How to Commit to Decarbonization
Feedback effects can lock in decarbonization policies, for better and for worse
This is the fifth in a series of posts. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. The fourth post is here. Decarbonization is a long-term challenge, and it requires commitments to drive the investments required for innovation and deployment of non-fossil-fuel energy sources. But long-term commitments, which are more effective at driving investments, are also vulnerable to reversals due to electoral changes or pushback from ex...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Is A “Sustainable Battery”?
CLEE's Global Forum for Sustainable Batteries releases a 2040 Sustainable Battery Vision
As the market for the electric buses, cars, trucks, and trains that help curb the climate crisis continues to grow globally, the battery supply chain faces increased scrutiny. Minerals like lithium, nickel, graphite, and cobalt are too often mined and processed in ways that contribute to harming communities and ecosystems, while the batteries often face wasteful end-of-life disposal. To address this challenge and identify solutions, Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, En...
CONTINUE READINGOur Mission: Keeping Hope Alive
If you read Legal Planet, you know the work of the environmental law centers at Berkeley and UCLA is critical. Now is the time to support it.
States like California will be the best hope for making progress in the next four years. Keeping the torch burning -- helping California succeed -- will be challenging. Our environmental law centers at Berkeley and UCLA are at the heart of this work. We run lean operations, and every dollar of support goes a long way. This work is even more important now. Trump 2.0 will likely bring a tsunami of anti-environmental actions. While the first Trump Administration ...
CONTINUE READINGOn Carbon Pricing and Mass Climate Movements
Neither carbon pricing nor a mass climate movement can drive effective climate policy on their own
This is the fourth in a series of posts. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. What lessons can we draw from this analysis for key climate policy debates? Here, I will focus on two key lessons, first for carbon pricing, and second for the use of mass movements to drive climate policy. For carbon pricing, the takeaway is that it is a poor tool to initiate climate policy sequencing with, and will generally work best as a sub...
CONTINUE READINGEPA Grants California’s Waivers for Clean Cars and Clean Trucks
By finally granting the Advanced Clean Car II waiver, the agency just undercut Trump’s planned attack on electric vehicles.
EPA just made the incoming Trump Administration’s efforts to stop the move toward clean, zero emission vehicles a whole lot tougher. And ironically, the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial decision overturning deference to agency actions, Loper Bright v Raimondo, may help California in any litigation over the legitimacy of the waiver request. EPA finally granted California a waiver (which is essentially a permission slip) almost a year after the state submitted...
CONTINUE READINGHow to Make Climate as Compelling as Egg Prices
While politicians are right to focus on cost of living, it’s dangerously wrong to assume voters rejected climate policies in the 2024 election.
How do we make the climate crisis as compelling to voters as the price of eggs? That’s a question—an existential question—I’ve been asking myself for weeks now. My UCLA Emmett Institute colleagues and I have some ideas that I’ll be sharing over the next weeks and months. We’re hardly alone: Two months after a disheartening presidential election, some of the most effective climate messengers are grappling with how to talk about climate policy in new ways th...
CONTINUE READINGStep-by-Step: The Role of Sequencing in Effective Climate Policy
The key to climate policy is to start by supporting investments in new technologies that produce both innovation and political change
This is the third in a series of posts. The first post is here. The second post is here. How might sequencing work in climate policy? And why is it important? I’ll explore these questions by walking through the most important stage of climate policy – initiating action on climate change. The initial steps of climate policy are in some ways the hardest – there are no strong interest groups to support climate policy, but climate policy does pose a poten...
CONTINUE READINGThe Multiple Goals of Climate Policy
Effective climate policy requires consideration of efficiency, equity, technological innovation, carbon reductions and political feasibility
This is the second in a series of posts. The first post is here. When people think about climate policy, they probably think that the goal of climate policy is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And of course, the ultimate goal of climate policy is to reduce emissions, eventually getting us to an economy that is net zero. But there are many different possible policy paths to get to net zero, and we necessarily have to make a range of choices about which paths t...
CONTINUE READINGNo, Virginia, There is No Sanity Clause
A dangerous hallucinatory thread runs through today’s public discourse.
“Let me ask you this. What was the moment we can point to that nuclear technology was invented? I’ve never met a person who can isolate the moment where nuclear technology became known to man. German scientists in the 1930s? Really? Name the date? It’s very clear to me that these [nuclear weapons] are demonic.” The speaker, in case you’re wondering, was Tucker Carlson, who has also claimed that he was mauled by demons in his sleep. He also has a theory about e...
CONTINUE READINGTrump & Environmental Policy: The Sequel, Part II
Expect a lot of the same, but there could be some new twists.
As with many sequels, there will be many things we’ve seen before in Trump's second term. If you hated the original Trump Administration, you won’t enjoy watching the same thing the second time around. But there are a few additions to the cast and some new construction on the set. I talked about areas of continuity in my last post. Today, I’ll talk about some possible new twists. Better Organization. Trump didn’t expect to win in 2016. He and his crew were...
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