LANSING – There was agreement between business officials and scientists Tuesday that the Earth is warming and human activity contributes to that, but while a group of scientists in the state urged new federal policy on the issue, business officials argued the cost of the proposals was substantially higher than the gains.

A group of 178 scientists from 11 state colleges and universities signed a letter to the state’s congressional delegation asking for support of a cap and trade plan to limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as part of an effort to reduce the effects of global warming.

“We are convinced that immediate action is necessary to avoid the worst consequences of global warming on Michigan’s economy and environment, including the Great Lakes,” the letter said. “Controlling carbon emissions is critical to the energy future of our state and nation. It will help Michigan and the United States take full advantage of the clean renewable resources and energy efficient technologies that are available today.”

A group of industry and labor panelists told Michigan Chamber of Commerce members, meanwhile, that the state would face substantial economic and employment costs if the plans currently under discussion in Congress were adopted.

“I think everybody’s concerned about what it means to the Michigan economy,” said Doug Roberts Jr. with the Chamber. He said DTE Energy officials had estimated the cap and trade proposal would mean $500 million in rate increases once the system is fully implemented.

David Kreutzer, an economist with the Washington, D.C-based Heritage Foundation Energy Economics and Climate Change Center for Data Analysis, said prices for power would have to increase for the cap and trade plan to work. “The cost has to go up on average across the country enough to pull the CO2 down,” he said.

Implementing emissions restrictions without increasing energy prices would not drive down energy use enough to create the expected gains, he said.

But scientists supporting the measure said there are costs to continued emissions as well. Thomas Lyon, director of the Erb Institute of Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, said agriculture alone is losing $20 million as a result of global warming and that shipping and touring would decline as water levels in the Great Lakes fall.

Lyon also noted that some of the state’s major manufacturers, including Dow Chemical, which was part of the Chamber presentation, are supporting the plan.

In addition to the plan providing those companies the regulatory certainty to be able to make investments in emissions controls and limitations, Lyon said the plan also provides the opportunity for new companies to develop and grown in the state.

“We have to get away from dependence on small set of big companies designed for cheap fossil fuels,” Lyon said.

Kreutzer said analyses of the gains from the cap and trade plan show they are not much. While projections based on current emissions have temperatures increasing about 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, he said the cap and trade plan would cut that increase by only .2 degrees.

But he said the plan would push electricity prices up 90 percent and natural gas prices up 55 percent above what they would have been under projected inflation by 2035.

“It’s a hugely futile and expensive effort to try to affect climate change by cutting CO2,” he said.

Kreutzer argued current energy prices are enough to drive increased efficiency without the added policy. “We have been getting more and more efficient because energy is expensive,” he said. “As soon as people realize that $2 a gallon gasoline was a blip, the market will respond.”

The group of scientists disagreed both on the role of human activity in global warming (they said it was a main, not contributing, cause) and on the benefits of the cap and trade plan in combating it.

“It’s a huge, slow process that has to be attained with a steady hand over many decades,” said Ted Parson a professor of law and natural resources and the environment at the UM. “This bill does a good job of implementing that steady, sustained hand.”

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