California
Peer Production of Climate Action
Wikipedia and climate actions by cities and states have more in common than you might think.
Wikipedia is celebrating its twentieth birthday. When it was launched, this effort to create an encyclopedia seemed like a joke compared with Microsoft’s big-money effort, which was called Encarta. Encarta is long gone but Wikipedia has thrived beyond anyone’s expectations. Today, Wikipedia has fifty-five million entries, with 270,000 active editors a month. While imperfect, the …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Report: Accelerating Building Decarbonization
Solutions to drive the electrification transition / Expert webinar February 23
Today, the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) at Berkeley Law and the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law are releasing a new report, Building toward Decarbonization, which highlights the key barriers and policy solutions to accelerate building electrification retrofits in California’s high-priority communities. California’s ambitious commitment to …
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CONTINUE READINGHow Cities Can Use California’s Housing Element to Get New Housing Built
New changes in state law allow local governments to commit to long-term production of housing
Over the next two years, cities across the state of California will undertake a state-mandated process to update the “housing element” of their general plans for land use. Cities must demonstrate that they have—or will provide—adequate zoned capacity to accommodate their share of “regional housing need,” a figure which is determined by the state Department …
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CONTINUE READINGThe California Supreme Court’s Most Important Environmental Law Decisions of 2020
It Was a Relatively Quiet Year for Environmental Law in the California Supreme Court
[This is the third and final installment in a series of posts highlighting the most significant environmental law decisions of 2020. Earlier this week, I profiled the key 2020 environmental rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This post concludes the series with an examination of …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Ninth Circuit’s 10 Most Important Environmental Law Decisions of 2020
Climate Change, California v. Trump Cases Lead the List
This is the second of three year-end posts on the most important environmental law decisions in 2020 from the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and California Supreme Court. (The key U.S. Supreme Court rulings were the focus of yesterday’s post, and tomorrow’s will feature California Supreme Court decisions.) Today, …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Report: Deploying Engineered Carbon Removal In California
Law & policy options to boost demonstration projects + free webinar on January 27th
Berkeley/UCLA Law report discusses policy solutions to boost engineered carbon removal technologies. Register for a free webinar on Wednesday, January 27th at 10am with an expert panel to hear about the top findings. California has enacted ambitious climate goals, including a statewide carbon neutrality target by 2045. While much of the required greenhouse gas reductions …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Justice and Climate Action
Are the two in conflict? What should we make of the attacks on Mary Nichols?
Mary Nichols, the frontrunner to head EPA, was knocked out of contention earlier this week. She would have been a formidable choice to implement Biden’s climate policies. For that reason, it wasn’t clear whether she would have the votes to get through the narrowly divided Senate. But she was ultimately taken down by the fierce …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Action on the West Coast
Three liberal states with very different climate records.
Although California, Oregon, and Washington are often considered liberal bastions, they differ widely in how much they’ve been able to do in climate policy. The scale of their responses has been pretty much proportional to how much of their populations are urban, with conservative rural areas in each state that resist climate action. California. California …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Environmental Justice Policies Should Serve as A Model for the Biden-Harris Administration
AB 617’s Program to Reduce Hot Spot Pollution, Port Programs, Zero Emission Trucks Could Go National
No Presidential ticket has come into office more committed to environmental issues than President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Appropriately, climate change is at the top of their agenda. They are also committed to advancing environmental justice by addressing the disproportionate environmental harms many low income communities of color face. California is often …
CONTINUE READINGPresident Biden & Climate Change: What’s Achievable?
Divided federal government might still allow possibility for meaningful action
With a victory in the presidential election, Joe Biden now faces a U.S. Senate that still hangs in the balance. But even with a Democratic runoff sweep in Georgia next month, it will be very divided. So what will be possible for a President Biden and his administration to achieve on climate change? Agency action, …
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