For Immediate Release:
November 15, 2006

Contact:
Susan Martin: 415-955-6120
smartin@pacificresearch.org

SAN FRANCISCO — Policymakers should not take carbon emission reduction policies lightly, according to the new study “Sense and Sequestration: The Carbon Sequestration Cycle Explained” released today by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in California. While sequestration offers a viable approach to decreasing CO2 emissions, the costs are high and the details are numerous. The study can be downloaded at http://www.pacificresearch.org/.

Though there is no conclusive proof of the effects of CO2 on climate change, there is growing public concern that greenhouse gases are a potential cause of global warming. With carbon dioxide comprising more than 80 percent of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions, policymakers are looking toward carbon sequestration—the process in which carbon is captured before or after emission and stored long term—as one approach to decreasing CO2 emissions.

“Regardless of where or how expenses for carbon emissions reductions might fall, they would inevitably end up coming out of one place: the consumer’s wallets,” said Dr. Amy Kaleita, public policy fellow in Environmental Studies at PRI and author of “Sense and Sequestration.”

Dr. Kaleita maintains that all of the current approaches mean higher energy prices and higher costs for carbon-based fossil fuel usage. She concludes, “Policymakers should encourage adoption of CO2 emissions reductions in such a way as to encourage continued technological advancement in the area of sequestration, which will ultimately drive down the costs.”

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About PRI
For 27 years, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) has championed freedom, opportunity, and individual responsibility through free-market policy solutions. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. For more information please visit our web site at http://www.pacificresearch.org/