Climate Change

More Thoughts on the US-China Climate Announcement

Ann Carlson and I talk with the New York Times on US politics, Chinese implementation, and the potential impact on India.

Ann Carlson and I talked with Edward Wong from the New York Times last week about the US-China Climate Announcement.  We repost the Q&A here. From Edward Wong, NYT:  The biggest commitments to come out of President Obama’s recent visit to China involved climate change policy. The leaders of the two nations stood beside each …

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The California REDD+ Experience

The ongoing political history of California’s initiative to include jurisdictional REDD+ offsets within the cap-and-trade system

Announcing the publication of The California REDD+ Experience, a report written by UCLA’s Emmett Institute faculty and published by the Center for Global Development. Six years ago in Los Angeles, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a memorandum of understanding with Governors from Brazil and Indonesia (and also Wisconsin and Illinois), to “coordinate efforts and promote collaboration” on …

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San Diego Loses Appeal On Its Weak Transportation Plan

Today ‘s ruling confirms that the plan failed under CEQA to consider greenhouse gas emissions to 2050

Back in 2011, the San Diego Association of Governments issued a really bad regional transportation plan.  These plans must prioritize transportation investments across the metropolitan region for the coming decades and are the basis for receiving state and federal infrastructure dollars.  And while most regional transportation plans are usually pretty bad (i.e. favoring highway expansion …

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U.S.-China Climate Pact and Domestic Politics

Alex Wang and I Consider the Domestic Ramifications in Both the U.S. and China

The news from Beijing this week that the U.S. and China are committing to ambitious goals on climate change is, we think, monumental. No two countries are more important to tackling the problem than the largest carbon emitter over the past two centuries, the U.S., and the largest current emitter, China. While many observers are …

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Some Unsolicited Advice for Tom Steyer

There were a number of efforts by wealthy individuals and/or Super PACs to affect the midterm election results. Most relevant to this blog, Tom Steyer used tens of millions of his own funds to support candidates that he felt would be more supportive of efforts to address climate change. After the election, the media portrayed …

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A Ray of Hope [Breaking News]

President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a major deal on climate change this morning.  As summarized by the Washington Post, China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, pledged in the far-reaching agreement to cap its rapidly growing carbon emissions by 2030, or earlier if possible. It also set a daunting goal of …

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Using Textualism Against Itself

Industry has come up with a Scalia-like argument to fight  the proposed climate regulations for existing power plants.  The problem arises because Congress passed two different versions of section 111(d) without realizing it.  The Senate version clearly gives EPA the authority to regulate CO2 under this provision.  But opponents of regulation argue that the House version …

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The Future of Conservation

Earlier this year I wrote critically about a New York Times op-ed that proposed making the restrictions on development in wilderness areas more flexible in order to allow for adaptation to climate change. This week the Times published what I think is a much more helpful op-ed on the topic of how we should address …

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Mono Lake at 20: Past, Present and Future

Symposium in Sacramento, November 17

Please join us as the UC Berkeley School of Law, with stakeholders in the Mono Lake Cases, convenes a symposium in Sacramento on November 17, 2014, to mark the 20th anniversary of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Decision 1631. Panel presentations feature an cast of thought leaders, including: Marty Adams (Los Angeles Department of Water …

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After November, the Deluge?

What will the Republicans do if they take control of the Senate? Will this be Armageddon for Obama’s environmental policies, as both Democrats and Republicans insist?  The truth is likely to be less dramatic, though still bad from an environmental perspective. Greenwire had a very interesting piece about that on Friday. Both Republican and Democratic …

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