Senate Panel Opens Door to Carbon Tax. By Darren Samuelsohn, Greenwire, December 2, 2009. "The Senate climate debate detoured from cap-and-trade legislation on Wednesday as the Energy and Natural Resources Committee weighed alternatives like a carbon tax or even sector-specific limits on power plants. 'We need to dispense with the blind loyalty to cap and trade, or at least begin to question if it is warranted,' said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)... Murkowski, the committee's ranking member and a co-sponsor last year with Democrats of a cap-and-trade bill, said Americans now associate the cap-and-trade concept as a tax that will raise prices on a range of consumer goods... 'We need to be honest about those costs, and ensure that the revenues associated with them are returned to the people who will bear the burden of compliance,' Murkowski said... 'As we take stock of our options, I believe we should explore pairing a massive tax cut with a price on emissions. Academics and economists suggest that climate policy offers an opportunity to improve the efficiency of our tax code and benefit our economy.'

"Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) offered accolades for a carbon tax, too, adding that such an approach 'always seemed like the more intelligent thing to do. It's a constant. You know it's there'... Witnesses invited to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing [video, 129 min] underscored the many options that Congress has before it as it weighs a major shift in U.S. energy and environmental policy. Jonathan Banks, climate policy coordinator at the Clean Air Task Force, floated sector-specific emission limits for power plants, other major industrial facilities and the transportation sector, as opposed to cap-and-trade legislation across the economy."

Poll Finds Voters More Receptive to Carbon Tax than to Cap-and-Trade. By Ben Geman, The Hill, December 3, 2009. "A poll released on Tuesday shows stronger voter support for a carbon tax to curb greenhouse gas emissions than a cap-and-trade program. Cap-and-trade is at the heart of House and Senate climate change bills. But the poll commissioned by two groups backing a carbon tax -- the U.S. Climate Task Force and Future 500 -- finds that voters prefer that approach by a wide margin. The Hart Research Associates poll conducted in late August found that 46% favored cap-and-trade while 46% opposed it. Asked about a carbon tax, 57% were in favor while 37% were opposed. The head-to-head battle: Pollsters asked respondents which option they preferred for reducing emissions when the two were compared. The carbon tax won, 58% to 27%.

"But the poll's description of the carbon tax was somewhat sunnier. Here's how they asked the head-to-head question: 'Based on what you know and the descriptions I just read, which approach would you prefer to reducing carbon emissions: (Statement A:) A 'cap and trade' approach that would set an overall limit on carbon emissions produced by companies and businesses and allow companies to buy and sell permits or credits for the carbon emissions they produce, OR (Statement B:) A 'carbon tax' approach that taxes carbon emissions to create an incentive for companies to reduce their carbon emissions and consumers to increase their energy efficiency while also providing a revenue stream for tax refunds to individuals and households to offset the overall impact of the tax.'

"Elaine Kamarck, the co-chair of the U.S. Climate Task Force, highlighted a finding in the poll showing that just two percent of respondents had a 'very positive' view of cap-and-trade. Kamarck worked in the Clinton White House and advised Al Gore's 2000 presidential run. Voters don't appear very familiar with either idea. Nine percent said they knew a lot about cap-and-trade and its pros and cons, 15% said a fair amount. 26% said they knew very little, and 35% had never heard the term. For the carbon tax, 8% said they knew a lot, 18% said a fair amount, 26% said very little, and 31% had never heard of it. The pollsters spoke with 1,002 registered voters, and the margin of error is plus-or-minus 3.2%, according to Hart Research Associates." See Executive Summary of Energy and Climate Change Policy Survey Among American Voters.

