The Western Regional Air Partnership, which includes Utah, voted unanimously Tuesday to move forward with a two-year program to quantify global-warming trends from 1990 to 2020.

The partnership, a multiagency group that developed plans to clean up haze in the Grand Canyon, signed on with the nonprofit Center for Climate Strategies to make the regionwide assessment.

“It's got to be a combined effort,” said Dianne Nielson, director of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality.

“We've got to know what our contributions are, but we also need to know what is upwind and downwind of us.”

Tuesday's vote came at the beginning of two days of meetings for the group, whose members include leaders from Western state Indian tribes as well as state and federal government officials. The group last year added global warming to its consensus-building approach to solving air-quality problems from the Rockies west.

The Washington, D.C.-based climate strategies center already has helped the governments of Arizona, New Mexico and North Carolina size up climate change in those states. A critical mass has grown in recent years, prompting business, government and the public to call for a clearer picture of what can be done to deal with human causes of global warming.

Insurance companies, banks and investors have begun to demand assessments like these, along with plans for coping. California, Arizona and other Western states presented their strategies for dealing with climate change Tuesday.

Rick Sprott, director of the Utah Division of Air Quality, called the proposed plan “exciting.” He noted that all Utahns, regardless of what they think about climate science, can expect one benefit of dealing with climate change to be energy savings.

Another benefit businesses will see is greater certainty, allowing power companies, for instance, to have a clearer picture of what will be the best type of electric plant to build. Sprott noted that businesses also want credit for reducing their emissions.

“We think there's a huge potential out there for people to take action, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

The multistate climate-change assessment is expected to be completed at the end of 2007.

Whatever strategies it suggests will have to be developed by state officials, perhaps a government-industry-citizens group, Nielson said.

The $256,000 tab will be paid for by foundations funding the climate strategies center.

fahys@sltrib.com