Description:

Though climate change is a substantial and increasingly present threat, there remains significant disagreement about the best policies to address it. Economists generally argue that the most efficient approach is to put a price on carbon. Yet many policymakers counter that such policies are politically unrealistic. They favor more politically popular policies like clean energy standards and technology mandates—even if they tend to be inefficient.

There is perhaps no government entity globally grappling with this tension more ambitiously than the state of California. While operating one of the few cap-and-trade programs in the country, the state also requires solar panels on all new homes, mandates the sale of zero emissions vehicles, and recently voted to accelerate its renewable portfolio standard to achieve 100 percent clean energy by 2045. What can we learn from California’s experience? How can governments globally move aggressively to address carbon emissions while also pursuing the most effective policies? How can policymakers balance the ‘art of the possible’ with the need to achieve rapid, deep carbon emissions?

Join EPIC as we host a panel of experts who will explore the tension in energy and climate policy between the economically optimal and the politically realistic. Moderated by Emily Holden, environment reporter for Guardian US.

Featuring:

Emily Holden (Moderator)
Environment Reporter, Guardian US

Severin Borenstein
E.T. Grether Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy
Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

Michael Brune
Executive Director
Sierra Club

Trevor Houser
Partner, Rhodium Group
Former Senior Advisor, US State Department