Energy Interests Pouring Money into Campaign Coffers of Fence-Sitting Senators. By Christa Marshall, ClimateWire, November 30, 2009. "A group of U.S. senators who could determine the fate of a climate bill received more than $20 million in campaign contributions over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation. Electric utilities poured at least $4.2 million to the 27 lawmakers, who are considered 'fence sitters' on a global warming bill, according to an E&E analysis [PDF, 2 pp] of potential votes. The oil and gas sector pumped $5.8 million to the group over the past 20 years. Transportation companies and their associated unions gave some $6 million combined, while forestry companies and agricultural interests doled out more than $2 million. Environmental groups donated $315,000 over the same time frame... Many of the on-the-fence politicians hail from states burning and extracting a lot of coal or containing a large number of energy-intensive and transportation-related industries. These senators are in a tough political spot, since those sectors employ hundreds of thousands of workers but also constitute a majority of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

"West Virginia, Maine, Arkansas, Ohio, Alaska, Indiana, North Dakota, Michigan and Montana are heavily represented in the fence-sitting crowd, with both U.S. senators from each of those states belonging to the group... Mining appears in the top sectors contributing to three of the lawmakers from big coal states, Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio), but not the others. Similarly, producers of crops like rice and sugar gave more than $1 million to six of the fence sitters from big farm states, but largely ignored the rest of the 27. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) received more than $600,000 in campaign donations from the sector since her assumption of office in 1999... Campaign money is flowing at increased rates from many companies with a strong interest in the fate of a climate bill to six of the 27 senators up for re-election in 2010. Those politicians include Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Lincoln, as well as Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.)."

Cap-and-Trade is Fatally Flawed. Commentary by Daphne Wysham, HuffPost, December 1, 2009. "President Barack Obama's announcement that the U.S. will offer an unprecedented pledge to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020 at the Copenhagen climate talks in December may seem impressive at first blush. But look closely, and you'll see the 'cuts' he has offered are, at least in the short-term, essentially meaningless. The reason is twofold. First: The cuts start from a 2005 baseline, when the baseline the scientific community has put forward is 1990. As a result, these cuts translate to a mere 4% below 1990 levels by 2020, when what we need is a 25-40% cut in U.S. emissions below 1990 levels by 2020. Reason number two: Even these measly cuts could all be met by the buying and selling of an invisible, unverifiable, entirely manmade commodity: the carbon offset.Obama's offer of cuts is based on the cap and trade proposals that have passed the House and are moving through the Senate. Both versions allow polluters to meet their pollution targets by actual cuts or by trading excess pollution with another polluter who has exceeded his targets. Carbon offsets go one step further and allow polluters to carry on polluting so long as they pay a small penance for every ton of CO2 they emit above their cap. Carbon offsets are attractive to polluters because they are, in general, a cheaper price to pay than actual cuts or traded emissions.

"To help clarify the complicated world of cap and trade, we have joined forces with The Story of Stuff Project and Free Range Studios to produce a short, 10-minute film called The Story of Cap and Trade, which attempts to simplify the flaws in this approach and suggests better ways of moving forward." Daphne Wysham is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., where she is the founder and co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network.

The Story of Cap-and-Trade. Commentary by Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones, December 2, 2009. "Annie Leonard, creator of The Story of Stuff, a popular web video that argues against consumerism, released a new video yesterday on cap and trade. Like her earlier effort, The Story of Cap and Trade features engaging narration and cute, easy-to-understand comic sketches to explain an extremely complex issue. The problem? Leonard vastly oversimplifies cap and trade and its problems. The video blames the current difficulties surrounding cap and trade entirely on the policy itself, not the lawmakers and special interest groups seeking to load the legislation with exceptions and giveaways... The estimable David Roberts has a thorough take-down of the video at Grist, which I recommend."

Europe Bypassed on Road to Copenhagen. By James Kanter, NYTimes, December 2, 2009. "No political entity has pushed harder for the Copenhagen conference on climate change to succeed than the European Union. But just days before the opening of the United Nations-sponsored meeting, the Europeans have been largely pushed to the sidelines, watching as the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, seek to set the rules of the game. 'That's of course the unfortunate situation for Copenhagen,' said Jo Leinen, a German member of the European Parliament who is leading the chamber's delegation to the conference that is intended to follow up on the soon-to-expire Kyoto Protocol. 'It's turning into a bit of a ping-pong match between China and the United States, with each just looking at the other,' he said.

