Warming debate is shifting to who will pay

WASHINGTON — An international report giving greater certainty to global warming will shift the debate in Congress from what's causing climate change to the economics of who will pay to confront it.

As lawmakers squabble over the details of reducing the flow of heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases from power plants, cars and factories, an overriding worry remains: cost and who will foot the bill.

The release Friday in Paris of a United Nations report affirming that industrial activities, mainly burning fossil fuels, are largely to blame for a dangerous warming of the Earth, will likely spur the climate debate in Congress.

Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, think mandatory limits on emissions are needed to make headway toward stabilizing greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

To blunt the economic cost of cutting these emissions — chiefly carbon dioxide from burning oil, coal or natural gas — the proposals allow for "loopholes" in the mandatory caps: the ability to buy pollution credits if emission reductions get too costly or to "bank" credits for future use or sale if early reductions are cheaper.

"All of these programs are designed to minimize the cost," says John Larsen, an analyst at the World Resources Institute who has studied the various "cap-and-trade" mechanisms lawmakers are considering.

The Bush administration doesn't like any of them, arguing that arbitrary pollution limits would be too costly, threaten certain carbon-intensive industries and result in lost jobs.

There's worry about "the unintended consequences," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Friday as he made clear the new report by the international panel of scientists hasn't changed the administration's opposition to the "cap-and-trade" approach.

Such systems have not been tested on the scale on which they would be implemented to deal with climate change, Bodman said, adding: "The U.S. economy is not something to be experimented with, in my judgment."

Instead, the administration argues that a push for new technology will lead to a shift away from fossil fuels, more conservation and an eventual cut in greenhouse gases without hurting the economy.

But lawmakers, including Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Barack Obama, D-Ill. — likely presidential contenders in 2008 — and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the committee that will deal with climate legislation, are convinced mandatory emissions requirements are needed.

Boxer has offered one of the most aggressive approaches to climate change, envisioning an 80 percent cut in emissions by midcentury. McCain and Obama are co-sponsors of a bill aimed to cut emissions by two-thirds by that time.