The Western strategy.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Some day the world's largest national economy and energy user will join the fight against global warming. When that time finally arrives, Oregon will be among the states whose leadership created momentum for a comprehensive U.S. strategy to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

On Monday, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski joined the governors of Washington, California, Arizona and New Mexico in agreeing to a historic new plan to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and establish a regional carbon trading system.

What the plan lacks in detail - it's not yet clear how much the states will cut their emissions and how soon they will be able to do it - it makes up for in symbolism. While the Bush administration stubbornly continues to insist that voluntary measures by the private sector are the best way to combat global warming, the Western states have responded with a bold initiative that could lay the groundwork for a national global warming policy regulating carbon dioxide emissions.

Under the agreement, a regional target for lowering emissions will be established within six months. The states will take another 12 months to devise a strategy for reducing emissions, most likely a regional cap-and-trade system that allows polluters to buy and sell greenhouse gas pollution credits.

California and its Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, deserve credit for leading the Western response to global warming. Last year, California passed legislation mandating a 25 percent cut below current levels of greenhouse gases, a move aimed at reducing emissions to 1990 levels.

By joining forces with California, Oregon and its fellow Western states have positioned themselves to achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that none could realize on their own. California alone has the world's seventh-largest economy and the 12th largest output of greenhouse gas emissions. Combined, the five states emit 11 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions, an output that exceeds that of some individual nations that signed the Kyoto treaty.

While the five governors are certainly aware of the message that their agreement sends to Washington, D.C., the new strategy is intended to protect the interests of their own Western states, which are particularly vulnerable to increased droughts, wildfires and other long-term global warming impacts

Reducing greenhouse emissions promises to be a complex and costly undertaking, but it may also prove a profitable one for the participating states. President Bush and others oppose mandatory limits on greenhouse emissions on the basis of exaggerated claims that they will wreak havoc with the nation's economy. But there's ample reason to believe the new Western initiative could disprove that claim by producing major net gains in economic value and new jobs stemming from the development of new technologies that conserve energy or produce it from clean sources.

Congress, with a new Democratic majority that appears far more interested in attacking global warming than its predecessors, will be watching the Western experiment with interest. Meanwhile, other states and communities across the country are moving ahead with their own strategies in the glaring absence of federal leadership on climate change.

As promising as these experiments are, they're an inadequate substitute for engagement by the federal government. The world cannot effectively address global warming without full U.S. involvement and leadership. Perhaps the Western initiative will persuade Congress and the White House to get off the sidelines and into the game.