The European Union has released its latest greenhouse gas emissions report, and on paper it looks good. Emissions are 9.3 percent below 1990 levels. But if you look closely at the data, there is perhaps less reason for optimism than the number, on its face, suggests, as Roger Pielke Jr. notes, the largest reductions in …
I have the typical attention span of a journalist, and once the gas price spike turned into whatever the opposite of a spike is, I rushed off to the next front page thought, but really, gas prices have remained interesting: But for full context, also this: Sorta hard to see without referring to the underlying …
Continue reading ‘Gas Prices Creeping Up, Demand Still Down’ »
In a parallel to previous discussion of resistance to state-leve cap-and-trade measures, Kate Galbraith has a roundup of failures to increase gasoline taxes at the state level: One by one, the state-level proposals to boost the gas tax — which I wrote about in January — are, well, running out of gas. The latest casualty …
From this morning’s Albuquerque Journal, a look at the difficulties in Congress as greenhouse gas regulation becomes real rather than an abstract exercise: Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., was one of 26 Democrats who joined Republicans last week in voting to make it harder for the Senate to act quickly on President Barack Obama’s greenhouse gas …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Realities of Cap and Trade’ »
Last week, I wrote a piece for the newspaper (adwalled) about the difficulties faced by greenhouse reduction advocates in New Mexico in getting their Western Climate Initiative legislation moving: The difficulty in passing legislation here is mirrored in other states. Efforts in Montana, Arizona, Utah and Washington, which are also part of the Western Climate …
Continue reading ‘Is the Western Climate Initiative tanking?’ »
Pietro Nivola at Brookings has a new discussion paper that provides, among other things, a useful discussion of where the American public is on climate change. Superficial polling suggests relatively strong support, but when you probe deeper, the cracks show: Majorities, in sum, dutifully nod at abstractions-for example, “doing more” to combat climate change. They …
Continue reading ‘People Seem to Favor Action on Climate Change Until….’ »
Sat down with my favorite search engine’s news goober this evening to see what’s up with cap-and-trade, and I can report that the sweep of coverage had a certain consistent flavor. Some representative headlines: US Might Not Benefit from Cap-and-Trade Cap-trade on carbon may push up costs Cap and Trade: A Huge, Regressive Tax Cap-and-trade …
Continue reading ‘My Random and Totally Unscientific Cap-and-Trade Headline Survey’ »
New Mexico’s cap and trade bill failed. What happens next?
From today’s business section (adwalled): “There is no bigger risk that can impact you long term in our business than climate change,” Sterba, chief executive officer of PNM, told the Journal in an interview.
Climate scientists, apparently, are a dour, grumpy bunch, while economists have the cheerful demeanor of a plucky role model heading enthusiastically into the future.* This, at least, is the impression left by Jean-Marie Macabrey’s account** of last week’s Cophenhagen climate fest: At the congress, it seemed that all the scientists had to share with their …
Continue reading ‘The Difference Between Climate Scientists and Economists’ »