As the year winds down, it’s a good time to take stock of climate policy in the United States. Here’s a quick round up of what happened -- or didn’t happen -- in 2011.
The year began with big questions about what the Obama Administration and states would do to address climate change and clean energy, absent a comprehensive federal climate policy. This year’s record was decidedly mixed. Not as much happened as some would have liked, but it was in total better than many feared as the year began.
Shale gas is a game-changer for global energy supply. It is already transforming the U.S. energy outlook, and is expected to deliver over 40% of domestic gas production by 2025 (Figure 1). Other countries and regions, notably Europe and China, may soon follow suit, in a repeat of the early 20th century oil rush.
The UN Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa, concluded over the weekend with a consensus to negotiate an agreement that will include all major emitters of warming gases.
Jennifer Morgan, Edward Cameron, and our team of climate experts look back on the key decisions from Durban and give a first take on their implications for global efforts to tackle climate change.
At the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change (COP-17) in Durban – “the longest COP ever” -- Parties agreed to establish an Ad Hoc Working Group on a Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (AWG-DP). The AWG-DP has the mandate to develop “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties.”
Next week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to finalize new rules to reduce mercury and other toxic air emissions that will affect dozens of antiquated power plants currently operating without pollution controls.
These rules have stirred debate in some circles as to whether retrofitting or retiring outdated plants will cause shortfalls in electricity capacity. How will new EPA mercury rules influence the electricity system? This post updates earlier assessments by taking a close look at recent studies on the reliability of the electricity grid to answer that question.
I touched down in Durban, South Africa, on Sunday night met by a cool tropical breeze. Since I arrived in this large port city, I’ve been thinking about Africa, which serves as a powerful backdrop for this year’s annual climate conference. Like many places I’ve visited, especially among developing countries, there is great diversity to the surroundings. The convention center is large and modern. Nearby you find industrial buildings, shopping malls, and hotels – and lots of people in a city pulsating with life.
This post was written in collaboration with Kevin McCall.
Despite the urgency of the climate challenge, emissions are still on the rise, and countries’ pledges to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions still fall short, in aggregate, of what science suggests is necessary.
So what more can we do to bridge this ambition gap?
Long-term, large-scale trends like population growth, resource constraints, and climate change are reshaping buyers’ needs and business practices. These big shifts and other “megatrends” are creating major risks (think: geopolitical unrest) and opportunities (think: clean technology innovations).