Climate Change

The fight over California’s greenhouse gas and ZEV car standards continues

UCLA Clinic files amicus brief on behalf of Sen. Carper and Rep. Pallone to uphold standards

Of the many achievements of California’s legendary legislator Fran Pavley, one of the most remarkable is then-Assemblywoman Pavley’s modest bill, AB 1493, which directed California to become the first jurisdiction in the country to control greenhouse gas emissions from cars.  That bill, introduced in 2001 and passed the next year, told the California Air Resources …

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That Was The Year That Was

The Biggest Environmental Stories of 2022

A lot has happened on the environmental front. Here are the biggest stories of 2022. Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, providing $369 billion in tax credit and spending to reduce carbon emissions. California banned the sale of new gas cars in 2035, with several other states now agreeing to follow suit. The Democrats lost …

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The Transport Decarbonisation Alliance at COP27

Call to Action on Active Mobility and Deep Dive on Clean Trucks

Last month at COP 27 in Egypt, CLEE partnered with the Transport Decarbonisation Alliance (TDA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as chair of TDA, to convene experts to discuss some of the major next steps in clean transportation. While avoiding the worst of climate change requires a rapid increase in the pace of …

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Loss and Damage

A deeper dive into the top issue at COP27

As I noted in my last post, this year’s conference of the parties to the climate treaties (COP27) became pretty much a single-issue conference, focused on adaptation and the associated needs for finance – in particular on the urgent need for financial assistance to support adaptation in the Global South, and the lamentable record of …

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Guest Contributor Laurel Hunt: Egypt’s Corals Get a Seat at the Table at COP27

Derek Keats, Diver, bubbles and wall at Elphinstone Reef, Red Sea, Egypt https://www.flickr.com/photos/dkeats/6186078630/

The region’s coral reefs are a precious resource under threat, but they also exhibit exceptional thermal tolerance to heat stress

Laurel Hunt (UCLA JD ’23) attended COP27 as a member of the UCLA Emmett Institute delegation. This is her fifth UN Climate meeting. This year, she moderated two panels on coral reefs and risk mapping. She is the former Executive Director of Los Angeles’ regional climate collaborative and an international city-to-city climate network. As global climate leaders edged toward …

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The Sleepwalking COP

Thoughts on COP27, this year’s climate conference

It’s two weeks since the end of this year’s annual Conference of the Parties to the international climate treaties, COP27, held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. You might have noticed an odd vagueness in accounts of this year’s COP.  These annual meetings are huge media events — understandably, since they are the highest-level international event on …

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Supercharging Electrolyzers to Support Zero-Emission Hydrogen Generation

New CLEE/UCLA report identifies policy solutions to grow electrolyzer adoption

Join us for a webinar on December 13 at 12 PM to discuss the report’s findings. Hydrogen could play a critical role in helping California to decarbonize its electricity grid and achieve carbon neutrality. The gas can be generated from surplus renewable energy resources (like solar or wind) to create zero-emission (or “green”) hydrogen. The …

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Should China Pay Climate Reparations?

‘Yes’ under some reparation theories, ‘no’ under others.

At the international negotiating session in Egypt, demands for climate reparations — “Loss and Damage” in UN lingo — were front and center. The debate was focused on the obligations of developed countries. But there was another issue percolating in the background: Does China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, have an obligation to compensate poorer …

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Global ZEV Infrastructure Innovations Accelerating Transportation Decarbonization

New CLEE/TDA report offers case studies from California, Rotterdam, British Columbia, Portugal, Costa Rica and Ghana

Last month at COP 27 in Egypt, CLEE partnered with the Transport Decarbonisation Alliance (TDA) to release a brief with six case studies of jurisdictions supporting the zero-emission vehicle market and installation of charging infrastructure. We at CLEE (including my co-authors Shruti Sarode and Ethan Elkind) worked with leading practitioners from around the globe to …

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Realizing Equitable Outcomes in Climate Action Plan Implementation

As my colleagues Katie Segal, Ted Lamm, and Ross Zelen have described, our team at CLEE released an analysis earlier this month detailing how San Francisco can fund implementation of its Climate Action Plan. Katie provided an overview of the city’s Climate Action Plan (CAP), describing how San Francisco will need to secure tens of billions …

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