Climate Politics
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Obama admin delays decision on development in national forests
The Obama administration announced on Thursday that it is delaying a decision on policy that guides the construction of new roads and other development in areas of national forests for one year. An interim directive will guide land use in roadless areas in the meantime. Delayed gratification for roadless advocates. The new directive, issued by […]
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Counting the real progress on climate action
This piece was co-written by Nina Hachigian and Julian Wong of the Center for American Progress. —– We are now entering the six-month period before the U.N. climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, which are intended to hammer out a successor treaty to the Kyoto protocol that expires in 2012. Progress on climate policy domestically will […]
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Draft Negotiating Text Proposed for Copenhagen Agreement (Part 1)
The draft negotiating texts for the Copenhagen agreement are now out. Just like in the US Congressional debate on climate legislation and other parliamentary debates around the world, you need to have a proposal on paper before you can make changes, find consensus, and get agreement that can be signed into law (ratified, etc.). Sort […]
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Do the 2 billion offsets allowed in Waxman-Markey gut the emissions targets? Part 1
The flaw in the Waxman-Markey bill is not the too-many offsets that domestic polluters are (potentially) allowed to purchase in lieu of actually reducing their own emissions. The flaw in Waxman-Markey is the too-mild 2020 target — a 17% reduction from 2005 levels — which will be so easy to achieve with various low-cost clean […]
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The wonderful politics of cap-and-trade: A closer look at Waxman-Markey
The headline of this post is not meant to be ironic. Despite all the hand-wringing in the press and the blogosphere about a political “give-away” of allowances for the cap-and-trade system in the Waxman-Markey bill voted out of committee last week, the politics of cap-and-trade systems are truly quite wonderful, which is why these systems […]
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Gore’s green groups kick into campaign mode to push climate legislation
Gore and R.K. Pachauri, head of the International Panel on Climate Change, talk with the media at the May gathering of The Climate Project in Nashville.Associated Press photo Al Gore is drawing lessons from the Obama campaign as he works to rally support for the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill. While the environmental movement will […]
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Commenter: New leaders in the making in coal country
I wanted to call out a great comment on the Carbon Nine story from user johnpdeever: … how bout a little kudos for Zach Space and Charlie Wilson of Ohio for leaning toward the green side? Both represent a whole bunch of Appalachian Ohio counties that rely on coal (and on burning it to power […]
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In the House, a nine-way tie for climate swing vote
The House Democrats who could determine the fate of the American Clean Energy & Security Act: (rear, from left) Baron Hill, Earl Pomeroy, Artur Davis, Rick Boucher; (front, from left) Mike Ross, Charlie Melancon, Jason Altmire, John Tanner, and Gene Taylor.Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / Grist Imagine the 435 members of the U.S. House […]
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22 more House Democrats who hold the keys to Waxman-Markey
In addition to the Carbon Nine, research by economists Matthew Kahn and Michael Cragg shows these 22 Democrats could play a key role in passing comprehensive climate legislation this year, based on the per-capita carbon emissions of their respective congressional districts. Most of the lawmakers listed below have stayed mum about their opinion of the […]
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Waxman-Markey giveaways pit consumer protection against climate protection
Waxman-Markey supposedly requires a large percent of the savings from free permits to be passed along to consumers. The intent is that they act as protection against price increases rather than a source of profits for large companies. Unfortunately, to the extent this works, it is likely to dampen the price signals that are supposed […]
