climate change policy
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Is China winning the clean energy race?
Photo: Elizabeth Thomsen Today, in global talks, in the Senate, on the street, you still hear a murmur here and there about “not doing anything until India and China sign on.” And this previously pervasive attitude, however obsolete, may already be coming back to bite industrialized nations. Indeed, the big honchos in the West may […]
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‘Citizen’s Guide’ primes readers for climate activism
The following post was written by Lois Parshley and Ben Wessel, students at Middlebury College. Download a PDF copy of the guide.According to The Center for Public Integrity, more than 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence federal climate policy in 2008. That means every morning, 2,340 briefcase-holding and business […]
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Hansen versus Romm
The following comment, submitted climateprogress.org in response to Romm’s July 9 story about Hansen, was censored: July 9, 2009 at 11:25 pm For all of Waxman-Markey’s faults, I think it gets two things right: (1) allowance set-asides to fund tropical forest conservation, and (2) a meaningful price floor. These measures move U.S. policy closer to […]
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Even More About Me
[9/08/2010] I am a California resident and climate policy activist with a particular interest in legislative policy related to climate change. Recent writings: “Going Beyond CAFE Standards: Feebate Financing Incentives for Fuel Economy” (September 3, 2010)http://ssrn.com/abstract=1624672 “A Decarbonization Strategy for the Electricity Sector: New-Source Subsidies” (January 13, 2010)http://ssrn.com/abstract=1427106 Circumventing the Weight-Versus-Footprint Tradeoffs in Vehicle Fuel […]
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Revised and updated: Things I love — and hate — about Waxman-Markey
Editor’s note: A revised and updated federal version of Sightline Cap and Trade 101 is now available. Download Cap and Trade 101: A Federal Climate Policy Primer here. The original version of this post originally appeared June 11, 2009. It was based on the version of the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act (H.R. […]
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Coal-nundrum and Ex-gas-peration
Recently, I met with the CEO of a utility to discuss how to get at carbon reduction goals. He asked two insightful questions. The first was, “Why doesn’t the natural gas industry support climate legislation?” One of the key points turned up in the utility’s analysis of future supply is that we’re going to have […]
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Nuclear + cap-and-trade = bipartisan climate bill?
Getting a climate bill through the Senate with some Republican support might be easier than many observers think, but only if it comes with provisions providing a big boost for nuclear energy. That was one takeaway from Tuesday’s Senate committee hearing on climate change legislation, the first of a series that the Environment and Public […]
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Did Waxman-Markey’s ancestors really deliver on their promises?
President Obama is betting that a cap-and-trade program can help solve the climate crisis. Southern California leaders hoped the same thing when they set up a cap-and-trade program to clean up the region’s air. The results? See above. Photo: jordansmall via Flickr Nearly 20 years ago, a novel program called “cap and trade” was rolled […]
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Cap-and-trade primer goes to Washington (DC)
We all know that the devil’s in the details when it comes to legislation, and the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a.k.a. Waxman-Markey, is no exception. This 900-plus page proposal tackling climate change and clean energy is chock full of such fiendish facets. We at Sightline Institute carefully studied the climate portion of the […]
