From Brussels to the Bay: Sustainable Finance in the EU & California
Berkeley Law Conference on Thursday, May 23rd, with State Controller Betty Yee, European Commission Director Mario Nava & CLEE's Dave Jones
Join Berkeley Law's Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) and the European Union for a roundtable discussion on regulatory developments in sustainable finance and responsible investment. Hear from European Commission Director Mario Nava, of DG FISMA (the European Commission department responsible for EU policy on banking and financial services) on the state of the EU's Sustainable Finance Action Plan. In addition, speakers and broker de bolsa include leadi...
CONTINUE READINGUnanswered Questions About Cost-Benefit Analysis
We have only fragmentary evidnece about how CBA actually functions in government decision-making.
Considering that people have been debating cost-benefit analysis at least since Reagan mandated its use in 1981, you would think we would have the answers to some basic questions about how it works. Yet we have very fragmentary information, generally based on the perspevtives of people at the agencies or in the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which oversees agency regulatory efforts. Part of the reason is the OIRA’s activities are l...
CONTINUE READINGHR 9: The First Climate Bill to Pass the House In a Decade
What you need to know about the bill.
Last Thursday, for the first time in a decade, the House of Representatives passed a climate change bill. HR 9, the Climate Action Now Act, passed on a vote of 231-190. The heart of HR 9 is section 3, which blocks the use of any federal funds to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Section 4 of the bill gives the President 120 days to “develop and submit to the appropriate congressional committees and make available to the public a plan for the United States to me...
CONTINUE READINGGroundwater Recharge in the SGMA Era
California clarifies beneficial use guidelines for recharge projects addressing SGMA undesirable results
Implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was always going to be tricky. Part of the necessary growing pains of SGMA is determining how the revolutionary statute interacts with traditional tenets of water law. As with any other sweeping legislative change, SGMA does not provide direct answers for every practical question which arises as the law is put into place. Take SGMA’s so called “six deadly sins” – the undesirable results that n...
CONTINUE READINGInternational Conference On Electric Vehicles & Urban Residents
Register Today For UC Berkeley Law Event On June 4th & 5th, Co-Organized By University of Paris
Policy makers and industry leaders have a tough challenge making electric vehicles accessible for the world's urban residents. Many apartment dwellers lack access to dedicated spots with electricity to charge the vehicles, while other city residents may need access to shared EVs to get around city streets. Unless EV leaders can solve these challenges, global deployment of this vital clean technology will be limited. To discuss these issues and solutions from around th...
CONTINUE READINGIs Socialism Good for the Environment?
The answer is: "Sometimes yes, sometimes not so much."
Some of the people who are most fervent about the environment these days describe themselves as socialists. But is socialism actually a good thing for the environment? That seems like a significant question in a political context where people on both sides are throwing around the word "socialist" so much, so I decided to see if there's any actual evidence on the question. Before looking at the evidence, we first have to decide what we mean by “socialism.” An i...
CONTINUE READINGSaved By The…Air Conditioner?
New Paper Proposes Carbon Sequestration From HVAC Systems
You have to like the idea carbon sequestration: if our ability to stop putting carbon into the atmosphere is limited, why not try taking it out? But it always seems to founder on a life-cycle analysis: it costs so much in energy to get the system working that you wind up producing more carbon than you withdraw. But now comes Roland Dittmaier of Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Geoffrey Ozin of the University of Toronto, with a new idea: use the HVAC...
CONTINUE READINGParking versus Housing at UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley faces same dilemma as much of rest of California in addressing the housing crisis
UC Berkeley is not immune to California’s housing crisis. Indeed, as the student newspaper noted, the campus “has housing for 22 percent of undergrads and 9 percent of graduate students – vastly lower than the UC average of 38.1 percent for undergraduates and 19.6 percent for graduate students.” Moreover, soaring housing costs have made it hard for the campus to recruit new faculty. To deal with the issue, the campus has developed an aggressive program to deve...
CONTINUE READINGGetting Lost In The Woods?
New Study From India Points to Dangers From Forestry Sector Emissions Trading
Despite the Trump Administration’s dedication to melting the planet, the rest of the world is gamely pushing ahead with implementing the Paris Accord, and that means programs like United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The two are linked, because a big part of CDM involves Afforestation and Reforestation – thus, “CDM A/R.” ...
CONTINUE READINGGood News from the States: April 2019 Roundup
While the Feds backpedal, the states move forward on clean energy.
Every day seems to bring more news of the Trump Administration’s dogged efforts to reduce environmental protections and accelerate climate change with increased carbon emissions. But, as has been true since Trump took office, the picture at the state level is much different. State governments across the country have accelerated their efforts to decarbonize, while efforts save the coal industry have foundered. Here are some of the latest developments. Early thi...
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