Most environmental business blogs seem to have glossed right over coverage of Greenpeace’s rather untraditional message to President Obama on Mount Rushmore two weeks ago, though a quarter-page photo in the front section of the New York Times certainly did not. Citing discontent with Obama’s acquiescence to compromises on environmental policy, a group of eleven activists draped a massive banner next to Abraham Lincoln’s face bearing the message “America honors leaders, not politicians: Stop Global Warming.” The action came as the President met with world leaders to discuss climate change at the G8 summit, and brings to light divides among the environmental community that are becoming even more apparent thanks to the debate over the Waxman-Markey bill.

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France is currently thinking of enacting a carbon tax to increase climate change mitigation efforts. If enacted, it would be applied to the consumption of energy in general.

With French electricity being mostly low carbon, the majority of the tax revenues would come from the transportation and housing sectors.

It is worth noting that this new tax would be compensated by a decrease in charges associated to labor.

A ton of carbon dioxide would cost emitters €32 euros (around $45) in 2010 and would bring the government an estimated €8.73 billion ($12.328 billion) during the first year.

Out of these, €3.57 billion would be collected from French households and the remaining €5.16 billion from companies and administrations.

In order to divide greenhouse gases emissions by a factor of four by 2050, the tax would increase with time to reach €56 ($80) in 2020, €100 ($140) in 2030 and around €200 ($280) in 2050.

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The “meltdown” that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) mentioned as the only possibility to derail Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court never materialized during last week’s hearing, and with approval a near certainty, a lot of observers are taking a closer look at what Justice Sotomayor might mean to the Court’s environmental jurisprudence.

Jennifer Koons published a wrap-up of the environmental scuttlebutt from the hearings on Friday at Greenwire. The piece touches on the key cases and questions surrounding them. The key lies in unpacking a comment made by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) when he asked how Sotomayor felt about the Court’s 6-3 reversal of her decision in Riverkeeper v. EPA. (more…)

It is worth taking a minute to run over to National Journal Online’s Energy-Environment blog to read their ongoing discussion, entitled “Running in Place.” The series reflects on progress made in energy-environment policy in the last thirty years, since President Carter committed that we would never again import as much oil as we did in 1979.

Obviously, Carter could not bring that to reality, and we now import three times as much oil as we did when those words were uttered (from a little over a million barrels a year then to 3.5 M bpy today). “Running in Place” brings together leaders from the energy industry, policymakers and environmental advocates to analyze what has gone right, what has gone wrong, and what needs to happen going forward.

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President Obama is the only person capable of speaking directly to the American people in a way that will correct the course of climate change legislation in Congress before it is too late. Congress has never been closer to enacting a price on pollution related to global warming than it is today but proposed legislation is in serious jeopardy of being torpedoed by misinformation and most importantly, a lack of leadership. Congress risks the viability of climate change law further by the method in which it passes related legislation; climate change is a long-term fight and the public must perceive it to be like other continuing programs like Medicare and Social Security.

Propaganda about the effects of cap-and-trade on the economy is one of the primary factors that could bring it down in the Senate. The opposition framed cap-and-trade as a threat to economic growth and  a national energy tax; in response supporters of legislation have described it as a jobs bill. Neither are entirely true but the opposition’s argument is easier to believe, despite evidence to the contrary. (more…)

I’m glad that they are so proud of themselves for unanimously agreeing to do nothing! Leaders of the G8 leading industrial countries have agreed to try to limit global warming to just 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels by 2050.

Pretty farcical on so many levels, but on a personal, empathetic, level I’m happy for poor (rich?!) Mr Berlusconi who got a chance to shed some of the stress he’s been feeling at home with a photo op and stroll with our vaunted supreme leader and the other, merely mortal, leaders of the developed world.*

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The U.S. Senate has begun hearings on legislation to place a ceiling and a price on carbon emissions, and Democratic leaders say they are as many as 15 votes short of the number to ensure passage. The Washington Post reports that to pass the 1,400-page bill, Senate Democratic leaders may be forced to make so many concessions to industry that the legislation could lose the support of environmental groups, most of which have endorsed the bill.

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved the legislation last month after softening emissions targets and agreeing to initially give away — rather than auction — the permits that large-scale emitters must obtain to release greenhouse gases.

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The best way to ensure that industrialized and developing nations fairly share the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is to set national targets based on the number of wealthy people in each country, a new study suggests.

Reporting in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Princeton University recommended that the roughly 1 billion people whose affluent lifestyles make them high carbon emitters should determine how much CO2 each country is permitted to emit under any new climate treaty. Most of those 1 billion people live in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and other developed countries, but an increasing number of well-to-do people with a large carbon footprint will live in China, India, Russia, Brazil, and other developing nations. A climate treaty that focuses on levels of affluence in each country will help bridge a major negotiating divide between rich and poor countries, the study said.

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Much of the debate over the formation of a cap & trade system under the Waxman-Markey bill focused on whether initial allowances should be auctioned off or merely given away and how the system would act. There was little discussion about the impact a federal cap & trade system would have on states, which have already established or at the very least have set the wheels in motion regarding a state or regional cap and trade system. Most notably, this refers to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Western Climate Initiative, and California.

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Three-quarters of Americans believe that the government should regulate greenhouse gas emissions, with a majority supporting restrictions on carbon even if they raise the price of goods and lead to higher utility bills, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The poll, released on the eve of a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on a carbon cap-and-trade bill, showed that a slim majority — 52 percent — supports that specific legislation. Sixty-two percent of those surveyed said they would support carbon regulation even if it means higher prices for goods, 56 percent expressed support if CO2 regulation leads to a $10 increase in monthly utility bills, and 44 percent said they would back a cap-and-trade program even if it means paying $25 more per month for electricity. Roughly 60 percent said the U.S. should reduce carbon emissions even if other countries do little to confront global warming.

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