While world leaders meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, this week at the largest and most important United Nations climate change conference in history, local businesses and environmentalists are debating climate change here in Northwest Indiana.
More than 190 nations will discuss ways to combat global warming. Negotiations have dragged on for two years, only recently showing a sign of change with new commitments from the United States, China and India to control greenhouse gas emissions. Along with about 15,000 delegates, officials said they expect protesters.
"The question is how do you balance in reducing (emissions) at one level without destroying the industries that we rely on," said Mark Reshkin, professor emeritus of geology and public and environmental affairs at Indiana University Northwest.
He said scientists have a temperature record, based on studying glacial ice, that goes back millions of years. Climates fluctuated over the ice ages, but Reshkin said today's temperatures are changing at a much higher rate than in the past. And there are consequences.
"Glaciers that occupy one-tenth of the earth, you melt the ice and it has to go somewhere," he said. "It's going to go in the ocean and sea level is going to rise."
A study released Sunday by the U.N. Environmental Program reported that pledges by industrial and emerging nations fall just short of the greenhouse gas emission reductions scientists have said are necessary to keep average temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees.
NIPSCO has invested $300 million on improvements to coal-fired generating plants to reduce emissions governed by the Clean Air Act, said spokesman Nick Meyer. He said the utility believes the new regulations need to be implemented gradually and equitably.
Local companies have come a long way in improving air quality, said Kay Nelson, director for environmental affairs for the Northwest Indiana Forum.
"The Northwest Indiana corporations include environmental protection and improvement as a critical business component," Nelson said. "And they also recognize they are part of the global community, not only from a competition standpoint, but as a resident."
Nelson said any international or national legislation should take into consideration that companies could transfer carbon emitting plants to countries with less stringent or nonexistent environmental regulations. Domestic manufacturing could be moved overseas, she said, in turn hurting the U.S. economy.
"Copenhagen may result in an agreement in actions to be pursued by the individual countries in terms of recommendations of reductions," Nelson said. "But the work that we have to comply with will be done at a national level."
And whatever the United States commits to will affect the entire country, said Lee Botts, a long-time environmentalist and a founder of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
"They won't have a treaty after 12 days, that's totally unrealistic," Botts said of the conference. "I think there will be a commitment to continue working together, working toward some kind of global agreement on how to deal with this enormous threat that we're all living with now."
More than 100 heads of state, including President Barack Obama, said they will attend the last day or two of the summit. Obama's decision to attend the end of the conference, not the middle, was taken as a signal that an agreement was getting closer.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday it now considers greenhouse gases a danger public health. The finding paves the way for stricter regulations on power plants, steel mills and other emitters.
The announcement shows other countries the United States intends on taking stringent regulatory actions and encourages other nations to do the same, said Scott Deloney, chief of the air quality division at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. But he said this is just the beginning of change.
"The unfortunate reality is that much of what's occurring relative to climate change and regulation of greenhouse gases is kind of in the infancy stages," Deloney said.
Climate activists in Copenhagen said the EPA decision could help the Obama administration move ahead on climate policy without waiting for action from Congress.
"The question is will they use it that way, or are they using it as a bargaining chip to threaten action, and get Congress to act instead," said Damon Moglen, of Greenpeace USA.
Times staff writer Keith Benman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
