Read the full post at Lifehacker.

Mac: Wondering what kind of impact your power and fuel consumption have on the environment? ECOBOT helps you figure it out.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

As negotiators gather in Copenhagen next month to discuss a global climate policy framework, there has never been a better time for companies to influence policy instruments that could dramatically affect the future of climate change.

Download the full report or read it online. From the introduction:

The ultimate solutions to climate change are workable, cost-effective technologies which permit society to improve living standards while limiting and adapting to changes in the climate. Yet scientific, engineering, and organizational solutions are not enough. Societies must be motivated and empowered to adopt the needed changes.

For that, the public must be able to interpret and respond to often bewildering scientific, technological, and economic information. Social psychologists are aware, through their painstaking scientific research, of the difficulties that individuals and groups have in processing and responding effectively to the information surrounding long-term and complex societal challenges.

This guide powerfully details many of the biases and barriers to scientific communication and information processing. It offers a tool — in combination with rigorous science, innovative engineering, and effective policy design — to help our societies take the pivotal actions needed to respond with urgency and accuracy to one of the greatest challenges ever faced by humanity: global-scale, human-induced environmental threats, of which the most complex and far reaching is climate change.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

CO2 emissions rise as natural sinks slow, but how can scientists precisely track this greenhouse gas, especially in advance of a potential global treaty to reduce its emissions?

Via the RFF Library Blog.

Via the RFF Library Blog.

Via the RFF Library Blog.

Via Docuticker.

Biodiversity and Climate Change (PDF; 147 KB)
Source: Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology,UK

The effects of climate change on biodiversity are already evident in the UK, and with continued climate change, are expected to increase. This POSTnote explores the observed and future impacts of climate change on biodiversity. It also examines the relationship between biodiversity and adaptation to a changing climate.

Via Docuticker.

Ocean Acidification (PDF; 125 KB)
Source: Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology,UK

The increasing amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is acidifying the oceans. The resulting changes to ecosystems and marine biodiversity may have negative impacts on fisheries and food security and reduce the coastal protection provided by coral reefs. This POSTnote outlines the science behind ocean acidification and summarises the threats to the marine environment. A global reduction of carbon emissions is the only certain way to minimise these risks.

Read the full post at Green Inc.

With the approach of the international climate talks in Copenhagen, the United Nations Development Program in conjunction with the Olympus Corporation and the Agence France-Presse Foundation created a photo competition aimed at profiling everyday Africans and their efforts to combat climate change. Below is a slide show of some of the winning photographs and the runners-up in various categories.

Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) delivers in-person, science-based, multimedia presentations on the science behind climate change to educate, inspire and empower students to take action. ACE presentations are free for schools. After the presentation, ACE helps students take action by creating an Action Team at their school and by connecting students with grants, scholarships, toolkits, online communities and more. Free presentations are currently available for schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento/Sierra Nevadas, Los Angeles, New England, Greater Boston, Houston and Chicago metropolitan areas. ACE presentations will be available in Denver, D.C., Atlanta and New York City starting in January 2010.

Via Docuticker.

A Dangerous Obsession: The Evidence against Carbon Trading and for Real Solutions to Avoid a Climate Crunch
Source: Friends of the Earth, UK
From Executive Summary:

Tackling greenhouse gas emissions to prevent dangerous climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. The chance of keeping global average temperature increase below the critical threshold is fast slipping away. It requires a peak and decline in global emissions by 2015. Rich developed countries are responsible for three quarters of emissions historically despite representing only 15 per cent of the world’s population. They have a legal and moral obligation to make the biggest reductions and provide finance and technology to developing countries to compensate for climate impacts and support clean development. But developed countries have largely failed to take sufficient action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or provide this much-needed finance to the developing world.

In this context carbon trading is increasingly being put forward as a tool for tackling climate change. Proponents of carbon trading argue that it helps to reduce emissions, and that it does this at the lowest cost, stimulates investment in low-carbon infrastructure and can help generate finance for developing countries to tackle climate change.

