Climate Change
What are California Legislators Thinking About Cap-and-Trade?
CA Senate Hearing at UCLA Focuses on Ways to Spend Auction Revenue
Today, UCLA’s Emmett Center and IOES hosted a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Climate Change and AB 32 Implementation with Senators Pavley, Correa, de Leon, deSaulnier, Lieu, and Assemblymember Bloom attending. The hearing featured testimony on climate science, on AB 32 implementation, and on opportunities to invest revenue from the state’s cap-and-trade auctions in ways that …
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CONTINUE READINGCOPs: The Erratic Evolution of Global Climate Policy
The latest Conference of the Parties (COP) in Warsaw didn’t make headlines — more like footnotes. Two things have become clear. First, the formal UN negotiations are only part of the transnational development of climate policy. And second, the UN negotiations are moving slowly and fitfully, but they are making progress. Neither of these things …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Significance of EPA’s Proposed Power Plant Standards
Although they won’t have immediate impacts, EPA’s proposed rules for new coal plants will indirectly help shape the future of the industry.
There’s an uproar over EPA’s proposed rules for CO2 emissions from new coal plants, even though no one expects anyone to build a new coal plant for at least a decade. I’ve argued (here and here) that the industry won’t have standing to challenge the rules because they won’t have any imminent impact. In fact, …
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CONTINUE READINGPassing Gas
A better accounting of GHGs can improve the climate discourse
The tendency to divide global GHG emissions by country is a product of the well-mixed dispersal of most of warming gases, and the international politics that attach to cross-border pollution. A country’s emission numbers imply accountability and culpability, and frame the discourse on how to respond. Going forward on policymaking, it’s worth looking at how …
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CONTINUE READINGUC Berkeley / UCLA Law Report on California Renewable Energy Policies Beyond 2020
Joint law school report will be discussed at a lunchtime forum today at UCLA Law
California is among the world’s leaders in deploying renewable energy, with the state on pace to meet its target of achieving 33% of its energy from renewable sources like the sun and the wind by 2020. But the success may ironically be contributing to a stalled in-state market for more renewable power. Given the amount …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia cap and trade survives industry tax challenge
Auctions can proceed in one of the state’s signature climate change programs
ARB’s winning streak in climate cases continues. A California superior court has rejected a prominent set of industry challenges to the state’s cap-and-trade program, upholding a significant element of California’s suite of programs to comply with AB 32 and to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. (Opinion here.) The cases were filed by the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Olympics of Climate Change: Warsaw 2013
What to know, where to watch
It’s that time again! The United Nations’ COP19/CMP9 Climate Change Conference kicked off this week in Warsaw, the start of two weeks of international discussion on climate change. The conference hosts the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, as a yearly update and check-in on these treaties, …
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CONTINUE READINGRenewable Energy Beyond 2020 — Lunchtime Conference at UCLA Law next Tuesday
Free event will also launch a new report from UCLA and UC Berkeley law schools on this topic
Please join us on Tuesday, November 19th at UCLA Law for a free lunchtime panel presentation on the future of California’s renewable energy policies beyond 2020. California is on pace to meet the goal of securing 33 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2020. What energy goals should …
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CONTINUE READINGCapturing Carbon
A recent CRS report provides a wealth of information about carbon capture. You can learn a lot about the various technologies and how close or far they are from possible adoption. But for most of us, the technical details matter less than the answers to some key questions: Is carbon capture technically feasible? Can it …
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CONTINUE READINGWill Anyone Have Standing to Challenge EPA’s Rules for New Coal Plants?
EPA has issued rules that will essentially require new coal plants to use carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that has not been implemented at full scale yet. No doubt that coal industry and utilities will try to challenge the rules in court. But they probably lack standing to do so for a simple reason: …
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