Region: International
Un-Inventing Fire
After many eons, reliance on combustion for energy is ending.
To head off disastrous climate change, we need to radically transform the modern energy system. We must largely move beyond the use of fire, the first and most important of inventions. The core energy technology used by humans has always involved, in one form or another, burning things up. To a large extent, combatting climate …
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CONTINUE READINGToday’s Vaccine Cases: Implications for Climate Change Regulation
Today’s ruling are (somewhat) good news in terms of West Virginia v. EPA?
Today, the Court’s conservative Justices split the difference in two cases involving vaccine mandates, striking down OSHA’s mandate but upholding a more limited mandate for healthcare workers. The cases also split the conservative Justices themselves, with three hardliners (Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch) seeking a more activist ruling in the OSHA case and dissenting in the …
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CONTINUE READING2021: The Year in Review
After the dark days of the Trump Era, environmental policy had a very good year
The continuing pandemic sometimes makes it feel like time is frozen. But 2021 was a big year for environmental policy. Politics. The biggest news of 2021, for the environment as well as other reasons, was the replacement of Donald Trump by Joseph Biden. On the regulatory front, the change in White House control instantly stopped …
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CONTINUE READINGEveryday Christmas: The Gift of the Commons
Clean air. Clean water. We receive these public goods every day without payment
One of the Christmas classics is the Jimmy Stewart movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey, Stewart’s character, is despondent about his life but then learns how much he has unknowingly helped others and how grateful they are. It’s heartwarming, if also a bit corny. There’s a flip side to that story: the need to remember …
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CONTINUE READINGRemembering Electric Vehicle Pioneer Ryan Popple, 1977-2021
Former Proterra CEO was a major contributor to UC Berkeley/UCLA Law EV report
Ryan Popple, former CEO and co-founder of electric bus company ProTerra, venture capitalist for transportation electrification, early Tesla employee, Iraq War veteran and father of three, passed away on Wednesday night at the age of 44, for reasons unknown. I had the good fortune to meet Ryan back in 2012, when UC Berkeley Law and …
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CONTINUE READINGCOPs as Three-Ring Circus
Reflections on Glasgow a few weeks later
It is often hard to make sense of what happens at the annual climate meetings, and easy to get cynical. For two or three weeks, climate politics gets intense worldwide news coverage. Acute pressure mounts over the two weeks to get some announcable achievement, which almost always happens after all-night negotiations on the final day. …
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CONTINUE READINGArguments over Solar Geoengineering Research
Science Magazine weighs in
Doing research on environmental issues or responses is usually an easy call for policy-makers and gets wide political support, even if there’s disagreement what to do about the issue. But there is now one big exception: research on solar geoengineering (SG). SG would cool the Earth, temporarily and imperfectly offsetting some of the climate effects …
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CONTINUE READINGMaking Sense of the US-China Joint Glasgow Declaration
One small step for climate action, one modest leap for US-China relations
Yesterday, China and the US announced a “Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s” (En/Ch) What to make of it? The short answer is that it only offers slight forward progress on climate action. Increased climate ambition from China and US in the short-term remains the critical metric and in this regard …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Fuss about Methane
Part 1: Science and weird facts
Methane is getting a lot of attention in climate debates. There was even a “Methane Day” last Tuesday at the climate conference in Glasgow. Several new regulations controlling methane emissions have been adopted recently, including two new rules for the US oil and gas sector announced last week. There’s a new informal international agreement to …
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CONTINUE READINGIs China Doing Enough on Climate Change? COP26 Version
Chinese leaders have an opportunity to increase ambition and clarify the country’s climate plans
As COP26 kicks off in Glasgow, Scotland this week, the world is confronted with a basic reality. Current national climate pledges fall well-short of the Paris Agreement goal to keep global average temperature increase this century well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The UN’s 2021 …
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