This report evaluates whether carbon trading can deliver these emissions reductions quickly, strategically, and in a just and equitable way. It also looks at what alternative tools are available to governments.

+ Direct link to document (PDF; 5.9 MB)
+ Executive Summary (PDF; 2.5 MB)

Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.

About a decade ago, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore had one of the country’s largest populations of the Karner blue butterfly. The nickel-size insects feasted on the national park’s bountiful wild lupine and relied on northwest Indiana’s heavy snowfall to protect its eggs in winter for spring hatching.

But the butterfly’s population has declined in recent years, and some researchers are pointing to, among other things, warmer winters, less snowfall and other weather-related changes threatening the wild lupine.

The Karner blue’s predicament is one of many listed in a report released last month naming the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore among 25 national parks in the United States endangered by climate change.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public hearing on the proposed greenhouse gas emissions thresholds defining when Clean Air Act permits would apply to new or existing industrial facilities. This program would cover nearly 70 percent of the nation’s total GHG emissions from stationary sources. The nation’s largest facilities, including power plants, refineries, and cement production facilities, that emit at least 25,000 tons of GHGs a year would be required to obtain operating and construction permits.

The hearing will be held on Nov. 19 in Rosemont, Ill. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. and end at 7 p.m. central standard time at the following location:

Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
5555 N. River Road
Rosemont, Ill  60018

For information about participating at the hearing please contact: Pamela Long long.pam@epa.gov or (919) 541-0641. The public may also register on the day of the hearing; however, they may not be given a specific time to speak.

EPA will accept written comments on the proposed rule until Dec. 28, 2009.

More information on the proposed rule and instructions for submitting written comments: http://www.epa.gov/nsr/actions.html.

Read the full story from the Associated Press.

Pollution typically declines during a recession. Not this time. Despite a global economic slump, worldwide carbon dioxide pollution jumped 2 percent last year, most of the increase coming from China, according to a study published online Tuesday.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Motivational experts have for years argued about whether incentives (”carrots”) or threats (”sticks”) are more effective, and we’re seeing an array of both being applied to mulish Congressional opponents of major climate legislation.

Read the full op-ed in the New York Times.

Our forefathers’ conversations about climate change remind us that history has a tendency to repeat itself.

Read the full op-ed in the New York Times.

Clean energy opponents believe global warming doesn’t exist because that is the only way their arguments make sense.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

The sheer size of the airline industry’s emissions makes it hard to judge the effectiveness of carbon offset programs.

Via the RFF Library Blog.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
http://unhq-appspub-01.un.org/lib/dhlrefweblog.nsf/dx/05112009021657PMCEMQMZ.htm

[Press release] A new report, Food Security and Agricultural Mitigation in Developing Countries:  Options for Capturing Synergies, examines how strategies for climate change mitigation can benefit agriculture, food security, and development.

Agriculture not only suffers the impacts of climate change, it is also responsible for 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. But agriculture has the potential to be an important part of the solution, through mitigation—reducing and/or removing—a significant  amount of global emissions, FAO says. Some 70 percent of this mitigation potential could be realized in developing countries.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

President Obama’s ambitions are limited by a Congress that is unwilling to move as far or as fast as he would like.

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

Eric Roston, a former Time magazine journalist and author of “ The Carbon Age,” spent three weeks roaming India at the invitation of the United States State Department to explore and talk about north-south differences in talking about climate change. (He told me that his talks and interactions were not in any way shaped by government officials.) The journey wrapped up at a conference organized by the International Federation of Environmental Journalists.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

The “new energy” economy rolls forward even as hopes for an international deal to combat climate change at Copenhagen shift into reverse.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

Failure to make difficult choices to cut greenhouse gas emissions exposes humanity to an increasingly dire set of climate scenarios. But there is a way to buy time: Geoengineering.

The idea of tinkering with planetary controls is not for the faint of heart. Even advocates acknowledge that any attempt to set the Earth’s thermostat is full of hubris and laden with risk.

Via RFF Library Blog.

