In The News

Guardian: Tackle Climate or Face Financial Crash

Damian Carrington December 11, 2018
Some of the world’s largest pension funds, insurers, rating agencies and asset managers are heeding warnings from climate researchers to demand phase-out on all coal burning, reduced carbon emissions and introduction of carbon taxes. As ministers arrive for a UN climate summit in Poland, more than 400 investors signed a Global Investor Statement describing refusal to acknowledge climate change as...

Financial Times: Business Leaders Warn of Lack of Progress on Emissions

Ed Crooks September 5, 2018
The world population has grown by about 80 million people annually since the year 2000, but countries make little progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming. The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, a group of corporate executives and political leaders, warns the world is missing an opportunity. The commission describes the next decade as a “‘use it or lose it...

Phys.org: Earth Risks Tipping Into “Hothouse” State

Kerry Sheridan August 8, 2018
Consequences of humans’ over-reliance on fossil fuels are rapidly unfolding, and failure to transition to a green economy could put Earth into a permanent “hothouse state” with many uninhabitable areas, warns a study published by the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers reviewed the fossil record for previous conditions and cascading effects and urge immediate lifestyle change. “Fossil...

Wired: Thank Colleges for Carbon Taxes – Really

Matt Simon March 13, 2018
Taxes fund public goods including health care, fire and police protection, education and more. A MIT economist points out that taxing carbon can be up to 10 times more efficient than current policies like fuel-economy standards for reducing emissions. Universities are leading the way in showing government how to tax carbon emissions. Matt Simon, writing for Wired, describes two programs. Yale...

The New York Times: As Trump Exits Paris Agreement, Other Nations Are Defiant

Somini Sengupta, Melissa Eddy and Chris Buckley June 3, 2017
By withdrawing the United States from a non-binding treaty, Donald Trump rejects that climate change is a crisis. He rejects the opinion of a majority of US citizens and virtually the entire global science community. He rejects notions that cities like Pittsburgh and Paris might have common interests or that the US as biggest carbon polluter in history should contribute to a fund helping poor...

The Atlantic: Is Trump's Climate-Change Agenda Politically Sustainable?

Ronald Brownstein June 2, 2017
After long raising doubts about climate change, the US president decided to withdraw from the global treaty on climate change. He claims his decision will create jobs and questions if the agreement will truly stem climate change. He says he will try to renegotiate a deal already agreed by more than 190 countries, and expressed little concern that reopening the treaty could be difficult. The...

CNBC: The Costs of Dumping Obama’s Clean Power Plan

Jason Bordoff March 29, 2017
Despite polarization among US lawmakers, the president can accomplish much with executive orders. Donald Trump is dismantling his predecessor’s climate legacy, explains Jason Bordoff, a professor and founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Orders announced today “direct agencies to rewrite regulation...