"The United States snubbed Kyoto because fast-emerging China and India could grow without facing restrictions on their emissions. But the E.U. sped ahead anyway, developing a plethora of new targets, subsidies and mechanisms to comply with the treaty, including a complicated system to cap carbon dioxide and to trade emissions permits. Almost overnight, London's financial district became a global hub for trading in greenhouse gases. Makers of windmills in Denmark flourished. Innovative solar industries sprang up in Germany and Spain... So far, New Zealand is the only country outside Europe to have passed into law a national plan to trade emissions, leaving the bloc looking increasingly isolated... Last year, in a bold move to stamp its environmental policies on the rest of the world, the E.U. required all airlines arriving or leaving from its airports to buy some pollution credits beginning in 2012. But the move infuriated Washington, which said it risked breaking international aviation rules by forcing non-European airlines into the system.

"Mistrust between Europe and the United States lingers even after President Barack Obama pledged right after his election victory that the United States would finally tackle greenhouse gases. This summer, the Europeans were particularly irked by a U.S. decision to negotiate with China bilaterally rather than to come to Bonn, where climate talks under the U.N. umbrella were under way at the same time. The Europeans regard the United Nations as the best forum to ensure developing countries rally behind the treaty-making process. In October, E.U. leaders agreed to pay a share into a global fund that would be worth $100 billion annually by 2020. E.U. nations could not agree on how much should be contributed from the public purse, bitterly disappointing environmental campaigners and U.N. officials. But the move marked the first formal recognition that rich countries responsible for the vast majority of accumulated greenhouse gases will need to pick up the bill to help poor countries adapt to the effects of climate change."

Promises by U.S. and China Energize Delegations on Road to Copenhagen. By Arthur Max, AP, November 27, 2009. "Even after the U.S. and China set targets this week for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the world's combined pledges ahead of next month's climate summit fall far short of what experts say is needed to avert dangerous global warming. Still, emission promises by the two countries, the world's biggest polluters, added much-needed momentum as governments began final preparations for the 192-nation conference in Copenhagen, where parameters will be set for a new climate change agreement. From Beijing to Trinidad, governments huddled Friday to plan their negotiating strategies. China hosted India and other major developing countries a day after announcing that Beijing would cut 'carbon intensity,' a measure of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of production, by 40 to 45% by 2020, compared with levels in 2005."

President and Top Administration Officials to Attend Copenhagen Talks. Press Release, White House, November 25, 2009. "The White House announced on November 25 that President Obama will travel to Copenhagen on Dec. 9 to participate in the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where he is eager to work with the international community to drive progress toward a comprehensive and operational Copenhagen accord... For the first time, the U.S. delegation will have a U.S. Center at the conference, providing a unique and interactive forum to share our story with the world... Speakers currently scheduled include: EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson... Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar... Commerce Secretary Gary Locke...Energy Secretary Steven Chu... Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack... CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley and Assistant to the President Carol Browner."

Momentum Builds as More World Leaders Commit to Attending Copenhagen Summit. Reuters, December 1, 2009. "Most world leaders plan to attend a climate summit in Copenhagen this month, boosting chances that a new U.N. deal to fight climate change will be reached, host Denmark said on Tuesday. The number of leaders planning to come to the December 7-18 talks had risen to 98 out of the 192 members of the United Nations, Denmark said... Many analysts say chances of healing deep rifts between rich and poor nations over how to fight global warming have improved after leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jibao have said they would come to Copenhagen. Obama plans to attend on December 9, a day before he is due to collect the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Most other leaders plan to come on December 17-18, pinning prestige on getting a deal done."

Commonwealth Leaders Back International Climate Change Fund and Binding Agreement. By James Robbins, BBC, November 29, 2009. "Commonwealth leaders have backed a multi-billion-dollar plan to help developing nations to deal with climate change and cut greenhouse gases. The fund, proposed by UK and French leaders at the Commonwealth summit on Friday, would start next year and build to $10 billion annually by 2012. Many Commonwealth members are island states threatened by rising sea levels. Leaders also called for the strongest possible outcome at next month's climate change summit in Copenhagen. They unanimously agreed to seek a legally binding international agreement, but accepted that 'a full legally binding outcome' might have to wait to 2010... UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the declaration sent a clear political message. 'The Commonwealth is showing that you can find some common ground amidst countries that are very different, large and small, rich and poor, and that climate change is an issue that affects us all, and that the world needs to show the sort of resolution that we've seen here over the past 24 hours,' he said. It added that 'fast start funding' for adaptation should be focused on the most vulnerable countries."

