Climate Policy Center

Developments at CPC

Clean Air-Cool Planet Supports Waxman-Markey

Clean Air-Cool Planet – the leading science-based, bipartisan non-profit organization dedicated to finding and promoting solutions to global warming – applauds Chairmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey for their work to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a monumental piece of legislation that promises to transform America’s energy future and help tackle the global climate crisis.

This is the first energy and climate bill that has passed through the Energy and Commerce Committee and it would establish the kind of market-based emissions reduction strategy that Clean Air–Cool Planet believes is crucial to meeting the challenge of global warming. The bill contains a cap-and-trade program that will impose strong limits on greenhouse gases and powerful incentives to invest in clean technology.

The Waxman-Markey bill would cut domestic carbon pollution and allow the U.S. to move forward in international negotiations. These are reason enough for Clean Air–Cool Planet to support it. While we believe that practical and politically attractive improvements can still be made during House consideration, there is no doubt that this bill is good for America and good for the planet. It signals to the rest of the world that America is ready and willing to be a leader in the transition to an efficient and equitable global economy based on clean energy.

Arctic Council Nations Agree: Control
Short-lived Pollutants to Stem Arctic Warming

Ministers of the Arctic Council nations (the US, Russia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland) agreed at their meeting in Tromsø, Norway, to move aggressively to limit black carbon, methane, and tropospheric ozone. Clean Air - Cool Planet and the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) have worked together over the past five years to support the declaration that was approved by the Council ministers. Read the release here.

More about short term pollutants in the Arctic.

President Announces Creation of ARPA-E

President Barack Obama announced funding of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, or ARPA-E, an initiative championed by Clean Air - Cool Planet. Based on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), created in the late ‘50s to do high-risk, high-reward research, “ARPA-E seeks to do this same kind of high-risk, high-reward research,” the President said. Find out more here.

Report from Economist Robert Repetto Advises Transition Team on Climate and the Economy

The paper, “Climate Change Policy and Economic Revitalization” by Yale Economist Robert Repetto, a senior fellow at Clean Air-Cool Planet, is part of the organization’s ongoing effort to advise the new Congress and President-elect Obama’s transition team on effective ways to tackle climate change in 2009. Read the paper.

CA-CP's Climate Policy Center Releases Recommendations
on Climate Change Action for the 44th President

Building a Foundation for Success: Recommendations for Early Action on Climate Change gives the next President a focused, strategic set of actions through which the incoming administration can start successfully addressing climate change from the transition through the President’s first 100 days in office. The report, which originated in the concerns and questions voiced by citizen participants in the New Hampshire Carbon Coalition, contains practical suggestions for picking the right team, linking climate and economic issues, and building a powerful consensus for action in the Congress and the public.

In making its recommendations, CA-CP drew on the experience of our own policy staff as well as on interviews with more than 40 professionals with expertise in Presidential transitions, senior White House and Executive Branch staff from Republican and Democratic administrations, economists and climate change experts. See the report.

NEWS ARCHIVE

Climate Change Legislation:
Revenue Recycling Could Ease Economic Impact Sept. 16 briefing

Briefing on Capitol Hill Draws SRO Crowd:
Rep. John Larson (CT) opened a standing-room only briefing on Capitol Hill on Sept. 16. The briefing, co-sponsored by Clean Air-Cool Planet and Environment and Energy Study Institute, attracted a diverse audience from inside and outside the Beltway. Presentations from representatives from Congress and the Congressional Budget
Office focused on options for easing the economic burden of climate change.

Click here to see video of the speakers presenting on these important policy options.

Capitol building

In a policy discussion held on Sept. 16, participants explored options for easing the economic burden of climate change legislation. The meeting, jointly hosted by Clean Air-Cool Planet's Climate Policy Center and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, was attended by representatives from Congress and the Congressional Budget Office; leading academicians; and experts from two think tanks. Read the details.

Other reports and policy documents

A Sept. 25 discussion on reductions of black carbon in the Arctic included CA-CP's Executive VP of Policy, Brooks Yeager, and Ellen Baum of the Clean Air Task Force along with members of Congress. After an introduction to the science of short-lived pollutants and global warming, multilateral solutions were discussed. Read related document about the Oslo Group and the Arctic Council Initiative.

The Sept. 16 Policy Discussion on Revenue Recycling, hosted by Clean Air-Cool Planet and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, explored how the revenues generated through climate change legislation can be recycled through the tax code to lower the overall societal cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. See videos of the event.

A CBO report on economic feasibility of carbon emissions programs concluded that a cap-and-trade program with a safety valve, as advocated by the Climate Policy Center, is the most efficient cap-and-trade program. Read our press release.

Climate Policy Center and Clean Air-Cool Planet Merge (10/23/2007)

cover
Paving the Way for
U.S. Climate Leadership
(4/15/2008)