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

Senators John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, and Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, have joined in introducing a bill that would establish awards for researchers who develop technologies that can economically extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stash it away. In doing so, they are potentially upping the ante offered in 2007 by Richard Branson, the aviation and music magnate, for such an advance.

Via Docuticker.

Survey Finds a Majority of Corporate Respondents Measuring Their Carbon Footprints
Source: EcoSecurities, ClimateBiz, and Baker & McKenzie

Over 300 global companies, including 31 specialized carbon companies that act as carbon market intermediaries, responded to a survey published recently by EcoSecurities, ClimateBiz, and Baker & McKenzie, which sought to identify corporate trends in carbon management and offsetting. The survey, entitled Carbon Management and Offsetting Trends Survey Results 2009, is the second published by the organizations, and the first since the global economic crisis.

Despite the effects of the crisis, the number of respondents to the survey increased by more than 400% since its predecessor was published in early 2008, with a marked increase in participation of North American companies noted. Although budget concerns were cited by many companies as a motivation for delaying the purchase of carbon offsets, 60% of respondents reported that they measure their organizational carbon footprint, 44% have a defined carbon management strategy, and 32% report having such a plan in development. However, only 54% of North American companies measure their carbon footprint, compared to 92% of Australasian, and 62% of European, respondents.

+ Carbon Management and Offsetting Trends Survey Results 2009
Free registration required to download full survey findings.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

What does the U.S. health care system have in common with cattle farms and power plants? It is responsible for a fair chunk of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. The system, especially via hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry, contributes 8 percent of those climate-warming gases, according to a study published in the November 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

Local governments vow to press ahead with emissions reductions regardless of the outcome at the upcoming international Copenhagen talks. Can those efforts carry the day?

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

The International Energy Agency on Tuesday called on world leaders to strike a deal to address climate change, warning that the current business-as-usual scenario is unsustainable and will lead to skyrocketing energy demand, price spikes and up to a 6 degree temperature rise.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

With climate scientists warning that greenhouse gas emissions must decline upwards of 80 percent by 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change, some like Salvatore Gabola are calling for businesses to move past normalized reduction targets to lower their total carbon footprints.

Read the full story in Metal Finishing.

Drew Amorosi, managing editor of Metal Finishing, recently caught up with Dr. Manik Roy and Dr. Janet Peace of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change to discuss the climate change legislation making its way through Congress. One fact is clear from the conversation: Whether it’s via Congress, the states, or the EPA, the regulation of greenhouse gasses is very much on the horizon here in the United States, if not already upon us. The question for the business and manufacturing community is by which method and from what source will regulation emerge, and what system will be the least harmful to business conditions?

Read the full post at Green Inc.

How much would it cost to stop increasing greenhouse gas emissions in Mexico? According to a new study from the World Bank, not very much.

The bank estimates that Mexico could flatline its emissions growth, using a variety of measures, for about $64 billion over the next 20 years — or $3 billion annually.

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

Former Vice President Al Gore’s third book centering on global warming is out. Titled Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, it centers on the same mantra at the core of his message for years now – that the only missing link holding back action is political will. The book is mainly a heavily illustrated guide to the technologies and policies that could, in Mr. Gore’s view, limit climate dangers. Nuclear is largely out, capturing and burying carbon dioxide is somewhat in. Gains in energy efficiency are a vital stepping stone, he says, along with vastly expanded deployment of renewable energy sources and improved storage and grid components to make sure the power is available where and when it’s needed.

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

A remarkable conclave of leading figures from nine of the world’s major religions is under way at Windsor Castle in Britain, under the auspices of Prince Philip and the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. Called “Many Heavens, One Earth,” the meeting is intended to generate commitments for actions by religious organizations, congregants and countries that could reduce emissions of greenhouse gases or otherwise limit the human impact on the environment.

Read the full post at GreenBiz.

It sure seems that America is out of touch with the rest of the world regarding global warming, and that the world is slapping us in the face to awaken us from our stupor.

Delegates at last week’s Barcelona climate talks were frustrated that U.S. negotiators came to the table unable to commit to concrete steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to our seized legislative engine. Since we only have a month until the U.N. global climate summit that starts December 7 in Copenhagen, Barcelona negotiators vented their frustration by setting high expectations that the U.S. would come to Copenhagen with a plan in hand.

