| Date
|
Time
|
Speakers
|
Title
|
|
|
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Feb 3
|
12:30p
|
Jonathan Sinton
|
COP10 and
post-Kyoto
|
|
|
Report
back from COP10 and discussion of where we go from here. Jonathan
Sinton from LBL will be joining us.
|
Feb 17
|
12:30p
|
Meredith Fowlie |
Lessons from NOx
trading |
|
|
It
seems safe to say that the policy response to global climate change
will incorporate emissions trading in some capacity. The flexibility
afforded by making emissions reduction requirements tradeable increases
the likelihood that parties will agree to a given level of mandated
reductions.
Economists and other social scientists have spent the last several
years studying these pollution permit markets. At this point we have a
pretty good idea of how these markets are performing, where they are
exceeding expectations and where they have run into problems. In
Thursday's session, I will summarize some of the "lessons learned" from
these markets and talk briefly about how these existing markets differ
from (existing and planned) markets for carbon. Ideally, we would
spend the remaining time discussing how the work that has been done
looking at regional and national emissions markets could inform the
design of an international market for carbon.
|
Mar 3
|
12:30p
|
Bill Nazaroff
|
Energy from coal
in a climate-constrained future
|
|
|
For the US and for the
world, coal represents the largest repository of proven fossil-fuel
reserves. Currently about 50% of US electricity is generated by
burning coal. Coal has a high carbon to energy ratio, such that
conventional electricity generation technologies release CO2 to the
atmosphere at a rate of ~ 250 gC/kWh. US coal-fired electricity
generation contributes about 10% of
worldwide fossil carbon emissions to the atmosphere. For the 21st
century and beyond, we will be faced with a dilemma. Do we
continue to burn coal and risk further damage to the climate? Do
we leave this enormous energy resource untapped in the ground? Or
do we develop technologies that permit us to extract the energy from
the coal while capturing and safely disposing of CO2 as a waste
product? After establishing the context, this presentation and
discussion will explore the technical challenges associated with the
third way.
|
Mar 17
|
12:30p
|
Devra Bachrach
|
CPUC's Global
Warming Policy
|
|
|
In December 2004,
the California Public Utilities Commission adopted a new global warming
policy, which represents an important and very positive step forward on
climate policy in the electric utility sector. Devra (ERG alum
and now at NRDC) will discuss the rationale behind the policy, the
practical implications of the policy and the expected outcomes, as well
as the political process leading up to PUC adoption of the
policy.
|
Apr 7
|
12:30p
|
Carter Brooks
|
Who Will Cry for the Ice?
|
|
|
The
importance and power of the proper metaphor in communicating complex
ideas is well known. But the degree to which metaphor is central
to our conceptual understanding itself is often overlooked. What
can an examination of metaphor as it relates to climate change tell us
about our conceptual understanding? What can a discussion of
climate change reveal about the limits of (or potential of) our
collective imagination?
|
Apr 21
|
12:30p
|
Barbara Haya
|
Discussion |
|
|
Please
join us for the last climate change seminar meeting for the semester.
We thought our group was due for a full session discussion. Join us for
an informal discussion on where we are and were we are headed in global
efforts to mitigate climate change given today's political
climate.
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