At a bell-ringing ceremony held today at the New York Mercantile Exchange in lower Manhattan, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) marked the opening of the first-in-the-nation auction for carbon dioxide emission allowances.  The ceremony, which was attended by Governor David A. Paterson of New York and Governor Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey, served to mark the most serious effort yet in the United States to address climate change.

RGGI will reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a mandatory, market-based cap-and-trade program. Under RGGI, the ten participating states will stabilize power sector carbon emissions at their capped level, and then reduce the cap by 10 percent at a rate of 2.5 percent each year between 2015 and 2018. Futerra is proud to be RGGI's communications partner and we've developed the website and run the media relations campaign through our New York office.