Carbon Purging

The Western Climate Initiative or WCI is an initiative—started by states and provinces along the western rim of North America—to combat climate change caused by global warming, independent of their national governments.

The stated purpose of the WCI is to identify, evaluate and implement ways to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the region. The initiative requires partners to set an overall regional goal to reduce emissions, develop a market-based, multi-sector mechanism to help achieve that goal, and participate in a cross-border greenhouse gas registry.

The Western Climate Initiative plans to lay the foundation for an international cap and trade program that would involve both the United States and Canada. On September 23rd, 2008, the WCI released an outline for the implementation of its cap and trade proposal. The first phase of this plan would be implemented on January 1, 2012, followed three years later by a broader cap on carbon emissions in 2015.

The initiative includes two types of membership: partners and observers.

The partners are the U.S. states of Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.

The observers are Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, Wyoming, the province of Saskatchewan (which objects to WCI plans for a cap and trade system), and the Mexican states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Sonora and Tamaulipas.