Russia's 'Hot Air' Allowances Threaten Prospects for Post-Kyoto Treaty. By Philip P. Pan, WashPost, November 30, 2009. "Russia is on track to far exceed its targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions under the Kyoto climate-change treaty, but its success could derail efforts to reach a new accord against global warming, according to officials and analysts following the negotiations. At issue in the thorny dispute is the huge surplus of carbon credits that Russia -- the world's third-largest producer of energy-related greenhouse gases -- is amassing by keeping emissions under generous 1997 Kyoto Protocol limits. The Kremlin has insisted that the credits be carried over into a new agreement, but environmentalists say that would cripple any treaty by making it much cheaper for countries to buy credits than cut emissions. 'You've got an elephant in the room that nobody is paying attention to,' said Samuel Charap, a Russia scholar at the Center for American Progress in Washington, arguing that the Obama administration needs to take up the issue with Russia's leaders... Charap and others warn that Russia's hoard of credits could allow it to play a last-minute spoiler in the [Copenhagen climate] talks. 'If you want an ambitious agreement, then Russia's potential resistance can be extremely damaging,' he said. When the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, Russia is expected to post the largest absolute drop in emissions from 1990 levels of any of the countries that signed the treaty. But the decline is almost entirely the result of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet economy rather than environmental measures by the government. Critics say Moscow doesn't deserve to keep its carbon credits because it didn't earn them with any special effort.

"The generous allowances granted the former communist nations created what critics call 'hot air' in the system -- credits not associated with any new reductions. Ned Helme, director of the Center for Clean Air Policy in Washington, said that if Russia is allowed to keep its surplus, Poland and other Eastern European countries may insist on doing so as well -- and the European Union is opposed to that. The Russian surplus is projected to grow to 5 to 6 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2012, and other Eastern European nations could bring the total surplus of credits to 7 to 10 gigatons, said Anna Korppoo, senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Carrying over the surplus 'would challenge the environmental integrity of the pact by sharply increasing global emissions,' she said."

Big Developing Nations Reject Copenhagen Climate Plan. Reuters, December 2, 2009. "China and other big developing nations rejected core targets for a climate deal such as halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 just five days before talks start in Copenhagen, diplomats said on Wednesday. China, the world's top emitter, together with India, Brazil and South Africa demand that richer nations do more and have drawn 'red lines' limiting what they themselves would accept, the diplomats told Reuters. The four rejected key targets proposed by the Danish climate talks hosts in a draft text -- halving global greenhouse gases by 2050, setting a 2020 deadline for a peak in world emissions, and limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, European diplomats said. Developing nations want richer countries to do much more to cut their emissions now before they agree to global emissions targets which they fear may shift the burden of action to them, and crimp their economic growth."

Australia's Parliament Defeats Cap-and-Trade Bill. By Rohan Sullivan, AP, December 2, 2009. "Australia's plans for an emissions trading system to combat global warming were scuttled Wednesday in Parliament, handing a defeat to a government that had hoped to set an example at international climate change talks next week. The Senate, where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government does not hold a majority, rejected his administration's proposal for Australia to become one of the first countries to install a so-called cap-and-trade system to slash the amount of heat-trapping pollution that industries pump into the air. The 41-33 vote followed a tumultuous debate in which the conservative main opposition party at first agreed to support a version of the government's bill, then dramatically dumped its leader and switched sides after bitter divisions erupted within the party. The new leader, Tony Abbott, said Australia should not adopt an emissions trading system before the rest of the world."

New York State Seeking Offshore Wind Developers for Great Lakes. Reuters, December 1, 2009. "New York State is looking for developers to build wind farms on its Great Lakes that could generate 120 to 500 megawatts of power to boost the amount of electricity that comes from renewable sources by 2015. The New York Power Authority would buy all the power generated from the offshore projects, which could be located in either Lake Erie or Lake Ontario. Offshore wind power costs about twice as much as land-based wind projects, according to industry estimates. Offshore wind farms cost about $4 million per megawatt if no interest accrued during construction. However, typically offshore wind farms can generate more power. Five firms are studying the Great Lakes wind project, which was first proposed in April. A combined cycle natural gas plant, which does produce carbon dioxide, meanwhile costs just about $1 million a megawatt... New York's renewable portfolio standard requires 25% of its electricity come from renewable sources by 2013, while the governor set a goal of 45% of the state's power come from energy efficiency and renewable resources by 2015.... New York already has more than 1,200 MW of wind power capacity, most of which was built over the past year or so in part to capture substantial federal and state incentives."

