Common Resources

Climate Change Policy Imperatives: Let’s Not Neglect Adaptation

Each succeeding year in which the world fails to agree to forceful and binding commitments to slash releases of greenhouse gas emissions underscores the increased urgency of complementary measures to strengthen resilience to impacts of global warming that may no longer be avoided or sufficiently mitigated through just emissions reduction. Framing that dilemma in shorthand […]

How US Gridlock May Handicap Climate Leadership

Next week, world leaders will meet at the United Nations in New York City at the invitation of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss actions the leaders will take to limit their country’s emissions of greenhouse gases in an effort to forestall global climate change. For many, success of […]

Pursuing a Global Climate Treaty: Next Stop, New York

Climate change takes center stage in New York City two weeks from now when world leaders will attend the United Nations Climate Summit—a stepping stone along the path to a new global climate agreement to emerge in Paris in late 2015. Don’t expect a “kumbaya” moment at the summit. Rather, expect to see a very […]

The Importance of Reviewing Mitigation Contributions in International Climate Policy

As the international community continues climate negotiations on the road to the Paris 2015 UN-sponsored climate talks, attention has turned to the review of countries’ emissions mitigation contributions and commitments. This builds on the evolution toward a pledge and review regime established in the 2009 Copenhagen and 2010 Cancun negotiations. In my new RFF discussion […]

The Federal Multiagency Collaboration on Unconventional Oil and Gas Research Strategy: What Have We Learned?

The Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency recently released the long-awaited research strategy on unconventional oil and gas research. Its mandate was to produce timely, policy-relevant research questions that support sound policy decisions and prudent oil and gas development. It also was to “analyze and synthesize the state of […]

Quick Thoughts on UARG v. EPA

SCOTUS released its decision in UARG v. EPA today, with the majority opinion authored by Justice Scalia. The issue in the case was whether EPA appropriately subjected stationary sources to new source review obligations for their GHG emissions. Here are some quick thoughts. If you’re unfamiliar with the case or with EPA’s regulatory agenda for […]

Energy Efficiency in 111(d): Evaluating Energy Savings for Carbon Reduction

EPA’s Clean Power Plan uses expanded energy efficiency programs as a component of states’ emissions rate targets. States that choose to use energy efficiency for compliance need to develop and provide EPA with a plan for evaluating energy savings that result from the policy. In the technical support document for state plans, EPA describes the […]

Energy Efficiency in 111(d): The Role of End-Use Efficiency in State Compliance Plans

In a prior blog post, I describe the contribution of energy efficiency to state emissions-reduction targets in EPA’s Clean Power Plan. As EPA has pointed out, including energy efficiency in states’ targets does not mean that states will necessarily choose to include energy efficiency programs in the compliance plans they submit to EPA. Many factors […]

Energy Efficiency in 111(d): Understanding Building Block #4

EPA’s recently released Clean Power Plan to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from existing power plants under the Clean Air Act includes four building blocks that are used to establish the target CO2 emissions rate for each state. Earlier blog posts by my RFF colleagues have described these different building blocks; my focus here […]

Twitter Q&A Roundup: EPA’s Clean Air Plan

On June 5, RFF hosted a seminar titled, “Making Sense of EPA’s Proposed Rule for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Power Plants.” We did not have time to answer all of the questions posed by our Twitter audience during that event due to time constraints. Below are our responses to some of those questions. #askRFF […]