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Global Climate Negotiations and Tropical Deforestation

Responding to Threats of Climate Change Mega-Catastrophes

Price Breaks and Priuses

Government tax incentives helped drive U.S. sales of hybrid cars, but with the credits due to expire in 2010, RFF Fellow Shanjun Li asks whether they still make sense.

Cost-Effectiveness of Electricity Energy Efficiency Programs

Event: Managing the World?s Forests

At a November 5th seminar, experts discussed challenges in forest data, new research, and the role of forest carbon in evolving U.S. climate change legislation. Video and audio available.

Emissions Targets and the Real Business Cycle: Intensity Targets versus Caps or Taxes

Oil Prices: Care to Speculate?

Commentary: James L. Smith asks whether the dramatic oil price shock experienced in 2008 can be explained by market fundamentals or if speculative forces were at work.

Adapting Environmental Policy for the Developing World

In a group of new Environment for Development discussion papers, authors explore the impacts of weak enforcement capability, bribery, and varying social norms on policymaking.

Come Rain or Shine: Evidence on Flood Insurance Purchases in Florida

U.S. Leadership in Copenhagen

The Role of the States in a Federal Climate Program: Issues and Options

The Unholy Trinity: Fat Tails, Tail Dependence, and Micro-Correlations

To Trade or Not to Trade: Firm-Level Analysis of Emissions Trading in Santiago, Chile

How Obama Can Conquer Copenhagen

At the UN negotiations in Copenhagen next month, President Obama can reclaim U.S. leadership on climate progress?even without new congressional legislation. Nigel Purvis and Andrew Stevenson provide a step-by-step outline for how the administration should proceed.

Climate Change in a Public Goods Game: Investment Decision in Mitigation versus Adaptation

Will Global Warming Discount Rates Short-Change Our Grandkids?

Commentary: Oxford's Cameron Hepburn considers the role of ethics in calculating discount rates for global warming damages to future generations and how to reconcile differing views in the debate.

Is Alcohol Consumption Undertaxed?

Information Disclosure And Drinking Water Quality

Resources 173 - Fall 2009: Challenges In Global Public Health

RFF's Expanding Focus on Public Health

Goings On

RFF and Human Health

This Could Be The Last Time: The Bioeconomics of Eradicating Malaria

The Right Combination Of Carrots And Sticks: Encouraging Surveillance And Reporting Of Emerging Pandemics

Congestion And The Commons: What Happens When Some Resources Are Enclosed And Others Are Open Access?

Measuring The Costs Of Air Pollution And Health In China

Fuel Tax Incidence in Developing Countries: The Case Of Costa Rica

Enforcement of Exogenous Environmental Regulations, Social Disapproval, and Bribery

Social Background, Cooperative Behavior, and Norm Enforcement

Production Risk and Farm Technology Adoption in Rain-Fed, Semi-Arid Lands of Kenya

Taxes, Permits, and the Adoption of Abatement Technology under Imperfect Compliance

Costs and Benefits for Consumers and Energy Price Effects Associated with the Allocation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Allowances

Climate Impacts on Energy Markets: An Outsider's Perspective

Planners in the public and private sectors need to be aware of not only the economic policy challenges facing energy markets, Senior Fellow Tim Brennan asserts, but also the climate policies with which they have to cope.

Testimony: Karen Palmer Testifies on Cap-and-Trade Policy

Weathervane: Appearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, RFF Senior Fellow Karen Palmer examines the effects of different approaches to compensating residential electricity consumers for the costs imposed by a climate policy.

Fuel Tax Incidence in Developing Countries: The Case of Costa Rica

Traffic Safety and Vehicle Choice: Quantifying the Effects of the ?Arms Race? on American Roads

U.S. Emissions Trading Markets for SO2 and NOx

Plugging Cap-and-Trade into California's Electricity Sector

Researchers Karen Palmer, Dallas Burtraw, and Anthony Paul address the options for regulating California?s electricity sector within the context of a statewide, and possibly regional, cap-and-trade program that also covers other sectors.

How Much Should Cigarettes Cost?

Commentary: Sijbren Cnossen looks at the economics of how governments should tax tobacco, comparing policy choices in the E.U. and U.S.

Liability in the Space Business

If a privately owned rocket falls to the ground after being launched under government auspices, who pays for the damages? The answer to that question, which will influence the development of future commercial space enterprises, is explored by RFF researchers in a new discussion paper.

Global Climate Policy: Will Cities Lead the Way?