Massachusetts Negotiating Contract with National Grid - Critical for Financing Cape Wind. Press Release, Gov. Deval Patrick, December 2, 2009. "Governor Deval Patrick announced on Wednesday that National Grid and Cape Wind have agreed to enter into negotiations for a long-term contract under which the utility would purchase the electricity generated by Cape Wind. Such a Power Purchase Agreement will be a critical requirement for financing the proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound, and getting it into construction and operation in time to qualify for federal incentives under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that would reduce the cost of the project by 30%. 'For both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and launching the offshore wind industry that will achieve those reductions, it is essential for Cape Wind, like offshore wind in general, to move from wishful thinking to reality,' said Governor Patrick. 'A contract with an electric distribution utility like National Grid will move Cape Wind one step closer to reality.' Governor Patrick noted that this is a major milestone for what is expected to be the first offshore wind project in the United States."

Cash for Clunkers: The Household Edition. By Peter Whoriskey, WashPost, November 27, 2009. "In U.S. history, there may have been no better time to own a junk car, a rattling old fridge and a leaking dishwasher. On the heels of its ballyhooed 'Cash for Clunkers' program for cars, the federal government is expected to finalize details in the coming weeks of another tax-supported shopping extravaganza, known as 'Cash for Appliances.' Supported by $300 million from the economic stimulus, the program will offer rebates to consumers who buy energy-efficient refrigerators, dishwashers, air conditioners and other appliances to replace their older models. And like the $3 billion cars program that gave consumers money for swapping their clunkers for more fuel-efficient rides, the appliance initiative seems destined to inspire shoppers, drive up sales for a while and profoundly divide economists over how much lasting good this chunk of government spending will do for the economy."

Study Confirms Efficiency of LEDs and CFLs for Entire Life Cycle of Bulbs. By Eric A. Taub, NYTimes, November 30, 2009."Does the latest generation of energy-saving light bulbs save energy? A comprehensive study conducted by Osram, the German lighting company, provides evidence that they do. While that may seem self-evident, until the release of the report on Monday the answer remained unclear. That is because no one knew if the production of LED lamps required more energy than needed for standard incandescent bulbs. While it is indisputable that LEDs use a fraction of the electricity of a regular bulb to create the same amount of light, if more energy were used in the manufacturing and distribution process, then the lighting industry could be traveling down a technological dead end. The study results show that over the entire life of the bulb -- from manufacturing to disposal -- the energy used for incandescent bulbs is almost five times that used for compact fluorescents and LED lamps. The energy used during the manufacturing phase of all lamps is insignificant -- less than 2% of the total. Given that both compact fluorescents and LEDs use about 20% of the electricity needed to create the same amount of light as a standard incandescent, both lighting technologies put incandescents to shame."

Report Outlines Best Practices for Connecting Renewables to the Grid. By Robert P. Walzer, NYTimes, November 27, 2009. "A new report on state renewable energy regulations gives California, Colorado, New Jersey and Oregon top marks and failing grades for Georgia, Idaho and Texas. Freeing the Grid, which was written by renewables advocates, examines each state's policies on net metering and interconnection procedures. Those are two of the main regulatory elements that enable homeowners and businesses to connect solar panels or other energy technologies to the electric grid, and be reimbursed for their efforts... The report, released on Tuesday, was prepared by two nonprofit groups, Network for New Energy Choices and the Vote Solar Initiative. It lays out suggested guidelines to facilitate the adoption of renewable energy. The groups are hoping for improvement to existing state regulations, and ultimately for a favorable federal policy."

