The Climate Post
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The Climate Post: Smalls steps and giant leaps
First Things First: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited India last weekend to inch forward collaboration on regional security, global business, nuclear power, and climate change. U.S. papers played up the real-time meltdown between Clinton and Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. The two appeared before cameras on a trip to a new, energy-efficient office building […]
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The Climate Post: Pools of oil, plumes of gas
First Things First: The Washington-to-Beijing diplomatic shuttle shows no sign of slowing down. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke visited China this week to prod collaboration on clean energy technology. Chu announced the U.S. would contribute $15 million to a partnership that will study how to capture carbon dioxide emissions and trap […]
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The Climate Post: L’Aquila, the Senate, and shrinking sheep
First Things First: Conflicting early reports obscured events at a major international summit in L’Aquila, Italy. The Group of Eight has apparently resolved to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050, but disagreed on thorny “mid-term targets,” to be reached by 2020 or so. And key players, such as the United States, have no […]
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The Climate Post: Has the political climate changed?
First things first: The U.S. House of Representatives last week narrowly voted to overhaul the nation’s energy economy by limiting industrial greenhouse gas emissions, boosting efficiency, and developing renewable electricity sources. The American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act would limit, or “cap,” annual pollution and allow industry to buy and sell, or “trade,” credits […]
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The Climate Post: Deal or no deal
First things first: U.S. representatives may head into Independence Day recess with their climate work done for the moment. House leadership fast-tracked the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) after a breakthrough agreement Monday night between its co-sponsors and a powerful hold-out representing farmers and rural districts. A vote on the house floor could […]
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The Climate Post: Gimme your wallet–or else the forest here gets it
The Obama administration this week released a 196-page plain-language report that describes predicted future impacts of climate change on the U.S. The report comes during a week of inconclusive negotiation among key House lawmakers on climate legislation, and as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passes what could be the third energy bill in […]
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The Climate Post: Insider baseball on Waxman-Markey, outsider baseball on Hawaiian solar power
For those mercifully far enough away not to know, the “Capital beltway” is a looping highway, Interstate 495, the way many metro Washington residents ride to work. “Inside the beltway” isn’t coincident with Washington, DC. It also connotes a mythical place unrestrained by geography, a state of mind where consequential details of legislation attract and […]
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The Climate Post: Waxman-Markey, Bonn, and carbon counting
The U.S. Congress fast-tracks climate legislation, international negotiators hash through the first “negotiating text” for year-end global talks in Germany, and big businesses start counting their carbon. The pile of climate stories this week climbed faster than predicted New England sea levels. The American Clean Energy and Security Act — aka Waxman-Markey, aka ACES, aka […]
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The Climate Post: Something wrought in the state of Denmark?
The word “Copenhagen” hangs over climate discussions everywhere from Washington to Wagga Wagga. That’s because in December the world travels to the Danish capital for the 15th Conference of Parties meeting, affectionately referred to as COP15. There, nations large and small hope to reach a new international agreement that would ratchet down global emissions beginning […]