Regional Household Impacts of a Price on Carbon

In a new journal article, RFF Nonresident Fellow James Sanchirico and coauthors Billy Pizer and Michael Batz estimate the financial impacts of a carbon tax on U.S. households.

A Proposal for Chilling Copenhagen?s Hot Political Climate

Commentary: Jeffrey Frankel and Valentina Bosetti propose an international architecture for global climate policy that, unlike other successors to the Kyoto Protocol, takes into account a variety of likely political constraints.

Event: The Economics of Pandemics

October's First Wednesday Seminar launched RFF's new Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy (CDDEP). Speakers covered emerging issues ranging from incentives for reporting disease outbreaks to the impacts of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. Video and speaker presentations available.

Allowance Allocation in a CO2 Emissions Cap-and-Trade Program for the Electricity Sector in California

Event: Sen. Alexander on the Perils of Energy Sprawl

In remarks at an October 5th Policy Leadership Forum, Senator Lamar Alexander discussed the land use costs of renewable energy production and why he believes nuclear power should play a major role in America?s energy future. Video available.

Shaping the Future of America?s Outdoor Resources

Press Release: A new RFF study delves into the status of America?s outdoor resources, the demand for recreation, and the financing of conservation, parks, and open space.

The State of the Great Outdoors: America's Parks, Public Lands, and Recreation Resources

Foreign Oil: The Same Price, But More Costly

Although domestic and foreign oil looks the same to the consumer, the instability of foreign suppliers carries hidden external costs.

How House and Senate Climate Bills Compare

Weathervane: RFF has compiled a side-by-side chart showing how key economic elements in House and Senate climate and energy legislation from the 111th Congress compare.

Conserving Data in the Conservation Reserve

Enrolling over 30 million acres, the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the largest conservation program in the United States. Under the guidelines of the CRP, the federal government pays farmers to cease farming their land in the hopes of achieving a variety of conservation goals, including reduction of soil erosion, improvement in water quality, and increases in wildlife habitat. In Conserving Data, James T. Hamilton explores the role of information in the policy cycle as it relates to the CRP. He asks how the creation and distribution of information about what is going on across these millions of enrolled acres has influenced the development of the program itself. Of the many CRP stakeholders, each accesses a different set of information about the CRP's operations. Regulators have developed the Environmental Benefits Index as a rough indicator of a field?s conservation benefits and adopted that measure as a way to determine which lands should be granted conservation contracts. NGOs have used data from these contracts to make information about how CRP monies are allocated publicly available. Congress members have used oversight hearings and GAO reports to monitor the Farm Service Agency?s conservation policy decisions. Reporters have localized the impact of the CRP by writing stories about increases in wildlife and hunting in their areas on CRP fields. Conserving Data brings together and analyses these various streams of information, drawing upon original interviews with regulators, new data from Freedom of Information Act requests, and regulatory filings. Using the CRP as a launch point, Hamilton explores on the role of information, including "hidden information" in the design and implementation of regulatory policy.

The Reality of Precaution

The "Precautionary Principle"?allowing or favoring regulation of risks despite uncertainty?has been at the center of debates about European and U.S. risk management since the 1990s. Does adopting the precautionary principle protect us against uncertain risks, or does it inhibit progress and introduce new risks? Has Europe become "more precautionary" than the United States? The Reality of Precaution is the first study to go beyond the rhetoric of precaution as an abstract principle and test the reality of precaution in practice. Challenging conventional wisdom about European and U.S. approaches to risk regulation, this groundbreaking resource finds that since the 1970s there has been little transatlantic difference in the overall level of precaution, but that instead there have been variations in precaution across particular individual risks. For example, while Europe has been more precautionary regarding genetically modified foods, beef hormones, toxic chemicals, and climate change, the U.S. has been more precautionary regarding mad cow disease, air pollution, ozone depletion, and terrorism. Moreover, both the U.S. and Europe have adopted systems of regulatory oversight through impact assessment. Combining a dozen case studies, a quantitative analysis of almost 3,000 risks,and cross-cutting chapters on politics, law, and risk perceptions, this book argues that the relationship between U.S. and European regulatory approaches is best understood not as conflict or competition, nor in terms of divergence or reversal, but rather as a process of selective application of precaution to particular risks, and a continuing exchange of ideas yielding mutual cooperation and hybridization. The Reality of Precaution advises policymakers in both the U.S. and Europe to compare actual regulatory experience, to borrow useful policy designs, and to seek optimal (not maximal) precaution that accounts fully for risks, costs, and ancillary impacts.

