Thirty-One States and One Tribe Join New Climate Registry

May 16, 2007

A total of 31 states and one tribe have joined The Climate Registry, a newly launched effort to measure, track, verify, and publicly report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The new Registry will support voluntary, market-based, and regulatory GHG emissions reporting programs and provides consistency and transparency across borders and throughout all sectors of the economy. With many states taking actions to cut GHG emissions, the Registry will help to identify whether one state's actions are actually resulting in increased GHG emissions in neighboring states. The initial participants in the Registry include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and the Campo Kumeyaay Nation, which is located in southern California. See the press release, a map of participating states, and other information on The Climate Registry Web site.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is offering a nation-level perspective by releasing a draft of the Fourth Climate Action Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The report shows that the country is on track to achieve President Bush's goal of reducing greenhouse gas intensity (the amount of GHG emissions per unit of gross domestic product) by 18 percent from 2002 to 2012. Over that same period, actual GHG emissions are projected to increase by 11 percent. The report estimates that in 2004, U.S. GHG emissions were at 7,074.4 teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent, an increase of 15.8 percent from 1990 levels. By 2012, GHG emissions are projected to increase to more than 7,709 teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent, which will be 26 percent above 1990 levels. The State Department is accepting public comments on the draft report until noon on Friday, May 18th. See the State Department press release and the draft report.