clair031

Summary .   TransCanada, the sponsor of the Keystone XL pipeline project, filed an updated application for approval with the U. S. Department of State.   The Department issued a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement evaluating the application. It addresses many immediate environmental concerns focusing on the pipeline route and its environmental integrity.   This post focuses on a more fundamental issue.   It restates the opposition of this blog to approval of the pipeline because if granted, the project would ensure a long-term commitment to continued and prolonged emissions of carbon dioxide, a principal greenhouse gas. The energy economy is likened to a zero-sum enterprise, balancing investments in conventional carbon-based fuels for energy, worsening global warming, and developing renewable energy sources, improving the global climate.   The longer mankind accumulates higher and higher levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases, the worse global war...

Summary .   The European Union instituted its Emissions Trading Scheme, using a cap and trade mechanism, in 2005.   Since that time, the Scheme has gone through periods in which the number of allowances was too high, resulting in excessively low values for their price.   In a vote on April 16, 2013 the European Parliament defeated a proposed measure continuing to allot allowances to the emissions sources among the EU’s member nations, largely for economic reasons.   If allotments are not revived, the ETS will cease operations.   This would terminate one of the first multinational efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.   The ETS exemplifies the administrative and political difficulties facing cap and trade regimes.   Valuing carbon emissions is better achieved with a carbon fee.   Introduction .   The original members of the European Union (EU) in 1997 acceded to the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to limit emissions of c...

Summary .   Public opinion surveys in the U. S. show that more than two-thirds currently think there is solid evidence that the earth is warming.    The surveys find the public supports expansion of renewable energy.   A majority of Republicans among survey respondents are included in this supporting class.   One survey reports that Republicans believe their elected representatives do not “care much about” what they think about climate change.   Policymakers should respond to poll results such as these and coalesce around efforts to expand renewable energy.   Many policy justifications exist to support this position.   Introduction .   Climate scientists from all around the world overwhelmingly agree that manmade greenhouse gases have contributed significantly to increased long-term global average temperatures over the last several decades.   They foresee a future by the end of this century, and beyond, having profoundly higher temp...