Finders Keepers?

Since the beginnings of the United States oil industry 150 years ago, production activity has been governed by the "law of capture," dictating that a driller owns the oil drilled from his/her property even if the oil has migrated from under neighboring land as a result of the drilling process. This "finders keepers" principle has been excoriated by foreign critics as "theft" and as a "law of the jungle" and has been blamed by American commentators?and the oil industry itself?as the root cause of the enormous waste of oil and gas resulting from U.S. production methods in the first half of the 20th century. Yet while in almost every other country the law of capture is today of only marginal significance, in the United States it continues to operate, and indeed to underpin the system of production regulation, with potentially wasteful results. In this meticulously researched and richly documented account, Terence Daintith adopts a historical and comparative perspective to show how legal rules, technical knowledge (or the lack thereof) and political events and ideas combined to shape attitudes and behavior in the business of oil production. He explains both the original adoption of the law of capture?not just in the United States but in other countries as well?and the paths of legal and political development that have led to its consolidation in the United States and its marginalization elsewhere. In contrasting these histories of the law of capture, the book raises the question of whether the U.S. can reduce waste in production without abandoning its deeply-rooted attachment to private property rights in oil and gas.

Linking Ecological Science and Economic Preferences

In a new RFF Discussion Paper, Senior Fellows James Boyd and Alan Krupnick examine a key conceptual issue central to effective interdisciplinary collaboration between economists and ecologists.

An Experimental Study of Auctions versus Grandfathering to Assign Pollution Permits

More Than a Wing and a Prayer: Government Indemnification of the Commercial Space Launch Industry

A Prescription for Maximizing Health and Wealth

Commentary: Discussing why the value of increased life expectancy, and health improvements more generally, has been rising over time. This trend has important policy implications, such as the amount we should be investing in medical research.

Can States Regulate Without a ?Race to the Bottom??

Commentary: Widely varying regulatory costs make federal environmental regulation inefficient in some cases. Wallace Oates finds that, contrary to popular theory, giving kinds of certain environmental regulatory authority to states doesn?t result in a polluted ?race to the bottom.?

Conditional Cooperation and Social Group: Experimental Results from Colombia

To Bribe or Not to Bribe: Incentives to Protect Tanzania?s Forests

The Effect of Risk, Ambiguity, and Coordination on Farmers? Adaptation to Climate Change: A Framed Field Experiment

Some Limits of Wood Biomass for Cellulosic Biofuels

The Definition and Choice of Environmental Commodities for Nonmarket Valuation

Harnessing New Electric Technologies to Curb CO2 Emissions

Analysis released at an RFF briefing by the Electric Power Research Institute?s Prism and MERGE projects suggests that diverse electricity technologies could meet the dual challenges of satisfying demand growth and constraining CO2 emissions, while also limiting increases in electricity costs. Video and audio available.

Designing Policies to Speed Technology Transfer to China

Clearing the barriers to the transfer of climate mitigation technologies means tackling difficult issues like intellectual property and tax incentives for implementation.

The Whole and the Sum of its Parts: Comments on David Victor?s ?Fragmented Carbon Markets and Reluctant Nations?

Assessing the Growing Dangers of Tiny Things

Resources Magazine: Nanotechnology promises big benefits, but RFF?s Terry Davies says that governments lack the oversight needed to reduce health, social, and environmental risks.

An Economic Assessment of Eliminating Oil and Gas Company Tax Preferences

Water Supply and Poor Communities: What?s Price Got to Do with It?

Markets and the Environment: An Introduction to Environmental and Resource Economics

Environmental Regulation in the 1990s: A Retrospective Analysis

Could Uncertain Forest Inventories Hinder Carbon Markets?

Incongruities in national forest measures from across the globe could present a stumbling block for the development of international forest policy, says Paul Waggoner.

Alcohol/Leisure Complementarity: Empirical Estimates and Implications for Tax Policy

Fiscal and Externality Rationales for Alcohol Taxes

The Economic Valuation of Environmental Amenities and Disamenities: Methods and Applications

A New Approach to Reforming the National Flood Insurance Program

Commentary: Adding a federal community flood insurance option could increase coverage, spread risk, and lower premiums, says RFF resident scholar Leonard Shabman.

A Shopping List for America?s Riskiest Foods

Resources Magazine: Foodborne illness can be blamed on a surprisingly small number of foods and pathogens, according to a new study.

