Energy

Good News From India

While we’ve been obsessing about Trump, India has made great strides in renewable energy.

We get so focused on the problems in our own country that it’s easy to lose track of what’s happening globally. It turns out that while we’ve been mired in our own travails, India has been making remarkableprogress on renewable energy. What happens in India has tremendous significance. It is now the most populous country …

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Netherlands Government Appeals Historic Climate Change Ruling

Supreme Court building of the Netherlands

The Dutch Supreme Court will decide whether the government is obligated to cut emissions more

Last month, an appeals court in the the Netherlands upheld a lower court’s ruling that the Dutch government is legally obligated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more aggressively. This drew much international attention, as well as praise from environmental advocacy organizations. As expected, the government has announced that it will appeal this decision in the Urgenda …

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A Catalogue of Game Changers

We’re making progress on addressing climate change, and I’m hopeful that we’ll continue doing so. Yet it’s not clear whether the path we’re currently on will make progress fast enough to avoid very serious risks.  So what would it take for us to make a quantum leap in this effort?  I wouldn’t hazard a prediction …

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Guest Bloggers Deborah Gordon and Frances Reuland: Is California Extraordinary? Its Oil Resources Certainly Are

Facts About California’s Oil and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Despite ongoing federal rollbacks to environmental regulations, California has the right to set its own clean air standards because it is truly extraordinary. Truth be told, the compelling circumstances that first set in motion California’s vehicle emissions standards remain entirely valid. And there are four recent conditions, related to California’s oil supply, production, and refining, …

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Post-election climate policy options

Options for newly empowered state governors, legislators and US House Representatives to advance climate policy

This post is co-authored by Dan Farber and Eric Biber. Democrats took control of the US House of Representatives in the election last week, took full control of six state governments (Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Maine, and Illinois), took governorships in seven states (including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Kansas), and made significant gains in …

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What The 2018 Election Results Mean For California Climate Policy

Big wins for state initiatives and pro-climate candidates, plus opportunities for high speed rail and cap and trade

Some big wins for California (and therefore national) climate policy last night: Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom is elected governor, which means the state will continue its climate leadership on various policy fronts Prop. 6 loses, which would have repealed the gas tax increase and meant less funding for transit going forward Prop. 1 wins, which …

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The 2018 Elections: What’s the Upshot?

Overall, some very positive developments in terms of energy and environmental policy.

What happened on Tuesday? And what does it mean for the environment>? Going into Tuesday’s voting, there were three possible scenarios about the outcome: The Least Favorable Scenario for Environmental Regulation. In this scenario, the Republicans would hang on to control of the House by a smaller margin than today, and they gain several seats …

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Major Policy Attacks on California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Why They’re Off-Target

Second in a Series About California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard Program

[Post co-authored by Ted Parson and Sean Hecht] In this post, we continue our discussion of California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), which we introduced in our post on October 4, 2018. Because it’s a prominent and ambitious policy that will reduce California’s reliance on petroleum-based transport fuels, it is unsurprising the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard has …

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States Rally Around Renewables

States have ignored Trump to promote clean energy within their borders.

CLEE published a survey of state energy policies through 2017.  The trend toward renewables has continued in 2018. Even after nearly two years of the Trump Presidency, states haven’t given up. Instead, they’re moving forward aggressively. If anything, Trump seems to have stimulated these states to try even harder. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s …

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Modernizing the Grid

Utilities are spending billions of dollars to make the grid more reliable and sustainable.

In my last post, I talked about how Obama’s Clean Power plan was the right response to a changing grid. The grid is in the process of changing even more. Itwas designed for some relatively straightforward tasks. The main power plants, mostly burning coal (but sometimes natural gas or nuclear energy), ran day and night. …

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