Climate Policy
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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CONTINUE READINGCoordinating Climate Policy
We have a White House climate czar. That’s not going to be enough.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) creates a massive funding program for clean energy and other climate policies. This funding complements regulatory efforts at EPA elsewhere. Yet authority over energy policy is fragmented at the federal level. Without better coordination, there’s a risk that various policies will mesh poorly or operate at cross-purposes. And state governments, …
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CONTINUE READINGAre carbon taxes a thing of the past?
What is the role for carbon pricing in the future of decarbonization policy?
That’s the question implicitly raised by this article in the New York Times from late August. The article surveys a range of criticisms of the use of carbon taxes as a tool to address greenhouse gas emissions, and criticisms of the focus of many economists on carbon taxes as the primary tool to address climate …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Inflation Reduction Act and the Sequencing of Climate Policy
Why subsidies for clean energy generally are preconditions for other climate policies
The Inflation Reduction Act would be, if enacted, the biggest piece of climate legislation that the U.S. Congress has ever passed. As such, it’s gotten a fair amount of coverage attempting to put it into context for the broader scope of climate policy in the U.S. and globally – in particular, this article in Slate …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy We Can’t Wait
In climate policy, delay is deadly.
There are a lot of complaints about the very real flaws in the Inflation Reduction Act, tied with arguments that we should wait until we can do something better. In climate policy, however, waiting is dangerous. We’ve already delayed far too long. Further delay means having to cut emission much more rapidly to make up …
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CONTINUE READINGMaking Climate Policy Work
New book highlights the weaknesses of carbon pricing in addressing climate policy
I have a new post up at JOTWELL reviewing a recent book from Danny Cullenward at the climate think-tank Carbon Plan, and Professor David Victor of UC San Diego. Their book, Making Climate Policy Work, is a terrific overview of the political and administrative weaknesses of carbon pricing as a tool for climate policy. Please …
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CONTINUE READINGDon’t hamstring carbon removal
California needs to lead in developing critical carbon removal technologies
Assessments by the IPCC have made clear that the most feasible way for the world to meet its target of restricting climate change to below two degrees Celsius of warming includes rapid and massive expansion of carbon removal technology – technology that would extract carbon dioxide and permanently sequester that carbon dioxide underground. California has …
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CONTINUE READINGTwo and a half cheers for the IRA
Climate legislation sets the stage not just for decarbonization now, but greater policy success later on
The announcement of the legislative deal (the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022) between Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and the Democratic Senate leadership was a bid deal in climate policy. The legislation relies on the reconciliation process, allowing it to pass with a simple 50 votes (plus Vice President Harris’ tie-breaker vote). The legislation provides for …
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CONTINUE READINGThe climate bill and oil and gas leasing
Provision in big climate bill that mandates oil and gas leasing on federal lands has limited reach
The big news in climate policy this past week was Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) signing off on a deal with the Democratic Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on climate investments – the bill is catchily called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. I’ll take a look at the …
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CONTINUE READINGWill public power advance decarbonization?
Increasing public control of energy systems may not facilitate decarbonization
Over the past few years, there has been a push in both Europe and the United States for a “Green New Deal” in which decarbonization efforts would be pushed by aggressive, direct government investments in clean energy technology and infrastructure. But in much of the United States and in Europe, large portions of the electricity …
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