U.S. Land Retirement Programs Harvest Benefits

Jeffrey Ferris and Juha Siikam?ki review the history and outcomes of the Conservation Reserve Program and Wetlands Reserve Program.

Should Congress Reinstate the Superfund Taxes?

Commentary: With funding shortfalls decreasing site cleanups, Kate Probst analyzes whether reviving Superfund?s ?polluter pays? principle makes sense.

Insuring Against Catastrophe: A Feasible Goal?

Resources Magazine: Roger Cooke and Carolyn Kousky look at the variables involved in the increasing toll of natural disasters and suggest insurance strategies, practical building measures, and public policies to deal with risks from catastrophe.

The New Economics of Managing the Nation's Waste

In an August 10 commentary, Molly Macauley and Stephen Salant discuss how regulations on shipments raise the overall costs of managing U.S. waste disposal.

Burtraw Urges Consumer Relief in Climate Legislation

In Senate testimony, RFF Senior Fellow Dallas Burtraw said Congress can ease cost disparities for U.S. regions and the overall burden on middle-class households under a cap-and-trade program with relatively small changes to proposed legislation.

Voluntary Environmental Regulation in Colombia

In a recent RFF Report, Senior Fellow Allen Blackman and his colleagues examine voluntary environmental agreements in Colombia, finding that although they have had limited environmental benefits, they have helped build capacity in environmental management.

Declining Traffic Fatalities: Lessons for Developing Countries?

In a July 27 commentary, Maureen Cropper and Elizabeth Kopits examine the phenomenon of initially rising, then peaking, then declining traffic fatality rates as countries develop over time.

Finding Climate Mitigation Technologies That Work

Designing clean-energy technology policies to "decarbonize" major economies will require both a strong pricing signal as well as removal of policy barriers that inhibit R&D. In an RFF Issue Brief, Carolyn Fischer explores the tradeoffs.

New Ideas for Risk Regulation

A two-day conference co-sponsored by RFF and the Society for Risk Analysis looked at options for improving the regulation environmental, health, safety, and security risks.

The Evolving SO2 Allowance Market: Title IV, CAIR, and Beyond

In a July 13 commentary, David Evans and Karen Palmer discuss the sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade system. While the program has been highly successful in generating substantial pollution-related health benefits at relatively low cost, the authors suggest ways to make the program still more efficient.

Ecosystems and Climate: Managing Change

The challenges facing terrestrial ecosystems in a warming climate are daunting, according to an RFF Report that explores policies and perspectives on making nature more resilient in the face of climate stress.

Adaptation to Climate Change: Preserving Freshwater

Severe drought, flooding, and other extreme weather events are inevitable in a changing climate. A new RFF Report finds this will require the introduction of regional plans to ensure adequate supplies of freshwater for household use, irrigation, fisheries, and recreation.

Threats to Health from Climate Change?

A warming world could trigger new perils to public health, but an RFF study finds that adaptation policies could mitigate many of the potential consequences ? including risks of illness from heat waves, allergic and infectious disease, and rising air pollution.

New Ways to Connect with RFF

Electronic publications, podcasts, and virtual presentations are some of the new tools we?ve added to improve your web experience.

Fighting TB with Interventions that Work

A paper in Health Affairs by Ramanan Laxminarayan and colleagues finds that using proven treatment methods against tuberculosis not only works ? but the economic benefits also outweigh the costs of implementation.

Achieving Efficient Coordination and Acceptance in Fishery Reform

In a June 29 commentary, Robert Deacon discusses how a policy of assigning fishery harvest rights to groups rather than individuals can achieve gains from coordination that other rights-based management regimes fail to capture.

Overseeing International Forest Conservation Programs

With Congress designing plans to manage international forest conservation, a key question arises?who should be in charge? In a new issue brief, RFF?s Nigel Purvis, Ray Kopp, and Andrew Stevenson offer their suggestion.

Climate Change and Infrastructure: A Volatile Mix?

An RFF Report looks at how U.S. roads, telecommunications, coasts, electrical systems, and water supplies may be affected by changes in climate and suggests ways to prepare through policy choices.

How Regressive is the Gas Tax?

In a June 22 policy commentary, Sarah West looks at the burden that gas taxes place on low-income households.

Coastal and Marine Environments: Adapting to Climate Change

A new report assesses policy options for addressing climate change impacts on marine and coastal resources. The study is part of a series on U.S. climate adaptation policy being released by RFF.

