States beat Washington to renewable energy

By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In Texas, home to some of the world's biggest oil companies, you might think the case for renewable energy would be tough to make. As it happened it was tough, but not impossible.

It was simply a case of showing that technologies like massive wind turbines and solar roof shingles would do the job with costs that were in line with power generated from fossil fuel, said Jim Marston, of the Texas office of Environmental Defense, an advocacy group.

Texas is one of more than 20 states which, lacking a lead from central government in Washington and spurred by mounting evidence of the threat of global warming, have pressed ahead with their own measures to boost renewable energy use and curb emissions of carbon dioxide, held largely responsible for pushing up world temperatures.

President George W. Bush, having rejected the ground-breaking Kyoto Protocol on curbing carbon dioxide on the ground that the U.S. economy could not afford it, in January acknowledged the challenge of climate change in his State of the Union address and spoke of new technologies and alternative fuels as possible solutions.

Initiatives taken in the United States, the world's largest greenhouse gas polluter accounting for nearly one quarter of all carbon emissions, are watched closely by scientists and governments round the world, hoping Bush's recognition of the need to curb emissions will be followed by meaningful action.

Just days after Bush's address, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report in Paris saying that global warming was "unequivocal" and that human use of fossil fuels almost certainly caused the rise in world temperatures recorded over the last half-century.

The panel forecast further temperature rises in the coming decades that would bring more severe storms, worse droughts and rising seas, threatening coastal areas and possibly forcing millions of people from low-lying land.

The Democratic victory in mid-term congressional elections last year has led to predictions by environmental groups, and some legislators, that the U.S. will set mandatory limits on carbon emissions by the end of this congressional session in 2008.