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

The Environmental Protection Agency has directed two agency lawyers to make changes in a video they posted on YouTube that is critical of the Obama administration’s climate policy. But the original video has already been reposted several times by other YouTube users.

The E.P.A., citing federal policies, told the two officials, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, a husband-and-wife team of lawyers based in San Francisco, that they could mention their E.P.A. affiliation only once and must remove footage of the agency’s office in San Francisco. Although the video provided a disclaimer saying that the couple were speaking only for themselves, it mentioned their affiliation with the agency more than once.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

Capping off a busy week for climate policy in the U.S. and internationally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent to the White House Friday its final carbon dioxide endangerment finding on the threat greenhouse gas emissions pose for human health.

The Office of Management and Budget has 90 days to respond, although the agency hopes the review will be conducted quickly, Reuters reported. A final finding declaring carbon dioxide contributes to air pollution that endangers public health would clear the way for the EPA to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Via Docuticker.

Report Estimates Climate Change Adaptation Costs, Impacts to Utilities
Source: National Association of Clean Water Agencies

The National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) and the Association of the Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) released a report today detailing the impacts climate change can have on wastewater and drinking water utilities and estimating the adaptation costs for these critical facilities to be between $448 billion and $944 billion through 2050. The associations, which represent the nation’s public wastewater and drinking water agencies, urged Congress and the Obama administration to recognize that climate change is fundamentally about water and to implement policies that will help utilities take timely actions to adapt.
…
Climate change impacts to wastewater and drinking water utilities, which provide critical economic, public health, and environmental benefits, include sea level rise and extreme flooding that can inundate and incapacitate treatment facilities; water quality degradation and increased treatment requirements; water scarcity and the need to develop new drinking water supplies; and lower flows in drought conditions that can affect the operation of treatment facilities.

Adaptation strategies involve integrating aspects of the constructed and natural water cycle through “water portfolio management” that provides utilities flexibility to craft sustainable approaches to suit their specific needs. Water conservation, new water conveyance and storage, desalination, and wastewater reuse are options to help utilities adapt. In addition, green infrastructure solutions that mimic the natural environment can be used to address stormwater flows at a lower cost while providing the ancillary benefits of providing habitat, recharging aquifers, and enhancing water quality.

+ Full Report (PDF; 2.6 MB)

Via RFF Library Blog.

Via RFF Library Blog.

Via RFF Library Blog.

Brookings Institution / by Craig Pirrong
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/09_cap_and_trade_market_oversight_pirrong.aspx

[From introduction] The original concept of cap-and-trade envisioned that the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions would be capped and rights to emit would be traded. But it is inevitable that there will be demand to trade instruments other than emissions rights themselves. Specifically, there will be a demand to trade derivatives on emissions rights…

the current regulatory environment is extraordinarily hostile to derivatives generally, and to carbon derivatives particularly. Indeed, several proposals have been introduced to constrain or eliminate various types of derivatives trading, including proposals to:

• Impose limits (e.g., speculative limits) on the uses of these products, or on the amount of trading certain kinds of entities can undertake;
• Restrict where and how derivatives are traded, with a decided preference for trading on organized exchanges;
• Constrain arrangements for the allocation of performance risk, with a decided preference for “clearing” derivatives transactions through central counterparties (“CCPs”);
• Ban certain derivatives altogether.

The American Clean Energy and Securities Act (ACESA), passed by the US House of Representatives in June, includes provisions mandating many of these restrictions.

All of these proposals are misguided, some extremely so. They are predicated on a widespread misunderstanding of what derivatives are, how they work, and the reasons that firms trade them…In this chapter I will support them by going back to basics, describing what derivatives are, why they are used, how they are traded, the abuses they are subject to, and the most efficient ways to constrain those abuses.

Via RFF Library Blog.