Waste Not, Want Not: Transforming the Town Dump

Effective disposal of garbage ranks among the highest concerns of local officials, their constituents, and most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court. A new paper by Molly Macauley examines the interstate conflicts that have grown as waste disposal has become an increasingly nationwide, high-tech industry.

Climate Change and U.S. Agricultural Policy

More than most sectors, agriculture will feel the impacts of climate change. A new RFF report explores the role for public policy in helping U.S. farmers and ranchers as they develop practices to counter inevitable changes in temperature, rainfall, growing seasons, and soil conditions.

Prioritizing Investments for Improved Biodiversity Conservation Outcomes

In a June 15 commentary, Juha Siikam?ki and Stephen Newbold discuss approaches to improving the cost-effectiveness of biodiversity conservation through better prioritization of conservation alternatives.

Beyond Swine Flu: Superbugs

Five Illinois residents have died of the swine flu, raising new fears that the H1N1 virus will not be easily controlled.

Will climate change take the fun out of fun?

Putting A Price On Smart Power

Expert: Telecommuting growing, but it's no panacea for societys ills

Counting on That Carbon-Free Edge

Nuclear power supplies just 20 percent of the nation's electricity, but 73 percent of the electricity produced with no carbon emissions. That fact is what powers nuclear energy's attempt at a comeback...

Beyond Yucca, A Blurry View

All around the country, nuclear waste is waiting. From Diablo Canyon, Calif., to Peach Bottom, Pa., in 121 locations in 39 states, 60,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel, a lethal radioactive hoard the weight of an ocean liner, sits in deep pools of water or in steel casks stacked on concrete pads under the open sky, waiting to be hauled away...

Lobbying: 'Propaganda war' over coal escalates ahead of Hill climate debate

In Bill's Big Idea: Save the Climate, Share the Wealth

For several years, Peter Barnes has been peddling a Big Idea about how to design climate change legislation so that it might actually be popular. Now he might finally get his day in the sun...

Florida vs. the superbugs

MRSA killed Alonzo Smith, an 18-year-old football player from Liberty High School in Kissimmee last September. Smith follows a long line of football players who have been sickened after infection with MRSA, a highly resistant superbug..

RFF's Morgenstern Discusses Cost-Benefit Analysis Reform

Don't Hold the U.S. to Climate Standards it Cannot Achieve

Europe is inadvertently undermining President Obama on global warming, with potentially damaging consequences for climate co-operation and transatlantic relations...

Cap-and-Cashback: Regional fairness

Climate policy can be fair to families all across the...

Greenhouse Plan Spurs Lobbying

U.S. President Barack Obama's support for limiting greenhouse gas emissions has spurred a lobbying blitz in Congress, officials said...

Push to Reduce Greenhouse Gases Would Put a Price on Emitting Pollution

President Obama's endorsement of climate legislation to clamp down on greenhouse gases has set off a lobbying rush in Congress and made the air thick with rival proposals.

Carbon Footprints Are Tricky to Track

The truth is that while there is some variation in the carbon intensity of consumption across states, it is orders of magnitude smaller than what the editorial claims, thus severely overstating the degree to which cap and trade will burden some states and benefit others.

Climate Change Takes Center Stage in Congress

With climate change legislation a top U.S. priority for Democrats this year, lawmakers began zeroing in on Thursday on ways to ease the financial burden it could impose on the poor, especially in the midst of a deep economic recession.

For Malaria, We Just Can't Afford to Use Cheap Drugs

There are two ways to take anti-malarial drugs: the expensive way, which helps the world; and the cheap way, which helps only the patient. Most Africans cannot afford the expensive way and, as a result, the worlds most effective anti-malarial drug may lose its potency.

Quick Hits From Copenhagen

Overheard here as the climate conference wraps up...

Obama Cuts Funds To Nuclear Waste Repository

President Obama has lived up to a campaign promise by cutting off most funds to develop Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a nuclear waste repository. That leaves the fate of nuclear waste, currently stored at sites throughout the United States, in limbo.

Carbon Trading to Raise Consumer Energy Prices

Dallas Burtraw?is quoted on?how the decision about distributing revenue from a national cap and trade system could "change the distribution of wealth potentially for a century."

Budget Expects Revenue from Limits on Emissions

Dallas Burtraw's observation that "emission allowances could be the greatest creation of property rights since the 19th-century settlement of the West" is cited.?

