Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
6/7/13
IN CONGRESS
Leaders of a recently-formed Congressional Task Force on Climate Change called on President Barack Obama to spearhead an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping on hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) during an upcoming meeting. In a June 5 letter, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said Obama should discuss climate change at a June 7-8 summit in California with Xi, and to particularly stress the potential for the two nations to reach an agreement to reduce the production and use of the greenhouse gas. In particular, the lawmakers said the U.S. should try and get China to sign on to a 2009 amendment to the Montreal Protocol to phase out HFCs, which are produced as refrigerants. “We encourage you to raise HFCs with President Xi and to ask for his support of the North American HFC proposal. This would send a powerful and concrete message about the ability of United States and China to cooperate to address the enormous challenge of climate change,” the lawmakers stated in the letter.
IN EPA
The White House nominated Avi Garbow to be the Environmental Protection Agency’s General Counsel June 5. Garbow has been Deputy General Counsel at the agency since 2009. Garbow worked as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice’s environmental crimes and wildlife and marine resources sections in the late 1990s before working in the private sector. Early in his career, Garbow also worked as an attorney and special assistant to EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
Companies representing 85 percent of the world’s airline traffic agreed on a proposal aimed at limiting carbon emissions from international aircraft. The International Transport Association, a trade group of 240 airlines worldwide that includes Delta Air Lines and British Airways, called on governments June 3 to phase-in a single global, market-based system to manage and offset cross-border carbon emissions from aircraft after 2020. “Airlines are committed to working with governments to build a solid platform for the future sustainable development of aviation,” IATA Director General Tony Tyler said in a statement. The trade group’s proposal is aimed at stymieing a deadlocked conflict between the European Union and others over carbon emissions from airlines that some had worried would spur a trade war. A host of countries, including the U.S., said they are boycotting an EU carbon trading system for flights that take off or land in the 27-nation bloc. The EU had suspended the trading system’s implementation for a year so that an agreement could be made.
