E2 Round-up: Automakers as free thinkers, more on the Senate climate bill, an oil sands report card, and more

On Wednesday we wrote about a major auto industry trade group opposing legislation that would block EPA climate change rules. Late in the day, the lead senator behind the block-EPA plan said, essentially, that Democratic leaders forced the automakers to oppose it.

Not so, says the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which has 11 members including Detroit’s big three, Toyota, BMW and others. From the Detroit News account Wednesday evening:

“A spokesman for the alliance, Charles Territo, denied that automakers were pressured into sending the letter. He said the industry was carefully reviewing the issue before it decided to send a letter,” the piece states.

Elsewhere, Bloomberg notes that negotiators for several governments are already writing off the chances of reaching a binding global climate treaty at the next major UN summit, which is late this year in Cancun, Mexico.

It’s the latest report of comments by various officials who are strongly lowering expectations for the talks, following the tumultuous Copenhagen summit in December that fell far short of hopes.

From Bloomberg:

Kunihiko Shimada, principal international negotiator at the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, said yesterday a deal this year is “almost impossible.” Jos Delbeke, who spearheads European Union climate policy at the European Commission, ruled out a “comprehensive legal agreement” in 2010.

Their remarks call into question whether efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions are progressing after failing in Copenhagen in December. President Barack Obama’s energy proposal is bogged down in the U.S. Congress. Without a U.S. commitment, China and India, two of the fastest-growing polluters, may be reluctant to limit greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

“The expectations for a legally binding treaty are diminishing,” Abyd Karmali, global head of carbon markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in an interview at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in London. “A lot of it is contingent on what we get in Washington. Right now it doesn’t seem it’s going to be as much as we thought.”

About that U.S. commitment . . . Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) pitched an outline of their long-awaited climate change and energy plan to several industry trade groups Wednesday afternoon.

Some details of their plan emerged from sources familiar with the meeting.

They hope to begin a cap-and-trade plan for utilities in 2012, begin bringing other industrial facilities under the cap in 2016 (which may be too fast for Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin), and their plan will also include a so-called price collar to keep the costs of emissions allowances from getting too high, among other provisions.

Citing this detailed account in E&E News PM (via the New York Times), Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard writes that “it sounds like their bill will be very industry-friendly.”

Sheppard also reports that the senators are pitching their plan to environmental groups today.

Alberta’s massive oil sands projects have long been in the crosshairs of climate activists. But oil companies and their supporters say the industry is tapping this large resource with increasing environmental sensitivity.

The Vancouver Sun and other Canadian papers covered a new report by the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental think tank that has long criticized oil sands development. The group looked at the effects of “in-situ” projects that can access the oil sands without large-scale strip mining.

But these projects carry their own risks, Pembina finds.

“In its first report card on deep oilsands projects, the Pembina Institute said Wednesday its study of nine projects reveals some in situ environmental impacts as serious as mining, and there is significant room for improvement in most,” the Sun reports.