Summary of the talk

Barbara Bamberger began with a description of Environmental Justice (EJ) communities: those which have been disproportionately impacted by environmental harms. As a result of their preponderance of low-income residents of disadvantaged racial or ethnic backgrounds, these communities have historically been the sites for factories, refineries, and other structures that create disproportionate environmental harms, thus creating the ethical obligation to assess the impacts of future plans on these communities (as required by Federal Executive Order 12898.)

She then described the making of AB32, the Global Warming Solutions act passed by the State of California. In the end, facing political pressures from environmental NGO's and EJ groups, the governor signed a bill in 2006 which said the state "may" include a cap-and-trade program.

AB32 is unique in that it contains language requiring action on environmental justice issues, making it the first bill incorporating social impacts into greenhouse gas policy in this manner. The EJ movement's critique of cap-and-trade is that it allows polluters to meet their requirements while failing to decrease or even increasing emissions in EJ communities, since GHG emissions are atmospheric, not local.

The EJ movement thus calls for reductions to occur first in EJ communities, as well as for transparency in trading. It is not opposed to market mechanisms in general, and has supported a carbon "fee" (i.e.) tax.

Bamberger then reviewed AB 32's timeline, its scoping plan, and a variety of complementary measures. Next, she defined various terms surrounding cap-and-trade, reviewed several issues the legislative staff is considering in designing the cap-and-trade system, and surveyed the next steps involved in retooling cap-and-trade design to incorporate social concerns.

She ended by noting that the designers of the cap-and-trade system will be releasing an open invitation to researchers next week to submit concepts on cap-and-trade design, enforcement, and transparency. Abstracts will be due November 25th, and the authors of selected submissions will be invited to a symposium in Jan or Feb of 2009. The cap-and-trade system itself will go into effect in 2012.

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