U.S. Ethanol on Track to Winning Allowance for Higher Blend Rates. Reuters, December 2, 2009. "The U.S. ethanol industry, darling of the powerful U.S. farm lobby, is on track to win approval for higher allowable blend rates that could eventually help it sell billions of gallons more of the fuel a year. The U.S. government has hinted it may approve higher ethanol blends in gasoline as soon as mid next year, despite howls from the auto industry that a higher ethanol blend might ruin car engines and concerns from some anti-hunger activists who say making fuel from food is folly. EPA said on Tuesday that cars built since 2001 will 'likely' be able to burn fuel blends of up to 15% ethanol. The current allowed level of ethanol in regular gasoline for all cars is 10%. EPA said if government tests on burning high blends in cars 'remain supportive' it could approve by the middle of 2010 a requirement for gasoline containing 15% ethanol -- known in the industry as E15 -- for cars built since 2001. 'It sounds like an implicit promise to go to E15,' said analyst Mark McMinimy, at the consulting firm Washington Research Group."

Utility to Close 11 Coal Plants in North Carolina. By Matthew L. Wald, NYTimes, December 1, 2009. "A large Southern utility said Tuesday that it would close 30 percent of its North Carolina coal-fired power plants by 2017, a step that represents a bet that natural gas prices will stay acceptably low and that stricter rules are coming on sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain. The utility, Progress Energy, based in Raleigh, said it would close 11 coal-fired power plants built between the 1950s and 1970s... While the short-term substitute is natural gas, the long-term plan is a nuclear backbone for the company's generating system, said Bill Johnson, the chief executive of the company. The plants being closed, at four sites, have a combined capacity of nearly 1,500 megawatts. Progress has spent more than $2 billion to put state-of-the-art controls on 2,500 megawatts of coal generation, the company said. And it has already announced plans for one new gas-fired plant and will soon announce additional plans, the company said. Progress is also planning to build two nuclear reactors in North Carolina and two more in Florida, but none will be in use by 2017."

Yucca Mountain Disposal Site is Dead, Says Leading Nuclear Advocate. By Peter Behr, ClimateWire, December 2, 2009. "Former Sen. Pete Domenici, a longtime advocate of nuclear power, said yesterday that it is time to give up attempts to create a permanent disposal site for the nation's nuclear waste fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. He urged the Obama administration to move ahead with a planned blue-ribbon commission to find an alternative... The Energy Department agreed in 1982 to store spent civilian reactor fuel and high-level radioactive wastes beginning in 1998, and in 1983, utilities began paying into a fund to cover storage costs. The fund has a balance of $23 billion currently, based on annual payments by utilities of $750 million, plus interest earnings, minus design work on the Yucca Mountain facility and other costs... The federal government has paid utilities more than $565 million to cover the utilities' on-site fuel storage costs, and that number could rise to $12 billion by 2020, according to DOE... Domenici said the $23 billion in the waste fund should be used to fund a pilot project on recycling spent fuel, which could substantially reduce the amount of storage space required. Opponents of reprocessing say it would increase the risk that radioactive materials could fall into terrorists' hands."

British Scientist at Center of E-Mail Controversy Steps Down. By Juliet Eilperin, WashPost, December 3, 2009. "A scientist who is one of the central figures in the controversy over hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit announced Tuesday that he is stepping down while the university investigates the incident. Climate skeptics have seized on several e-mails from Phil Jones, director of the university's Climatic Research Unit, to other researchers as evidence that prominent scientists have sought to silence their voice in the debate over global warming. The e-mails were pirated and posted online last month. 'What is most important is that CRU continues its world leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible,' Jones said in a statement. 'After a good deal of consideration I have decided that the best way to achieve this is by stepping aside from the Director's role during the course of the independent review and am grateful to the University for agreeing to this. The Review process will have my full support."

Championing the Science of Climate Change. By George Monbiot, Guardian (UK), November 25, 2009. "I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can't possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging. The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people's denial. Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We'll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologizing where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.

"The greatest tragedy here is that despite many years of outright fabrication, fraud and deceit on the part of the climate change denial industry, documented in James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore's brilliant new book Climate Cover Up, it is now the climate scientists who look bad. By comparison to his opponents, Phil Jones is pure as the driven snow. Hoggan and Littlemore have shown how fossil fuel industries have employed 'experts' to lie, cheat and manipulate on their behalf. The revelations in their book (as well as in my book Heat and in Ross Gelbspan's Book The Heat Is On) are 100 times graver than anything contained in these emails. But the deniers' campaign of lies, grotesque as it is, does not justify secrecy and suppression on the part of climate scientists. Far from it: it means that they must distinguish themselves from their opponents in every way. No one has been as badly let down by the revelations in these emails as those of us who have championed the science. We should be the first to demand that it is unimpeachable, not the last."

