Climate Politics

Stonewall Johnson

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Bush Era:

Rep. Ed Markey unveils ambitious new climate legislation

Rep. Ed Markey, chair of the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, unveiled new climate legislation on Wednesday morning, which he says will take “the innovative actions needed to ensure a greener, healthier, and more prosperous future.” The plan, which Markey will introduce formally next Tuesday, calls for an 85 percent reduction in […]

Probably no U.S. CO2 emissions cuts from new Lieberman-Warner bill until after 2025

I made a mistake about the Boxer substitute for the Lieberman-Warner bill. Every year, it allows enough offsets into the market to cover 30 percent of the total quantity of emissions allowances. I had said it was 15 percent, which was a loophole the size of the Gateway Arch. How big a loophole is 30 percent offsets? Wait and see.

I had said the three offsets -- domestic, international, and international forestry -- could make up 15 percent of allowances because the WRI summary [PDF] says that "The combination of all three of these mechanisms is limited to 15 percent of total emissions allowances" and because when I read the actual bill (page 23), that's what it seemed to say. But in fact we read it wrong. My apologies! What does this all mean?

Brazil swears in new environment minister

Carlos Minc was sworn in as Brazil’s environment minister on Tuesday. Minc succeeds Marina Silva, who quit after six years of uphill battling to protect the Amazon rainforest from development. Greens are cautiously optimistic about Minc, who was a founder of Brazil’s Green Party, a former environment secretary in the state of Rio de Janeiro, […]

Stratfor breaks it down

Interesting stuff over on Stratfor about the “Geopolitics of $130 oil.” The short story is: The U.S. is hit, but not too hard, given its transition from manufacturing to services. China gets the worst of it by far — it lives by manufacturing but it’s forced to hold prices down to avoid unrest, so it’s […]

Time to kick the oil habit

This is the latest in a series on why it is important to push hard for climate legislation this year.

Over the past few months, I've made the case for passing climate legislation in 2008: We don't want to squander the current momentum, we simply can't afford to wait, and while we do, we only prolong a dangerous catch-22.

Now we're finally on the doorstep of Senate action on a comprehensive climate change bill. Floor debate over the Climate Security Act (S. 3036) will begin Monday, June 2.

If opponents of meaningful action have their way, the debate will be nothing more than a short, partisan fight over gas prices. You can already hear the predictable scare tactics: "Why would we want to raise gas prices now, when working Americans are already suffering at the pump?"

That's a phony argument -- but it brings me to another reason for passing a climate bill in 2008: It's time to kick our oil habit, and the best way to do that is with a cap-and-trade policy that reduces our dependence on fossil fuels.

Gas prices are at a record high because of growing demand from China and other developing nations. That's not going to change. The only solution is to end our addiction to oil.

Zap a lobbyist

A lobbyist and a lie detector.

Club for Growth starts campaign to derail Lieberman-Warner

The Club for Growth — a conservative group “dedicated to helping elect pro-growth, pro-freedom candidates through political contributions and issue advocacy campaigns” — is already waging war on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, slated to hit the Senate floor June 2. But instead of going after the bill itself, they’re targeting individual senators who seem […]

Obama’s commencement speech calls for service to the country, planet on climate front

David beat me to a post on Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Wesleyan on Sunday. The part about climate change and clean energy was good, but what I found most encouraging was at the beginning, when climate change was cited, along with hunger, war, and economic strife, as an area where our personal lives and […]

Lobbying for the enemy of the human race

Million here, million there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money: Peabody Investments Corp., a subsidiary of coal producer Peabody Energy Corp., spent nearly $1.3 million in the first quarter to lobby on issues related to the coal industry, according to a disclosure report. The company lobbied Congress on legislation involving renewable energy and energy […]