binding limit on climate pollution of any state in the nation.”

In addition to imposing a cap on emissions, Washington’s Climate Commitment Act includes a regulatory air quality program to help reduce air pollution in overburdened communities and requires that at least 35% of the revenue from the cap-and-invest program goes to communities disproportionally affected by climate pollution.

The legislation also requires the department to consult an environmental justice council when imposing policy and spending revenue.

“Alongside driving deep cuts in climate pollution, the program provides innovative tools to reduce local air pollution in communities that have been on the front lines of environmental harms,” Kiely said. “This dual focus on curbing global climate pollution and local air pollution makes Washington’s program the gold standard for climate policy.”

New York announced in January that it will join Washington, California and Oregon, which use similar cap-and-trade programs. Still, some experts have argued that it’s unlikely these types of programs will be widely adopted across the country.

Danny Cullenward, policy director at CarbonPlan, a nonprofit working on climate solutions, said he doesn’t expect a “wave of these programs anytime soon.”

“Although there’s a lot of appeal around market-based climate policies, in practice the politics to set these things up are much more difficult,” Cullenward said.

Source: CNBC

Topics

Related Articles

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

LOADING

Type to search

Blog

Image of official Toronto Climate Week logo nad icon in reverse white text over blue background
PwC Survey Finds Rising Pressure and Value in Corporate Sustainability Reporting
IBM Launches API to Embed Emissions Data into Corporate and Vendor Tools
Founder Group to Build $2.76B Solar and Storage Complex in Sarawak
Germany Delivers Nearly $14 Billion in Climate Finance for 2024
Standard Chartered Backs L&T with $700M Sustainability-Linked Trade Financing
MAS Appoints Abigail Ng as New Chief Sustainability Officer
ESG News WEEK IN REVIeW 21 Sept - 28 sept
OXCCU Secures $28 Million to Scale Carbon-to-Fuel Technology for Aviation
Dutch Startup Brineworks Secures $7.3M to Scale Direct Air Capture for e-Fuels
Becky Park-Romanovsky on Building Toronto Climate Week and Canada’s Climate Future
DHL, Hapag-Lloyd Expand Use of Sustainable Marine Fuels to Cut Supply Chain Emissions
EU Pushes Back Supply Chain Deforestation Rules by One Year
California Names 4,000+ Companies Facing Mandatory Climate Disclosures
Levi Strauss and Schneider Electric launch supply chain renewable energy accelerator in India
EFRAG Maps Digital Tools to Advance SME Sustainability Reporting
Watershed Launches AI-Driven Product Footprints to Tackle Scope 3 Supply Chain Emissions
PRI Awards 2025 Spotlight Responsible Investment Leaders
Frontier Launches Rail-Based Carbon Management Platform for Ethanol Sector
UK Signs Contracts for First Commercial Carbon Capture Projects
","session_id":"ep-sess-1760235153-F6yvLlcD","page_url":"https:\/\/esgnews.com\/washington-to-impose-limit-on-greenhouse-gas-emissions-for-companies\/","post_id":"18783","tracking_enabled":"1","original_referrer":"","has_embedded_content":""}; /* ]]> */