Congressional Budget Office / Testimony before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U. S. Senate : Statement of  Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=10561

[From Director's Blog] Today I testified about the economic effects of legislation aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, drawing on a report that CBO released a few weeks ago.

Reducing the extent of climate change would entail substantial reductions in U.S. emissions and in emissions from other countries over the coming decades. Achieving such reductions in this country would probably involve some combination of three broad changes: transforming the U.S. economy from one that runs on carbon-dioxide-emitting fossil fuels to one that increasingly relies on nuclear and renewable fuels; accomplishing substantial improvements in energy efficiency; and implementing the large-scale capture and storage of carbon dioxide emissions.

My testimony emphasized several points:

• The economic impact would depend importantly on the design of the policy. Decisions about whether to reduce greenhouse gases primarily through market-based systems (such as taxes or a cap-and-trade program) or primarily through traditional regulatory approaches that specify performance or technology standards would influence the total costs of reducing emissions and the distribution of those costs. The costs would also depend on the stringency of the policy; whether other countries imposed similar policies; the amount of flexibility about when, where, and how emissions would be reduced; and the allocation of allowances if a cap-and-trade system was used.
• Reducing the risk of climate change would come at some cost to the economy. For example, CBO concludes that the cap-and-trade provisions of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, would reduce GDP below what it would otherwise have been—by roughly ¼ to ¾ percent in 2020 and by between 1 and 3½ percent in 2050. By way of comparison, CBO projects that real (that is, inflation-adjusted) GDP will be roughly two and a half times as large in 2050 as it is today, so those changes would be comparatively modest. In the models that CBO reviewed, the long-run cost to households would be smaller than the changes in GDP because consumption falls by less than GDP and because households benefit from more time spent in nonmarket activities. Moreover, these measures of potential costs do not include any benefits of averting climate change.
• Climate legislation would cause permanent shifts in production and employment away from industries that produce carbon-based energy and energy-intensive goods and services and toward industries that produce alternative energy sources and less-energy-intensive goods and services. While those shifts were occurring, total employment would probably be reduced a little compared with what it would have been without such a policy, because labor markets would most likely not adjust as quickly as would the composition of demand for different outputs.
• CBO has estimated the loss in purchasing power that would result from the primary cap-and-trade program in H.R. 2454, incorporating both the higher prices that households would face and the compensation they would receive (primarily through the allocation of allowances or the proceeds from their sale). CBO’s measure omits some channels of influence on households’ well-being that cannot be readily quantified, and it appears that the measure probably understates the true burden to a small degree. As estimated, the loss in purchasing power would be modest and would rise over time as the cap became more stringent, accounting for 0.2 percent of after-tax income in 2020 and 1.2 percent in 2050. Households in the lowest fifth of households when arrayed by income would see gains in purchasing power in both 2020 and 2050, because the compensation they would receive would exceed the costs they would bear. However, households in the middle fifth would see net losses in purchasing power amounting to 0.6 percent of after-tax income in 2020 and 1.1 percent in 2050.

Via Docuticker.

Global Climate Change Policy Tracker: An Investor’s Assessment
Source: DB Climate Change Advisors (Deutsche Bank Group) and Columbia Climate Center at the Earth Institute, Columbia University

This report, “Global Climate Change Policy Tracker: An Investor’s Assessment” (Climate Tracker), provides investors with an analysis of climate change policies and assigns a risk rating to 109 countries, states and regions based on key government mandates and supporting policy frameworks. The report was produced by DBCCA, working with the Columbia Climate Center at the Earth Institute, Columbia University.

The “Climate Tracker” is the first publicly-available analysis of its kind. It incorporates results of a model prepared by Columbia Climate Center researchers that estimates the impacts on carbon emissions of each of 270 major climate policies, and aggregates them at country, regional and global levels. The “Climate Tracker” provides a risk rating of countries and regions based on their relative attractiveness to investors. It is designed to help investors identify the best risk-adjusted returns in climate change investment opportunities around the world.

+ Executive Summary [PDF; 382 KB]
+ Detailed Summary of Targets by Region & Country [PDF; 474 KB]
+ Detailed Analysis of Targets by Region & Country [PDF; 1.74 MB]

Via Docuticker.

