West Coast Pact to Cut, Price Carbon Could Have Wider Influence

When California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) announced a sweeping agreement last week among three West Coast states and a Canadian province on actions to fight climate change, he described the pact as likely to trigger a wave of similar activity.

Robert Stavins, director of Harvard University's Environmental Economics Program, said "The most promising path forward on international climate change policy at present is bottom-up development of regional, national and subnational policies that become linked.  Therefore, this [California, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia] announcement is potentially important because it could lead to further such linkage."

West Coast Pact to Cut, Price Carbon Could Have Wider Influence