Florida’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives supported a measure yesterday to allow drilling in state waters. It is a major change in policy as supporting such legislation even just a few years ago would have almost been political suicide as so many citizens in the state feared for the cleanliness of the their beaches. The likelihood […]
Shanghai, often recognized for its free-market tendencies and environmental leadership, is introducing China’s first municipal trading mechanism as a means to curb pollution. Last Friday, in advance of a major carbon trade industry event taking place in Beijing this week, word began surfacing in the Chinese media that Shanghai plans to pilot an emissions trading […]
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, are set to meet on 29 April. The meeting comes nearly four months after disagreements over gas prices led to a standoff between the two nations, leaving a good portion of the continent without gas supplies in the dead of winter. Fortunately, the price […]
I have a very high regard for the reporting at the venerable “Economist.” (Somewhat less so for the editorial writers.) In a perfectly informative, relatively important article recently on water quality and quantity issues worldwide, I thought the writer overstepped the bounds of reason on one particular point. For the record, here is my letter […]
My colleague, Elizabeth Balkan, writing the other day at the FPA blog on Energy, had a good update on the state of affairs on REDD, forestry and climate change: Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Shaping Financing to Prevent Deforestation. She looks particularly at the Waxman-Markey draft and how it embraces this critical aspect of […]
As you remember, Dorothy and Toto got blown a little off course. Some coal-fired power plants have had a similar trial. See Coal Plants Blocked here from October 2007 and a follow-up story at Coal Takes Some Lumps from a year ago. It turns out that the company trying so desperately to site its plants […]
The dramatic rescue of the Maersk Alabama’s captain Richard Phillips brought relief that his hostage crisis was resolved, but the dangers of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean continue. Somali pirates have not been slowed by the Maersk Alabama incident, continuing to regularly hijack ships to make money by ransoming the ship, […]
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) held an event on April 8, 2009 with Professor Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. Professor De Shutter presented an analysis of the global food crisis titled “From Malthus to Sen.” Following his remarks, he took questions from Steven Schonberger from the World […]
The Waxman-Markey bill signals Washington’s intentions to pony up to fund deforestation prevention as part of overall climate legislation. But will climate scientists, C-15 negotiators, developing countries and environmental groups agree on an international forest protection program that everyone, including the trees, can live with? Scientists and climate policy makers now agree that saving forests […]
I was surprised to learn that the White House science advisor, John Holdren, who I have lauded here, along with most of the other Obama appointees working on energy, the environment and climate change, has said that geoengineering should not be “off the table.” See Obama climate adviser open to geo-engineering to tackle global warming […]
The Foreign Policy Association has posted a Great Decisions 2009 Spring Update on its website. The Update compiles important news items from the past few months and is an excellent way to stay up to date on the each of the eight U.S. foreign policy and global affairs issues covered in Great Decisions 2009. There […]
In one of the most candid assessments of the direction of US energy/environmental policy, Anadarko chief James Hackett blasts the current focus on carbon dioxide reduction. (Financial Times – registration required). The histrionic and maniacal focus on carbon dioxide is intellectually repugnant to me. He added that it is “taking the economy into a tailspin.” […]
Popular from Press