Health Problems Heat Up: Climate Change and the Public’s Health
Source: Trust for America’s Health

Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) released a new report today that finds only five states have published a strategic climate change plan that includes a public health response. This includes planning for health challenges and emergencies expected to develop from natural disasters, pollution, and infectious diseases as temperatures and sea levels rise.

The Health Problems Heat Up: Climate Change and the Public’s Health report examines U.S. planning for changing health threats posed by climate change, such as heat-related sickness, respiratory infections, natural disasters, changes to the food supply, and infectious diseases carried by insects.

+ Full Report

Via Docuticker.

Exposed: Groundbreaking report details climate change hotspots in US Southeast
Source: Oxfam America

A number of “hotspots” of vulnerability to climate-related hazards exist in the US southeast, according to a new groundbreaking study released today by Oxfam America. The report, Exposed: Social Vulnerability and Climate Change in the US Southeast, is the first of its kind to combine hazards associated with climate change with social variables, revealing the people and places that will most likely to be hit worst by climate change.

“Climate change will impact everyone, but not everyone will be impacted equally,” said Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser. “Social factors like income and race do not determine who will be hit by a natural disaster, but they do determine a population’s ability to prepare, respond, and recover when disaster does strike. This report will serve as a critical tool to help us identify especially vulnerable communities and invest wisely in their climate resiliency and preparedness.”

The study covers 13 states in the US southeast from Arkansas to Virginia, measuring the underlying social and demographic characteristics of populations and how some of those characteristics negatively affect their ability to cope with climate change-related hazards, such as flooding, drought, hurricane force winds and sea-level rise. Poverty is deepest in the rural South where more than one in four people live in counties with persistent poverty, and it is therefore one of the country’s most socially vulnerable regions to climate change.

+ Full Report

Read the full story at Ars Technica.

A collection of scientific societies has sent an open letter to all US Senators, reiterating their individual statements on climate change, and offering to provide more information as legislation to limit carbon emissions moves forward.

Read the full story at Ars Technica.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is telling the US Chamber of Commerce to get over a parody site that turns the trade group’s opposition to greenhouse gas legislation on its head. It might make the chamber look foolish, but the site is described as classic “fair use.”

Via Docuticker.

Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming
Source: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

There has been a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising. And fewer also see global warming as a very serious problem – 35% say that today, down from 44% in April 2008.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults reached on cell phones and landlines, finds that 57% think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71% said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures.

Over the same period, there has been a comparable decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. Just 36% say that currently, down from 47% last year.

The decline in the belief in solid evidence of global warming has come across the political spectrum, but has been particularly pronounced among independents. Just 53% of independents now see solid evidence of global warming, compared with 75% who did so in April 2008. Republicans, who already were highly skeptical of the evidence of global warming, have become even more so: just 35% of Republicans now see solid evidence of rising global temperatures, down from 49% in 2008 and 62% in 2007. Fewer Democrats also express this view – 75% today compared with 83% last year.

Via Docuticker.

Strengthening U.S. International Energy Assistance to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improve Energy Security
Source: RAND Corporation

This study provides information on U.S. international energy-assistance programs, a potentially important tool for addressing the challenges of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and increasing U.S. energy security. International energy assistance may provide a low-cost, effective opportunity to reduce future growth in greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption before current development patterns become increasingly locked in throughout the developing world. The report reviews U.S. government energy-assistance trends and strategies, along with similar data for Germany, which has a different, highly coordinated approach to planning and implementing energy assistance. Recent studies that address U.S. energy and climate policy are also reviewed to gain insights that can inform efforts to improve U.S. energy assistance. Recommendations for further investigation include assessing the effectiveness of U.S. and other approaches to providing energy assistance to determine the reasons for any differences in effectiveness; comparing the longer-term benefits of supporting energy-sector policy reform with the shorter-term benefits of supporting more-specific technical assistance or investment projects; and assessing the advantages and disadvantages of focusing more U.S. energy assistance on fewer recipients.