Climate Politics
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IYD: Next global climate agreement must safeguard survival of all countries, all peoples
I am writing in the midst of a dramatic shift in global climate policy. The official President’s Summary of COP-14 bears witness to this shift and signals the guiding principle of a just and equitable post-2012 climate agreement next year in Copenhagen. And this outcome is due in large part to the work of young […]
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Updates on secretary of agriculture appointment
In the five weeks since the election and almost a month since my first post about the secretary of agriculture, a lot has changed. But one thing has become increasingly clear: The people who voted for Barack Obama expect change at the head of USDA. The next person to head the Department of Agriculture needs […]
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Obama’s new climate czar on various environmental issues
Carol Browner is set to become Obama’s czar point-person on climate and energy issues. To get a flavor of her thinking, check out the short videos she did for the On Day One project. Here she urges the next president to reassert the importance of independent science: Here she urges the next president to reverse […]
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Doubts Chu’s ease of transition from the ‘academic world to the administrative world’
You might think someone who had utterly failed in his or her job might have learned enough humility to avoid criticizing others attempting a similar job. But not Bush’s first EPA administrator, Christie Todd Whitman, who told MSNBC: As for Steven Chu, Obama’s apparent choice to head up the Energy Department, Whitman expressed concerns over […]
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It’s ‘premature’ to declare the death of an agreement in Copenhagen
[I’m going to reprint dispatches from the climate talks in Poland by Center for American Progress senior fellow Andrew Light, which were first printed in WonkRoom.] It goes by various names here: “The chicken and egg problem,” “The ping pong problem,” mostly though it’s just “The American problem.” All are various terms for the same […]
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Bush appointee reportedly holding up transition efforts at NASA
Transition efforts at NASA are not going smoothly, reports Robert Block of the Orlando Sentinel: NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned. […]
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Al Gore calls for 350 ppm goal at Poznan climate summit
In a speech at the U.N. climate summit in Poland today, Al Gore argued that older targets for reducing global-warming pollution are out of date, and that world leaders should aim to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. “Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which […]
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Enviro coalition offers up green recovery plan
A coalition of 17 environmental groups on Thursday offered their plan for an economic-recovery package, one that would direct nearly $171 billion to green programs over the next two years. The plan covers a variety of sectors, calling for investments of nearly $12 billion for energy efficiency, $47.5 billion for renewable energy, $59 billion for […]
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Climate website combines economics with climate change realities
Who says economists don’t have a sense of humor? Actually we don’t, but we have a new website intended to make economics serve environmental objectives far better than it has in the past: ClimateChangeEcon.net. The site provides regulators, legislators, and policy analysts — and anyone else who’s interested — access to a comprehensive clearinghouse of […]