West Coast Commissions to Tackle Climate Change

It takes a very special person to perk up and get excited at the prospect of discussions surrounding “Energy Efficiency and white certificates in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative” or “Meeting the Kyoto Protocol Goals: Energy Efficiency in the European Union.” We must be special. We’re excited about the first ever Joint West Coast Public Utility Commissions 2006 Energy Efficiency Workshop, being held Friday, December 1st by the Commissions of California, Washington, and Oregon. While the CUB schedule (not to mention the budget) wouldn’t allow for trips to San Francisco to bask in the fog and the energy discussion, we will be following it on the webcast (available at the California Commission website).

The tone will be set with a Special Signing Ceremony, at which members of the three Commissions will sign a Joint Action Framework on Climate Change. Some points covered in the Framework include:

* Regional cooperation to address climate change. 

* Development and use of low carbon technologies in the energy sector.

* Promotion of conservation and demand response programs.

* A strong, continued commitment to renewable energy resources.

* Reliance upon Integrated Resource Plans to inform utility and Commission decisions.

Renewables, conservation, reducing carbon emissions, and regional cooperation with regard to this global problem are all fairly self-explanatory. The last item, a particularly wonky bit, is actually one of our favorites.

You see, the Integrated Resource Planning (or IRP) process is the way in which customers and other stakeholders can have a say in the way our energy is produced. With 40% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions coming from the electricity industry, what could be a more important environmental issue? And it’s timely, too.

Soon PGE will embark on its IRP process (an every other year event) with CUB as a party to the case. As we have in years past, we will argue for more energy efficiency (the cheapest, cleanest power around) and renewable resources, and we’ll be arguing with an increased sense of urgency and an enhanced arsenal to back it up, since the past 2 years have seen solidified agreement that climate change is real and the crisis needs action to be averted. Since PGE’s last IRP, Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, and Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth has reached millions of Americans with the history of climate change, a story bolstered by a formidable mountain of data. Concern for ourselves, our neighbors, and our planet demands a shift in the “business as usual” practice of electricity production. As columnist Polo stated in a recent Asian Reporter article, “The trick is in teaching the connections—the connection between us releasing carbons stored a zillion years deep inside old mother earth and the frightening build-up of atmospheric carbon now blanketing our warming planet.”

Energy efficiency may sound like a tame solution for such an immense problem, but consider this recent article from the BBC News website: “The rise in humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide has accelerated sharply, according to a new analysis. The Global Carbon Project says that emissions were rising by less than 1% annually up to the year 2000, but are now rising at 2.5% per year. It says the acceleration comes mainly from a rise in charcoal consumption and a lack of new energy efficiency gains.”

Perhaps the most notable aspect of this event is the fact that these 3 Commissions, agencies empowered to make and enforce the rules that protect the financial well-being of utility ratepayers, are coming together to address climate change. They are acknowledging the huge economic impact that climate change will have on customers, and they are being proactive in addressing climate change because that will mitigate any financial burdens that may be heading our way. That these economic goals are also hailed by the environmental community as ecological goals just goes to prove that they are elegant solutions, working to solve multiple problems at once. We commend the Commissions for their foresight.

We wish the three Commissions and their speakers (which includes local energy efficiency mavens Margie Harris, Director of the Energy Trust of Oregon; Charlie Grist, Senior Analyst for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council; and Margie Gardner, Executive Director of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance) a brisk and fruitful discussion. We hope they bring back new ideas and new weapons for the fight against global warming. And if they think to tuck a piece of Ghirardelli chocolate in their bags for those of us back at home, well, that would be okay, too.

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