Schwarzenegger summit: A sizable carbon footprint - San Jose Mercury News

SACRAMENTO—Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, seeking to influence a United Nations conference on climate change next month, is convening a global summit on greenhouse gas emissions next week in Los Angeles.

His conference, announced six weeks ago, itself will be a sizable source of the gases blamed for contributing to global climate change, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

The AP obtained a list of the more than 1,400 invitees through a California Public Records Act request. If all of them made the trip, their roundtrip air travel alone would discharge more than 2,554 metric tons of carbon dioxide—a so-called carbon footprint equivalent to that produced from 424 cars driven for a year.

The Schwarzenegger administration said it plans to account for those carbon emissions and said the value of the conference will outweigh those concerns. It will provide two days of workshops on how industries can reduce their emissions, how governments can encourage environmentally friendly businesses and related topics.

Lisa Page, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, said the administration expects 700 invitees and staff to attend the summit. The emissions generated from all their travel, energy used at the hotel, food and other services would be offset, she said.

The money will fund alternative energy projects in Brazil, China, India, Russia and Idaho, she told the AP.

In addition, attendees will be provided room keys, name badges, lunch boxes and coffee cups made of recycled material. Water bottles will not be provided, and all leftover food will be donated.

"Governor Schwarzenegger is leading by example and taking thoughtful, thorough steps to offset the carbon footprint of every last piece of this summit," Page said. "Through the collaborative actions that will be developed at this summit, the participating states and provinces will go a long way to reducing greenhouse gas emissions around the world."
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Not everyone agrees that spending money to offset travel-related pollution works as stated. Sending money to groups may not be a direct trade-off for the amount of carbon produced by an intercontinental flight, said Ken Caldeira, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution's department of global ecology at Stanford University.

"The carbon from flying in a plane will still be in the atmosphere a thousand years from now, but there's no assurance a tree will be around that long," he said. "There's some concern you're trading apples for oranges."

Schwarzenegger and global warming - Los Angeles Times

It might be better if our governor just vents concern about climate change and doesn't sign any global deals at an upcoming summit.
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will get a break next week from the miserable business of trying to solve California's wrenching budget woes, jetting to Los Angeles to take on a role he genuinely seems to relish: standing on the international stage as a leader on climate change. This will probably be his last chance to play the part, and we wish him well. But it's past time for this particular show to close.
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The cap-and-trade schemes advanced by both Schwarzenegger and Obama aren't the ideal way to fight global warming (carbon taxes would be far simpler and more effective), but they could work -- as long as the programs are tightly regulated and monitored. That's nearly impossible to do across borders, which is why even California's plan to trade carbon credits with Canadian provinces is problematic. Getting involved with distant and corruption-plagued countries such as Indonesia would be outright disastrous. So while we appreciate the international goodwill Schwarzenegger will generate next week, this is one global conference at which we'd be happy to see nothing accomplished.