Climate Technology

Another reason to procrastinate about my Christmas shopping

From the producers of "The Meatrix" and "Grocery Store Wars" comes "The Story of Stuff," a short video about production and consumption, just in time for the holiday shopping binge. Click here for the full movie (sample clip embedded below).

A titillating* new column on corporate carbon reporting

Imagine that you are upper management at a large corporation, and you’re told that you need to start comprehensively disclosing your outfit’s CO2 emissions in your financial reports. Sounds like […]

Canadian outdoor-goods retailer won’t sell plastic water bottles

Mountain Equipment Co-op, Canada’s largest outdoor-goods retailer, has yanked Nalgene bottles and other polycarbonate plastic containers from its shelves, concerned about toxic bisphenol A leaching from the plastic. MEC — […]

Gas prices impact car-purchasing decisions in the U.S.

Hybrid sales are taking off again as gasoline prices soar:

Reported sales of hybrids in the US in November rose 82% year-on-year to reach 33,233 total units, representing 2.8% of all light-duty vehicles sold during the month. GM does not break out its hybrid sales separately, and so is not reflected in the hybrid number -- thus, the actual hybrid total and new market share will [be] slightly higher.

Toyota posted a strong month, with Prius sales hitting 16,737 units, up 109% from the year before.

Still a small fraction of U.S. vehicles sold, but gas prices clearly do have some impact on purchasing decisions.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Thumbs down for Toyota, GM, Ford, Washington Post

The Washington Post had an article yesterday on the House fuel economy deal that is quite good in doling out cheers and jeers -- good except for two sentences. Let's start with the cheers.

The article quotes NRDC rightly praising Pelosi for being steadfast with the Senate's 35 mpg target and Dingell, too, for:

... telling the automakers a year ago that they were going to have to accept a mileage improvement. He bargained hard for trying to make it less, but he deserves credit for coming around and agreeing.

The article also has fascinating back story on how Japanese car manufacturer Nissan "struck out on its own to lobby Capitol Hill for fuel standards that were in some ways stricter than what other automakers wanted." A Nissan Sr. VP "said the company decided early to advocate tough fuel-economy standards as part of a company-wide effort to become more eco-friendly."

Ungreen GM and Ford worked hard to kill a 35-mpg deal, and so did supposedly green Toyota. Google "Toyota greenwash" to see how people feel about this. [Note to Toyota: Why not have lobbying consistent with your eco-branding?]

So what are the two sentences that get the Post a thumbs down?

Fish less now to boost profits later, says study

The less fish there are, the more expensive it is to catch them — so if overfished marine stocks were given time to regenerate, fisherfolk would end up making a […]

Fossil-friendly biz groups send letter to Senate requesting reversal of Supreme Court decision

Today, an extraordinary letter about the energy bill was sent to the U.S. Senate by a coalition of business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, oil, gas, forestry, and […]

California declares emissions-reduction target, requires industry to track emissions

As California’s landmark global-warming law requires the state to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, the state Air Resources Board has determined just what that goal will be: […]

Medical device case could impact global warming debate

In last week's negotiations over the energy bill, one of the most significant victories for proponents of getting serious about global warming came when Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood up to yet another attempt to short-circuit efforts by over a dozen states to demand cleaner cars.

The issue on which Pelosi convinced Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and other auto industry allies to back down, known in legal circles as "preemption," has emerged as a lightning rod in global warming politics. The focus on preemption has only intensified in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling this April in Mass v. EPA, recent developments in the states, and the current confused state of Supreme Court preemption law.

Things could get better or worse depending how the Court disposes of a case that was argued on Tuesday. On its face, Riegel v. Medtronic, about liability for faulty medical devices, doesn't have anything to do with global warming. It could, however, be a turning point in preemption doctrine, and thus have a significant long-range impact on the global warming/federalism/politics mix.

The Legal and Political Landscape

My boss, Doug Kendall, noted the dynamic at stake back in May, in a Knight Ridder op-ed assessing the potential impact of Mass v. EPA:

How to structure a cap-and-trade program

From an awesomely meaty article on cap-and-trade from The San Francisco Chronicle comes this pearl of wisdom (in bold at the bottom of the quote):

[T]he lesson of the acid rain program is to keep the plan simple and easy for all parties to understand.

"If it starts to employ a lot of special provisions to take care of every party's special needs ... and if it starts to look like the Chicago phone book, then throw it out," [RFF economist Dallas Burtraw] said. "A poorly designed market is worse than no market at all."

I'm not sure I'd go quite that far -- a carbon market's a pretty important thing, and I'd be willing to live with a less-than-perfect system if it's the only one that's politically feasible.

That said, amen to the virtues of simplicity! Obviously, when designing a cap-and-trade program, there will be all sorts of pressure to create special interest loopholes, or dole out goodies to favored constituencies. Over the short-term, that might seem like smart politics -- but over the long-term, the political drawbacks of a clunky, unworkable program will far exceed any short-term benefits.