Anyone who follows climate change politics knows that China’s coal consumption is a huge concern. As this chart from the U.S. Department of Energy reveals, Chinese production has doubled in the last decade (click to see full-size image).

In addition to the implications for global warming, that increased production is associated with all sorts of other negative external…

In a review of Jeff Goodell’s new book on geoengineering, How To Cool The Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth’s Climate, Grist’s David Roberts notes that the topic raises a variety of “big questions about progress, responsibility, [and] the future of humanity.” Roberts:
To begin with, consider that by some estimates a l…

At my home institution, I’m involved in a project to reduce carbon emissions via individual behavioral changes. A relatively small group of scholars and administrators have been looking at some interesting theoretical and empirical social science research to bolster our efforts.
To understand what I have in mind, consider an example of behavioral change mentioned ear…

The May/June 2010 Utne Reader has a brief piece on science versus religion that reframes classic tensions in terms of climate change:
Everyone needs to remember, however, that “not all of the religious have a problem with science,” Chris Mooney, author of Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, tells Free Inquiry (Feb.-March 2010). An atheist (a…

Just over a year ago, Obama’s climate negotiator Todd Stern gave an important speech at a U.S. Climate Action Symposium. He’d been on the job for fewer than three weeks, but he nonetheless offered 10 fairly detailed principles that he said would underpin U.S. participation in the Copenhagen process.
This blog has previously discussed some of those principles, but I…

The Copenhagen conference occurred during the final days of my fall semester. Then came the holiday break and several paper deadlines. Hence, I’ve been quiet here. Sorry about that.
This past week, however, I participated in a campus “Teach-In” on climate change. I offered an international perspective and covered many points familiar to readers of this blo…

The ongoing negotiations in Copenhagen, which are slated to end Friday, are apparently at a “critical juncture” according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The United States inched closer to the views of its European allies today by agreeing that it is “prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year to a…

Should environmentalists and other progressives get worked up over the recently leaked “Danish text”? Todays Guardian summarized the key concerns raised by this alleged draft agreement among the rich states:
• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;…
• Not allow poor count…

One of the critical issues facing Copenhagen negotiators is the amount of money (and technology) that will be transferred from wealthy states (who are responsible for the lion’s share of past and current greenhouse gas emissions) to developing countries so that the latter won’t burn fossil fuels and thereby create future emissions that could effectively cancel o…

Will a new climate agreement require developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (ghgs)? Will developing states agree to make reductions? In this post, let’s consider the prospects for Brazil agreeing to such reductions.
First however, keep in mind the history. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 199…