- Sea change
US panellists spoke of a flurry of activity related to climate change. Since January 2007 alone, nine climate-change bills have been proposed and 75 climate-change related hearings have taken place in Washington DC.
Heightened attention at US federal level is reflected at state level and in business circles. Coast-to-coast, state governors are pledging support for a carbon-emissions cap-and-trade system, with California's Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger leading the way. The US Climate Action Partnership, which includes major firms such as DuPont and Shell, is emerging as an increasingly important business pressure group, pushing for harmonised federal legislation on climate change.
- Towards Post-Kyoto
The American panellists agreed that while the US must show leadership and play a central role in some sort of global effort to address climate change, any such effort must be "flexible" with respect to timing and the type of commitments made. Speaking in reference to President Bush's commitments made at the G8 summit, panellists acknowledged that an agreement cannot be voluntary and must include binding measures in order to establish trust and confidence in the system.
The panellists also reminded the European audience, however, that Europe must have a "realistic" view of what is "politically possible" in the US, and that the most ambitious bill currently circulating in Congress calls for emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020.
- EU Emissions trading
The US side generally applauded Europe's efforts to tackle climate change, but warned that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is often portrayed as a failure in Washington and information about EU ETS is misused for political purposes. The panellists emphasised that Americans need precise information about EU ETS in order to prevent such misuse, and to encourage the creation of a similar system in the US.
