Climate Politics

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  • Cautious optimism for Copenhagen deal as Barcelona climate talks end

    Is that the sun we see?The mood was markedly improved on the final day of the Barcelona climate talks, as delegates, observers, and non-governmental organizations all brushed off the pessimism that dominated much of this week and announced that there is still hope for a global deal at the Copenhagen COP15 summit. News that the […]

    Brendan DeMelle Politics

  • How industry pressures and competing national agendas dim prospects for a climate treaty

    A version of this post was originally published on the website of the Center for Public Integrity and is reposted on Grist with CPI’s kind permission. —– It is said that borders don’t matter to the atmosphere — all nations have to work together to tackle the problem of climate change. But the forces that […]

    Marianne Lavelle Politics

  • Barcelona outcome: White House strategy is plea for more time

    As climate talks wrapped up in Barcelona, the picture wasn’t nearly this pretty.Photo: MorBCNIt’s been 30 years since scientists gained a clear understanding of the dangerous consequences of continuously adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This week during five days of negotiations in Barcelona, the world learned again that the formula for solving global […]

    Keith Schneider Politics

  • Feed-in tariffs — the new school of thought

    As a boy growing up near the Louisiana Gulf Coast, I remember looking out of the car window at times and seeing gigantic flames over the bayous: gas flares. Around 1970, the flaring of natural gas peaked. Oil prices were so low back then that marketing gas would not have been profitable. Today, far less […]

    Craig Morris Politics

  • The ‘party of no’ becomes the ‘party of slow’

    Cross-posted from the Wonk Room and co-written with energy team interns Jaren Love and Michael McGovern at the Center for American Progress. Senate Republicans are demanding lengthy economic analyses of progressive clean energy policy, despite having spent careers voting for and against major energy legislation without such delay. This week the Republican members of the […]

    Daniel J. Weiss Politics

  • Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

    Kay HaganKay Hagan, junior senator from North Carolina, is not a shoo-in on the Kerry-Boxer climate bill, but she appears to be leaning toward supporting it. When asked in mid-October if she would support a climate bill with cap-and-trade, the senator replied, “We’re certainly talking about it. The Kerry-Boxer bill is … out there but […]

    Samantha McCann Politics

  • The Climate Post: The gods must be crazy

    Fist things fist: If this section’s heading doesn’t look quite right it’s because there are a few r’s missing. That was true this week of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, a panel of Democrats whose Republican sparring partners boycotted work on the climate bill co-sponsored by Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sen. John […]

    Eric Roston Politics

  • Soda lobby gets its game on

    HuffingtonPost has a piece up detailing the food lobby’s full court press over a federal soda/sweetener tax: During the first 9 months of 2009, the industry groups stepped up their lobbying in Congress. They have spent more than $24 million on the issue of a national excise tax on sweetened beverages and on other legislative […]

    Tom Laskawy Politics

  • Consumer Reports finds BPA traces in common canned foods

    Bisphenol A, commonly abbreviated as BPA, is vile stuff–not the kind of thing a smart species knowingly introduces into its ecosystem. And if a species were to willfully foul its nest with BPA, it would at least be wise to keep it out of direct contact with food. That’s because BPA is an established endocrine […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Blowing up our clean energy future

    Last week, blasting began on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia. This is a part of the country where dynamite routinely goes off—turning the region’s historic mountain ranges into dust for the tiny coal seams that lie beneath their surface. But Coal River Mountain is special, or, rather, you can decide whether it becomes special. […]

    Nell Greenberg Politics