Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) are expected to outline climate legislation on Thursday morning, which will include a tax on carbon emissions. [The Nation]
Senators Bernie Sanders and Barbara Boxer will outline the legislation on Thursday morning. Details are scant, though it’s being billed as “major” and “comprehensive” legislation, and will have a carbon tax, per a statement from Sanders’s office: “Under the legislation, a fee on carbon pollution emissions would fund historic investments in energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. The proposal also would provide rebates to consumers to offset any efforts by oil, coal or gas companies to raise prices.”
In response to President Obama’s proposals in tonight’s State of the Union address to fight climate change, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is launching a multi-state TV ad campaign to support that goal. [EDF]
A study in the February Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans ties the measured acceleration of sea level rise along the mid-Atlantic coast of the U.S. to a simultaneous slowdown in the flow of the Gulf Stream. [Climate Central]
Superstorm Sandy was the deadliest hurricane in the northeastern U.S. in 40 years and the second-costliest in the nation’s history, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Hurricane Center. [AP]
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reaffirmed its initial conclusion that Hurricane Sandy was no longer a hurricane when it made landfall. Instead, it was a “post-tropical cyclone” packing hurricane-force winds, the report said. [Climate Central]
Europe’s emissions trading scheme has spurred some companies to file patents for technology that cuts greenhouse gas emissions, but had virtually no impact on the number of so-called low carbon patents since the scheme launched in 2005, a new study has found. [Reuters]
Two office blocks in Norway from the 1980s are about to be refit with geothermal and solar energy capacity as a demonstration project for “energy positive” buildings. [Reuters]
The UK will need to develop a huge fleet of currently experimental nuclear reactors by mid-century, to meet the most nuclear-intensive scenario for moving away from fossil fuels, according to a report by the government’s most senior scientific advisers. [The Guardian]