Obama Stresses Energy Investment but Policy Battles Loom

Tim Brennan comments that President Obama's emphasis on climate legislation and renewable energy in a prime time?address indicates the importance his administration?places on the issues.?

Fighting Infection

Ramanan Laxminarayan and co-author Eli Perencevich of the University of Maryland Medical Center urge regional strategies to curb infections contracted in health-care facilities.

"Like Clean Water"

The bulk of inappropriate prescriptions are for children under five years old. In hospitals, patients are treated with many antibiotics to reduce the risk of not recovering from an infection, many of which are drug resistant.

Case for Climate Protection Authority

RFF?s Nigel Purvis makes the case for the Obama Administration to create a Climate Protection Authority and explains the potential benefits for domestic and international climate action.

Obama Counters Bush on Auto Standards

Ian Parry comments on the merit of higher fuel efficiency standards versus a higher gas tax and his recent study is summarized.

Scientific Climate is Changing as Obama Takes Office

A recent RFF study that explores how a cap-and-trade plan would affect household energy costs is cited.

Russia and Ukraine's Gas Dispute

In this letter to the editor, Joel Darmstadter responds to an opinion piece regarding energy options for Europe.

Hank Paulson: Use Free Trade to Fight Climate Change

Keith Johnson summarizes Treasury Secretary Paulson's discussion about curbing greenhouse gasses at RFF's recent Policy Leadership Forum.

Making a Treaty: The Senate?s Role

In this letter to the editor, Nigel Purvis explores the benefits of forging bipartisan climate policy through Congressional-executive agreements rather than treaties.

McConnell on Marketplace

In a commentary aired December 15 on American Public Media?s Marketplace Radio, Senior Fellow Virginia McConnell?

suggests that raising taxes on gasoline would spur automakers to build greener cars ? and motivate potential buyers. ?Recently passed fuel economy standards are a step in the right direction, but high gas prices are essential. They provide incentives to manufacturers to produce the new generation of vehicles, and for consumers to buy them,? she said. ?The recent run-up in oil prices showed us what a powerful force the market can be in influencing purchase decisions and spurring innovation.?

Get Tough on Emissions Without Hurting Economy

Richard Morgenstern advocates for the Obama administration to announce a detailed plan for carbon pricing in this opinion piece.

Cap-and-Trade in the Current Economic Climate

On NPR?s All Things Considered, RFF Senior Fellow Dallas Burtraw discussed the implications of the current economic difficulties for passage of domestic climate legislation.? He said government could ease some of the pain by rebating revenues.

Sharp on Impact of Oil Price Drop

RFF President Phil Sharp was among several experts in a November 17 Wall Street Journal roundup addressing options for reducing demand for oil in the wake of falling petroleum prices. He suggested using market incentives, coupled with close government oversight, to encourage efficiency gains, establish a price on carbon to restrain greenhouse gas emissions, and seriously consider imposing a "price floor" on oil in the range of $60?$65 per barrel.

Vajjhala on Carbon Sequestration in National Journal

In an October 25, 2008, article in National Journal entitled "Big Oil Likes Clean Coal," RFF Fellow Shalini Vajjhala discusses the tradeoffs between more oil and gas drilling and carbon sequestration. "In an ideal world, you?d be able to analyze the whole cycle and whether the process of reducing emissions generates emissions. There isn?t a lot of clarity on that."

Can Markets Cure Malaria?

Ramanan Laxminarayan talks about the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria program and what it might take for effective implementation.

CLIMATE: Moderate Senate Dems Build "Gang of 16" to Influence Cap-and-Trade Bill

RFF is identified as a nonpartisan organization that the "Gang of 16" have touched base with regarding climate change issues.

CLIMATE: Economic Crisis Rattles Cap-and-Trade Debate

Dallas Burtraw talks about carbon taxes and climate change legislation.

And the Carbon Goes to ...

Dallas Burtraw comments on the RGGI auction.

Costs Weighed on Having Utilities Cut Back on CO2

Dallas Burtraw comments on energy efficiency in regard to the strict building standards for new homes.

Coal, a Tough Habit to Kick

Joel Darmstadter talks about the demand for coal: "In the short run, demand for coal is going to increase. Demand for electricity is increasing, and there are really no alternatives."

Surprise: Old-growth forests soak up CO2

Nigel Purvis comments on the management of temperate and boreal forests in developed countries as a component of the fight against global climate change.

Face-Off

Regarding Obama?s and McCain?s plans to address climate change, Raymond Kopp says, "It is hard to draw a distinction between the two."