Climate Change
Climate Change and the Hard-Headed Realist
Henry Kissinger showed that you don’t have to have a shred of idealism to favor climate action.
It’s not surprising that Bernie Sanders said, rather emphatically, that he was not a friend of Kissinger’s. Yet there was one issue where they did agree: climate change. If there was one thing that Henry Kissinger stood for, it was the hard-headed “realist” view of foreign policy — a view that prioritizes national interest at …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy Do Small Changes in Global Temperature Matter So Much?
One problem is that we’ve pursued optimization rather than robustness.
Scientists are warning us that even comparatively small changes in average temperature may have disastrous results. If you turn up your thermostat 2 ºC (about 3.6 ºF), the difference may be noticeable but it’s no big deal. So why is that a scary increase in global temperatures? Some reasons are physical, particularly the difference between …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Backlash
Vicious attacks on climate progress are on the rise.
Presumably, no one actually wants rising seas, dangerous heat waves, severe droughts, runaway wildfires, and floods. Nor, I assume, are there many who want those climate disasters for their children and grandchildren. Still, there are all too many politicians and public figures who act as if their goal was to foment climate change. No doubt the …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S.-China Climate Deal Means Good Vibes for COP28
Here are key takeaways from the Sunnylands Statement on Enhancing Cooperation to Address the Climate Crisis ahead of the UN climate talks in Dubai.
The chances for a productive COP28—the U.N. climate talks that get underway Nov. 30 in Dubai—got a big boost from the recent climate agreement between the U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest polluters. Announced just before President Joe Biden and China leader Xi Jinping met at the APEC Summit in San Francisco, the …
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CONTINUE READINGFour EV Trends
One of these things is not like the others.
The automotive world is changing quickly. Most of the trends are mutually reinforcing. But one points in the opposite direction. The first and most obvious trend is the rise of EVs. In the twenty years since Tesla arrived, EVs have gone from 0.2% of new cars to 13%, and Bloomberg predicts that this figure will …
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CONTINUE READINGHave We Begun the Third Age of Climate Law?
Some thoughts for Environmental History Week.
An international agreement in 1992 committed the world’s nations to addressing climate change but contained few specifics. The US ratified that agreement, but there was little concrete action here through the end of the 20th Century. As this century began, things looked optimistic, with both presidential candidates favoring reductions in carbon emissions. Promptly after taking …
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CONTINUE READINGHow to Get to Zero Emissions at the Ports
A new report by UCLA and UC Berkeley examines policy solutions to accelerate deployment of zero-emission cargo handling equipment at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are well on their way toward electrification, but the road to zero emissions is a long one. This new report—A Heavy Lift: Policy Solutions to Accelerate Deployment of Zero-Emission Cargo Handling Equipment at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and Beyond—surveys the biggest obstacles to …
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CONTINUE READINGGetting to Implementation
The Status of Local Climate Action in California
This post is co-authored by CLEE Climate Policy Fellow, Hanna Payne In the arc of climate action, we are firmly in the era of implementation. As climate change accelerates, communities across the state are experiencing the effects of a changing climate. To avoid the worst of these impacts, it is critical that we rapidly implement …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat to watch for, and ignore, at the upcoming climate talks in Dubai
UCLA Law’s Mary Nichols, Alex Wang, and Ted Parson preview COP28 in a webinar this Wednesday.
Each year since 1995, the countries of the world have gathered to negotiate what to do about climate change. They do so under the auspices of the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the universally adopted climate change treaty that sets a goal of avoiding dangerous interference with the climate system. Those talks have had ups and …
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CONTINUE READINGIt’s High Time to Ban “Monster Fracking” in California
Fracking consumes enormous amounts of water, pollutes aquifers & is contrary to our climate goals
Recently, the New York Times published an important and disturbing expose’ titled, “‘Monster Fracks’ Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.” The Times article focuses on the alarming intersection of three current environmental crises–water supply shortages, groundwater contamination, and excessive greenhouse gas emission levels–that threaten California and other states across the nation. Fracking (the shorthand …
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