California, U.K. Enter Global Warming Pact
California and the United Kingdom agree to become partners in the fight against global warming. The deal was sealed at the Port of Long Beach, where British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to share clean-air technology and research.
The agreement, similar to one more commonly adopted by two nations -- not by a country and a state -- sidesteps the Bush administration to address global warming. But environmental activists say the ability of the pact to bring about a healthier environment is unclear.
California has sought to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, a common combustion byproduct linked to a rising average temperature. Blair's government has struggled to keep the reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions atop the international agenda.
The deal between California and the Great Britain also includes the possibility of establishing a market for the trading of emissions rights, which proponents say would allow market forces to enact pollution controls. A similar provision is in the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 treaty the United States has not entered into.
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