Climate Change
Planning a Green Recovery
Don’t let the opportunity for a green stimulus go to waste.
The economy crashed during the lockdown. Although a recovery has begun, government action will probably be needed to sustain it. We should seize this opportunity to make progress on sustainability. It’s hard to know the long-term economic impact of the pandemic. As Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Schiller has said, “Big events like a pandemic have …
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CONTINUE READINGElection 2020: State Legislatures
The Outlook for State Climate Policy Might Improve
The key political races aren’t just about the White House or Congress. Control of state legislatures will also be important in shaping climate and energy policy — not to mention their ultimate effect on the composition of the U.S. House due to redistricting. One of my themes is the importance of state government to climate …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger John Graham: California Court Decision Will Affect Future Use of Carbon Offsets to Mitigate Emissions of Development
The California Court of Appeal Rules San Diego County’s Climate Action Plan Violates CEQA
The challenge to San Diego County’s Climate Action Plan (“CAP”) in Golden Door has been closely watched by many interested in the use of carbon offsets to mitigate GHG impacts in California. Simply put, carbon offsets are mechanisms that reflect off-site GHG reductions—from activities like reforestation—that can, in some cases, compensate for a project’s GHG …
CONTINUE READINGClimate Litigation 2020
Here’s the state of play and some thoughts about the future.
Trump Administration has been a fertile source of litigation. With the election only about three months away, this seems like a good time to see how things stand in climate-related case. In a nutshell, climate litigation has been a growth industry under Trump, and the Administration has done poorly in court. The Current State of …
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CONTINUE READINGWasting Away in Methaneville
Another Trump rollback gets slapped down in court.
A week ago, a federal district court overturned yet another ill-conceived rollback by the Trump Administration. The case, California v. Bernhardt, involved releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The legal flaws in the rollback by the Bureau of Land Management, are all too typical of the Administration’s work product. The Administration has repeatedly lost …
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CONTINUE READINGPlanet Earth as Desert Island: “Lord of the Flies” or “Gilligan’s Island”?
Or in more technical terms, the Tragedy of the Commons? Or its inverse?
Lord of the Flies is a memorable novel about a group of English schoolboys who are marooned on a desert island. They quickly descend into savagery and violence. The book can be seen as a parable of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s view that human life in a state of nature is short, nasty, and brutish. But …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump Administration’s Court Challenge to California-Quebec Cap-and-Trade Agreement Again Rejected
U.S. District Court Rejects Feds’ Latest Constitutional Attack on California’s Climate Change Initiative
Three strikes and you’re out. That adage, particularly timely given Major League Baseball’s belated start of its 2020 season this week, is just as apt when it comes to litigation as it is to our nation’s pastime. For the second time in four months, U.S. District Court Judge William Shubb has rejected a constitutional challenge …
CONTINUE READINGEV Battery Supply Chain Sustainability & Mining
Register for forthcoming report launch webinar on Thursday, July 23rd, from 9-10am PT
The adoption of millions of electric vehicles needed to combat climate change will mark a major shift in mining activities across the world. To get the needed lithium, cobalt and other minerals for the batteries, countries and companies are turning to deep-sea mining, lithium deposits in Nevada and California’s Salton Sea, and further exploiting resources …
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CONTINUE READINGChina’s Distinctive Approach to Emissions Trading
It’s getting harder for the U.S. to use Chinese inaction as an excuse.
China’s emissions trading program is slowly forward toward implementation. It’s by no means a perfect program, but it should result in significant emissions reductions. The Chinese program has some features that make it less cost-effective. Nonetheless, researchers at RFF concluded that the climate benefits will be three times the cost of emission reductions. They didn’t …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Kudlow Inversion
Trump’s key advisor on the economy, the coronavirus, and regulation, with a gift for getting everything wrong.
“Only the best people,” Trump said. Let’s talk about his chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow. Kudlow seems to live in an inverted, upside-down world. He somehow manages to be wrong about everything — wrong about the economy, wrong about deregulation, wrong about climate change, wrong about the coronavirus. A full sweep, in other words. It’s …
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