Climate Change
Boosting Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure To Meet Demand
Free luncheon and report release event at UCLA Law on Thursday, June 29th, with keynote by Energy Commissioner Janea Scott
Few clean technologies are as central for meeting climate change goals as electric vehicles. Yet in places like California, which leads the U.S. with approximately 300,000 EVs on the road, the needed charging infrastructure is lagging. Analysts estimate that the state will need as many as 220,000 publicly accessible EV charging ports by 2020 to …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Dangerous Politics of Nostalgia
It’s a good idea to look in the direction you’re traveling, not backwards to your past.
In an airport, I recently saw a sign above the moving walkway advising us to face in the direction we were traveling. That’s sound advice for life in general and policy making in particular. It’s a recipe for failure to try to restore the past rather than looking toward the future. Unfortunately, rather than embracing the future, …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Radical Anti-Environmentalism
Trump’s target isn’t just Obama. His rejection of environmental protection goes much deeper.
We often hear about the Trump Administrations’s plans to “roll back Obama’s regulations.” But the Administration’s goals go much deeper. Hyperbole is always a risk when discussing opposing policy views, but to call this Administration a profound threat to environmental regulation is only to echo their own words. When he announced the executive order directing EPA to …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy Trump’s Faux Withdrawal and Reality TV Announcement May Backfire
Opponents are Galvanized
President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement may have dramatic consequences for his administration – but not in the way he might imagine. His announcement is toothless. The U.S can’t withdraw from the Paris Agreement until the next Presidential election (assuming he makes it to the end). Yet …
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CONTINUE READINGA Bitter Pill
Will Trump’s Actions Unravel the Paris Agreement? It’s complicated.
It’s official: President Trump has decided to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement. So far as I c an, there’s little support for his decision from anyone who is not beholden to the coal industry. Sadly, this decision is only one way in which this President has dashed the hopes of the world. …
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CONTINUE READINGAll You Need to Know About the Paris Agreement
Five posts About the Paris Agreement in One Place
Today we will finally know whether Donald Trump will make good on his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. As background, here are five posts I’ve written since the agreement was adopted in December of 2015. First, Thoughts on the Accomplishments of the Paris COP , which explains why Paris is such a big …
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CONTINUE READINGBeyond Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
The idea of putting a price on carbon has popped up in unexpected ways.
Conventionally, carbon pricing takes place when the government either creates a cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon tax. But we’ve begun to see carbon prices popping up in other interesting ways. The idea of putting a price on carbon seems to have influence well outside of the classic tax-or-trade models. For instance, carbon pricing has moved beyond …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Way Trump Withdraws From the Paris Agreement Is Almost As Important As Whether He Does
Withdrawal from the UNFCC would say “we don’t even want to talk about climate change, let alone do anything about it”
If, as news outlets are reporting, the Trump Administration makes good on its campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, one thing to watch for is how it withdraws. If Trump takes the dramatic step of withdrawing from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, (as opposed to simply withdrawing from the Paris …
CONTINUE READINGUCLA Law Conference Webcast Today: State Climate Policy in the Trump Era
Symposium Features Sessions on California, Federal, and Multistate Greenhouse Gas Reduction Policy
UCLA Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment is hosting a full day event today on the timely topic of State Climate Policy in the Trump Era on Monday, May 22, 2017. There will be a live webcast for those who cannot join the event in person. Full details are linked here. And here’s …
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CONTINUE READINGWhither the Social Cost of Carbon?
Trump rescinded the Obama Administration’s estimate. Now what?
Republicans vehemently attacked the Obama Administration’s estimate of the social cost of carbon. Trump withdrew that estimate and directed individual federal agencies to do their own estimates. The agencies will now be faced with a number of problems, and it’s not clear that they are well positioned to deal with them. They might prefer to …
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