So, when Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed a pact Monday to reduce global warming, the rift over Utah's climate-change policy tumbled out into the light of day.

With the Legislature staked out in one position and the governor in an opposite one, people are wondering how Huntsman can accomplish his goals.

In some respects, Utah's debate echoes a wider one, one that's shifted from whether or not climate change is happening to what ought to be done to deal with the political and economic response already taking shape.

The changes are coming, the thinking goes. Those who don't deal with climate change now will get stuck dealing with it later - at greater expense.

Policymakers will have a tough time choosing the wisest course, said David Litvin, director of the Utah Mining Association and member of a climate change task force formed by Huntsman last year. Any solution has got to account for the costs of combating climate change, and that may be difficult to pin down when there are so many unanswered scientific questions.

"There are a whole array of challenges that need to be faced," he said. "It's one thing to say you're going to do something, and it's another to say how you are going to do it."

As it turns out, Utah's executive branch has been tiptoeing forward on climate change for years.

In fact, a team of state employees was finishing a report on how the state could deal with global warming while the Legislature debated its anti-Kyoto resolution nine years ago.

Huntsman wasted little time getting to work on the issue, appointing a state energy adviser a few months after taking office in 2005.

And, since August, he's had his Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change brainstorming the issue. The group of stakeholders - with representatives from mining to electric power, government, environmentalists and even legislators - is expected to make recommendations by fall.

The panel has reviewed more than 200 options for dealing with climate change. And among them are the five general elements of the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative Huntsman signed with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday:

* Participating in a uniform accounting system for greenhouse gasses.

* Setting reduction goals.

* Joining a cap-and-trade system for keeping greenhouse gases in check. For instance, companies that exceed pollution limits can buy "credits" from those who fall below those limits.

* Adopting a policy of getting a certain percentage of Utah's energy from renewable power.

* Making improvements in energy efficiency.

Schwarzenegger, whose Legislature is controlled by Democrats in both houses, praised his Utah counterpart for showing "forward leadership." But it's not clear that message will play as well in dyed-in-the-wool red Republican Utah.

Kathy Van Dame, policy coordinator for the Wasatch Clean Air Coalition and member of a Huntsman brainstorming group, called it "an uphill battle," even with the widespread support Huntsman is counting on from constituents.

"He's going to have to convince [opponents] that business as usual won't work; that if we stay on the same path Utah will be left behind," she said.

State Sen. Mike Dmitrich has his doubts. Utah is a big state for coal, which is one of the prime culprits behind greenhouse-gas emissions. Utah gets more than 90 percent of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, the Price Democrat noted.

"Huntsman, before he gets too far into it, should look at the economics," he said.

Not only are there coal-industry jobs on the line if, say, a carbon tax increases the cost of providing energy, he said. But also consumers could see their rates go "out of sight."

A member of Huntsman's climate change task force, Dmitrich is the author of the 1998 resolution - which passed unanimously in the Senate and 57-14 in the House - that barred state employees from working on climate change.

In an interview May 17, the Utah governor said many of his plans do not require the Legislature's approval.

"This is a state joining a multi-state compact," he said. "So this is just a unilateral decision on the part of the executive branch."

But another potential opponent is Attorney Gen. Mark Shurtleff, whose office signed onto a U.S. Supreme Court case in which several states were pushing federal environmental regulators to regulate the pollution blamed for global warming. The anti-regulation arguments by Utah's Republican attorney general, eight other states and an auto industry association were rejected by the court last month.

Huntsman's staff is already taking steps toward some of the initiative goals. One is a plan that, by 2015, would have Utah homes, businesses and government agencies improve their energy efficiency by 20 percent.

He also is poised to announce a renewable energy portfolio requirement, which basically means a certain amount of the energy used in Utah should come from solar, wind, hydroelectric and other energy sources that do not rely on fossil fuels.

Sarah Wright, director of the Utah Clean Energy campaign, said saving money on energy and improving the nation's energy independence are two important selling points. As the state works toward those widely accepted goals, it also reduces its contribution to the pollution that causes climate change, the burning of fossil fuels, she said.

"The solutions make economic sense now," she added, noting more than $6 billion can be saved in the next eight years through the conservation program alone.

Like Huntsman, she also emphasized the costs of not acting. For one, if Utah doesn't find ways to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions - the pollution blamed for climate change - it may end up having to pay later. The conventional wisdom is that either the government or the marketplace will soon enough require controls on carbon, maybe through a carbon tax or through the cap-and-trade system similar to the one that has cut the pollution blamed for acid rain.

"If we go into the future with blinders on and we ignore potential carbon regulation and we build coal plants without regard to the future, Utah ratepayers will bear the risks and pay that cost going forward," Wright said.

That seems to be the thinking of Rocky Mountain Power, whose parent company operates in three of the five states that originally signed the Western climate pact. Pacificorp was among the first to sign up for the California Climate Action Registry, the independent agency that is considered the model for how to measure climate change emissions.

The company looks at high-growth states like Utah, in particular, and says that renewables and efficiency just aren't enough to cover future needs at this point.

"Any resource we pick will cost more than what we have now," said Dave Eskelsen, spokesman for Rocky Mountain Power.

Rich Collins said embracing climate change now makes good business sense.

"If you are going to build a coal plant," said the Westminster College economics professor, "you'd better build one that can sequester carbon . . . It's a prudent expenditure of money because we're reducing our risks going forward."

For Huntsman, innovation is the answer - and an important growth opportunity for his state.

"I think we are going to see a revolution of sorts in this particular industry," he said. "And we ought to be at the forefront of that revolution as opposed to behind."

fahys@sltrib.com