State's effort to curb warming criticized

Boulder meeting focuses on work in N.M., Arizona

Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 10, 2006 at midnight

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BOULDER - Colorado has done "very, very little" to address the global warming issue, largely due to lack of leadership from Gov. Bill Owens, a Denver public policy analyst told about 160 colleagues at a climate meeting Friday.

"Have we ever been in the vanguard on this issue? Not," said Heidi VanGenderen, a senior associate with the Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy at the University of Colorado-Denver.

"We have not seen strong leadership from the governor in Colorado," she said during the final day of "Climate Change and Future of the American West," a three-day conference sponsored by the CU Natural Resources Law Center.

"We don't have a climate advisory group in this state, unlike other states," she said. "We have done very, very little in this state."

An Owens spokesman disagreed and said the governor has taken significant steps to curb warming.

At Friday morning's Boulder conference, environmental officials from Arizona and New Mexico summarized their states' efforts to inventory sources of greenhouse gas emissions and to set reduction targets.

No comparable presentation was offered by Colorado officials.

"In some ways, the jury is still out on the overall impact of climate change and what individual states can do that would be beneficial, as opposed to taking a regional or national approach," said Owens' spokesman, Dan Hopkins.

However, the governor believes global warming "is an issue that needs to be addressed," Hopkins said. "But is it the No. 1 issue on the plate of state government right now? No, it's not."

California has led the pack of states aggressively pursuing global warming solutions. A year ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to drastically cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions by requiring big improvements in automobile efficiency and by supporting alternative energy sources.

"The debate is over," he said in June 2005. "We know the science, we see the threat, and we know the time for action is now."

Other states have been more cautious. But two of Colorado's neighbors, New Mexico and Arizona, have taken substantial steps.

Last year, Gov. Bill Richardson, of New Mexico, issued an executive order requiring a study of the likely impacts of global warming, an inventory of greenhouse gas sources and a plan to reduce them.

The study showed New Mexico could face hotter temperatures, shrinking snowpacks, reduced stream flows, more wildfires, a decline in trout habitat and an overall reduction in biodiversity.

The inventory revealed that power plants are the state's biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

Second on the list was the fossil fuel industry: Large amounts of carbon dioxide are vented when natural gas is pumped to the surface, according to Jim Norton, director of the state's environmental protection division.

Vehicles ranked third.

Richardson set a state goal of reducing greenhouse emissions to 2000 levels by 2012; then 10 percent below 2000 levels by 2020; and finally to 75 percent below 2000 levels by 2050.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has set the goal of cutting greenhouse emissions to 2000 levels by 2020, then to 50 percent below 2000 levels by 2040.

University of California at Berkeley civil engineer Tadeusz Patzek said both rapidly growing Southwestern states have set "extremely difficult goals."

Here in Colorado, Gov. Owens has tackled climate change in several ways, Hopkins said Friday.

He supported an updated inventory of greenhouse-gas sources in 2000 and another due this year.

In July 2005, he issued an executive order directing state agencies to start an energy management program to increase efficiency.

In addition, the Governor's Office of Energy Management and Conservation has supported numerous efforts to conserve energy, increase the use of renewable energy sources, and decrease the use of fossil fuels.

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