DeChristopher to Assert New Defense in Utah Oil Auction Case. By Paul Foy, AP, December 1, 2009. "The federal government has acknowledged it never prosecuted anyone who failed to pay a bid for drilling rights in Utah until a college student offered his bogus bids in an act of environmental defiance. The admission is giving defense lawyers for Tim DeChristopher hope they can get the two felony charges against him dismissed based on an argument of selective prosecution. DeChristopher has said he offered bids last December that he couldn't cover to protect public lands between Arches and Canyonlands national parks in Utah, and to draw attention to climate change. Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they had disclosed a number of cases where drilling companies or land agents made bids at Utah auctions they didn't cover financially [but were not prosecuted]. The reasons weren't immediately clear... Prosecutors said they were owning up to the fact [but] it doesn't prevent them from prosecuting DeChristopher... 'There's people who didn't have the money -- but they didn't have the intent to disrupt' the auction, assistant U.S. attorney John Huber said."

New Faces in Top European Climate, Environment, Energy Posts. By James Kanter, NYTimes, November 30, 2009. "The guard is changing at the European Commission in Brussels where, President Jose Manuel Barroso has named his new 27-member team -- including a newly created post for climate action. The European Parliament still must approve the decisions during hearings in January. Mr. Barroso, who made his announcements Friday, named Connie Hedegaard the bloc's first climate action commissioner. Ms. Hedegaard has been serving as climate and energy minister for Denmark... Stavros Dimas, the unassuming but determined Greek who has served as European Union's environment commissioner over the last five years, and who has earned widespread admiration from the environmental community, did not have the support of the current government in Athens to serve a second term and will leave his post. Janez Potocnik, a former minister for European affairs for Slovenia and currently the European Union commissioner for research, will replace him... Mr. Barroso named Günther Oettinger, the current minister-president of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, to replace Andris Piebalgs as the European Union's commissioner for energy. Mr. Piebalgs takes over the portfolio for overseas development."

An Economist's Invisible Hand. Commentary by John Cassidy, WSJournal, November 28, 2009. "Arthur Cecil Pigou... was, for a long time, the forgotten man of economics. In the years leading up to his death, in 1959, he was a reclusive figure, rarely venturing from his rooms at King's College. His novel ideas on taxing polluters and making health insurance compulsory were met with indifference: Keynesianism was all the rage. Today Mr. Pigou's intellectual legacy is being rediscovered, and, unlike those of John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, it enjoys bipartisan appeal. Leading Republican-leaning economists such as Greg Mankiw and Gary Becker have joined Democrats such as Paul Krugman and Amartya Sen in recommending a Pigovian approach to policy. Much of President Barack Obama's agenda -- financial regulation, cap and trade, health care reform -- is an application of Mr. Pigou's principles. Whether the president knows it or not, he is a Pigovian.

"Mr. Pigou pioneered the study of market failure... While Mr. Pigou believed capitalism works tolerably most of the time, he also demonstrated how, on occasion, it malfunctions. His key insight was that actions in one part of the economy can have unintended consequences in others... Global warming presents perhaps the most dramatic example of what can happen if spillovers are ignored. It was the growing public concern over global warming that resurrected Mr. Pigou from obscurity. In 2006, the British government published an official report on climate change by Sir Nicholas Stern, a well-known English economist, which relied extensively on Mr. Pigou's analytical framework. 'In common with many other environmental problems, human-induced climate change is at its most basic level an externality,' Mr. Stern wrote. And he went on: "It is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen." In addition to referencing Mr. Pigou's work directly several times, Mr. Stern recommended the imposition of one of his extraordinary restraints: a substantial carbon tax. This proposal remains controversial, but a number of Republican economists have endorsed it. Harvard's Greg Mankiw has founded an informal Pigou Club for economists and pundits that support a carbon tax."