Climate Change

Looking Ahead to Durban

Unlike the Copenhagen climate conference which had enormous publicity and great expectations, the Durban conference next month is coming up very quietly.  Yet, given the 2012 terminus of the Kyoto Protocol, it’s a very important event.  Some degree of progress at Durban is important to keep the UNFCC process alive; otherwise, the action is likely …

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Katrinas Yet to Come

Climate change is expected to increase hurricane damage by $40 billion per year by the end of the century.

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Energy Storage in California by 2020: A New Report From the California Energy Commission

Yesterday, the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program released a strategic assessment of energy storage technologies in California by 2020. The report was prepared by a three-campus University of California team, including Berkeley Law, UC Los Angeles, and UC San Diego. Along with co-blogger Steve Weissman and Jessica Intrator (who did the …

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Administration reportedly will put off Keystone XL decision

The Washington Post is reporting that the Obama Administration will study alternative routes for the Keystone XL pipeline, delaying a final decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 elections. There had been a perception that the Administration felt caught between environmentalists and unions on the pipeline issue. Nebraska’s opposition to the current proposed route, …

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Climate Change in Living Color

Richard Muller’s research group has a video that shows changes in surface temperature over the past two centuries.  (He’s the physicist who took an independent look at the climate record; climate skeptics loved him until it turned out he had some inconvenient data.)  It’s pretty hard to miss what’s happening: big-time climate change.  Here’s the …

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Another edition of good news, bad news

The bad news is about climate change (no surprise). The more we learn, the more daunting the problem appears. Cases in point: A column in the journal Nature (subscription required) provided the short version of a report issued this past spring by the California Council on Science and Technology on what it will take for …

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EPA sends GHG NSPS rules to OMB

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, EPA sent its proposed GHG rule for power plants to the Office of Management and Budget.  Not a widely reported story, perhaps because the internet was too busy misquoting EPA Administrator Jackson, who was speaking at Berkeley Law at the time.  Or perhaps because we do not actually get the proposed …

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UC Berkeley / UCLA Law Conference on Local Government Climate Change Policies

The UC Berkeley and UCLA Schools of Law are holding a free public conference at UC Berkeley on Friday, December 2nd to discuss local government climate change policies.  Conference speakers include some of the state’s top policy, business, and environmental leaders, who will report on promising ways that cities and counties can address climate change …

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Who Killed the Ozone Rule?

It seems that Bill Daley did: Obama’s surprise move to block an ozone regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed immense pressure from industry trade associations, which made numerous personal appeals to White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.  Daley met with the heads of several business groups more than two weeks before Obama …

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Lisa Jackson Speech

Following up on Holly’s post, here is video of the speech.  (And no, contrary to a rumor in the blogosphere, she didn’t call conservative critics “jack-booted thugs.”  Instead, as you’ll see, she commented that they used this term about EPA.) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcNeR6-EEGc]

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