Gibbons warms up to global warming

By Joe Schoenmann

Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 7:27 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Gov. Jim Gibbons quieted environmental critics this week by recognizing the existence of global warming - and by saying that he wants to do something about it.

In announcing a Nevada Climate Change Advisory Committee, Gibbons said he was "looking forward to Nevada joining the world in its quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

The statement effectively ended a minor furor that arose last month after his energy and science adviser, Hatice Gecol, told the Las Vegas Sun that committee members would make no assumption that global warming does or does not exist.

"They need to look at both possibilities," Gecol had said. "They need to evaluate all the scientific data."

Gibbons, too, had been on record as being skeptical of global warming. As a member of Congress, he argued that the United States should not sign the Kyoto Protocol, which committed all signatory nations to work to reduce greenhouse gases. The United States helped negotiate the accord but never signed it.

Alan Pinkerton, deputy director of the Clark County Air Quality & Environmental Management Department and an appointee to the new climate change committee, said Wednesday that the governor has clearly declared "that there is an issue and we have a role to play in solving it. So in my mind, that shoe has already fallen."

The committee's task will be to recommend ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists believe have contributed to rising temperatures around the world.

The Sun sought comment from Gibbons and Gecol, but calls to the governor's office were not returned Wednesday.

Energy experts have touted Nevada as a state where renewable energy sources - sun, wind and geothermal - can be easily harnessed.

Doing so could position Nevada as a powerful energy broker as states form alliances to offset carbon emissions by creating a system of pollution credits for private industry.

For instance, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington are working on a system that would reward companies that use renewable energy sources and allow companies that miss their pollution goals to buy credits from firms that have met their goals.

Over decades, the emission standards would be tightened as more companies converted to renewable energy.

"We have everything in this state to become the Manhattan Project of renewable energy development," said Monica Brett, a Community College of Southern Nevada adjunct political science professor. Brett has more than a decade of experience working with the U.N. Environment Program and the European Union on environmental issues.

Gibbons' staff asked Brett to join the committee. She declined, however, sensing that the staff lacked professionalism.

That feeling stemmed, in part, from a meeting she had set up in March for the governor, Gecol and two experts in renewable energy, Terry Tamminen and Fran Pavley.

Tamminen wrote the book "Lives Per Gallon," and was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Environmental Protection Agency secretary. She also served as Schwarzenegger's chief policy adviser.

Pavley is a former California assemblywoman who wrote that state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 and is now the senior climate adviser for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Brett said neither Gibbons nor Gecol showed for the meeting. Instead, Brett said, she, Pavley and Tamminen met with the staff.

Brett also said she had concerns that the committee includes experts in government and the energy industry but does not spell out how the public would be involved.

"What concerns me is that the average citizen has to deal with whatever they put together, and it's a closed-door system," she said.

Pinkerton said he assumed the committee would follow the state's open meeting law.

In response to the Sun's stories in March about the committee, an e-mail from Gecol that found its way onto the Internet quotes her as saying she would not open the meetings.

"I was seriously considering having the press attend the meetings, but no more," the e-mail said.