Region: International
India Coal Tax to be Used for Carbon Sinks and Clean Energy Technology
This is how you are supposed to do it. Via the Hindu, Indian Finance Minister Mukherjee’s Budget uses carbon charges to combat climate change: The [tax] slapped on coal in last year’s budget will help pay for schemes to protect and regenerate forests and clean up polluted sites announced in this year’s Budget. Finance Minister Pranab …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Change and the Pope
Obviously, I need to pay more attention to news from the Vatican, since this story is a year old: Pope Benedict XVI focused his annual address to ambassadors accredited to the Vatican on the environment and the protection of creation. He denounced the failure of world leaders to agree to a new climate change treaty …
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CONTINUE READINGImminent Foodie-Tree Hugger Alliance!
We often speak of mitigating climate change in light of how much can we afford to reduce consumption, thus leading some foodies to reject environmental values. A classic in this genre occurs right here in Los Angeles, where Heal the Bay’s executive director, Mark Gold, spends his time trying to save sea creatures, and his …
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CONTINUE READINGChina and Carbon Markets
In a surprising development, China may be planning to create an internal carbon market a/k/a cap & trade. According to Climate Wire, When professor Chen Hongbo tried to promote carbon trading in China three years ago, he found himself under fire. As developing countries like China aren’t obliged to limit the byproduct of their economic …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat to Expect This Year in Terms of Climate Action
Although there will be many flashing lights and loud noises, 2011 will primarily be a year in which various events that are already in play evolve toward major developments in 2012. Litigation. The one exceptional major development in 2011 will be American Electric Power (AEP) v. Connecticut, the climate nuisance case that the Supreme Court …
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CONTINUE READINGOceans: the biggest loser from our international failure to address greenhouse gas emissions?
In this op-ed from Monday’s Los Angeles Times, UC San Diego scientists Tony Haymet and Andrew Dickson succinctly and directly summarizes the threat that ocean acidification poses to our world, and plead for reductions in carbon emissions. (My colleagues have blogged about ocean acidification before, here and here among other places.) Unfortunately, as my …
CONTINUE READINGState Dep’t: Legally binding emissions limits not happening “anytime soon”
I wasn’t on the beach in Cancun at the latest international climate summit, but like lots of folks I followed its (pseudo) progress. It wrapped up on Saturday with a package of incremental agreements on important issues (LA Times has a good analysis here), but once again without getting far on the 10,000 gigaton question: Will …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat If They Gave a Climate Summit and Nobody Came?
Last year about this time, everyone was excited about Copenhagen. UCLA Law School even sent its own delegation. President Obama was going to come. It was the biggest thing in climate since Kyoto — maybe bigger, since now the US had an administration that believes in science. Now? Not so much. The coverage of Cancun …
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CONTINUE READINGChina Needs the Straddling Bus More Than We Do
Jonathan just blogged about the very cool concept of the straddling bus, designed to go over automobiles and reportedly being built in China starting next month. His blog coincides with lots of attention focused on the mother of all traffic jams occuring right now outside of Bejing: a 60 mile long, multi-day jam comprised mostly of …
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CONTINUE READINGToo Cool to Avoid Blogging — The Straddling Bus
Critics of subways often argue, correctly, that they are very, very expensive. They argue much less correctly that they aren’t worth it from a cost-benefit perspective. (I’ll believe when they add in the subsidies for roads and automobiles, price auto traffic like they do with rail, and stop using tendentious examples to criticize high-speed rail). …
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