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Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is seeking an alliance among "like-minded" nations to thwart efforts to introduce carbon pricing and American President Barack Obama's move to push climate change through global forums like G20.

For people who use the word “science” as a bludgeon and trumpet their strict commitment to fact and reason, the Obama administration and its supporters are strangely incapable of rational analysis of new climate-change regulations. President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency released draft rules last week to create a vast new regulatory apparatus with no input from Congress — in other words, to govern in its accustomed highhanded, undemocratic manner. The goal is to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants, in particular coal-fired plants, to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The rhetoric around the rules has involved...

White House counselor John Podesta is “fairly confident” that proposed EPA greenhouse gas restrictions can survive scrutiny under the next president — and that Democrats can campaign on the climate change issue in races this year. “If you’re a climate denier trying to run nationally, I think you’re going to have a very hard road to go getting elected president of the United States,” he said. “There’s no doubt there’s some states where this is an issue that presents a different set of political challenges, particularly coal-producing states,” he said. “And there’s no doubt that the polluters have come after...

**SNIP** Don't expect Hillary Clinton to repudiate the EPA rule as she campaigns in 2016. She also knows where the muscle is in the new Democratic coalition. There is one political catch, however, and that is the composition of the Senate, where North Dakota gets as many votes as California. That reality might haunt Democrats this year because they are trying to hold or gain Senate seats in Kentucky, West Virginia, Montana, Alaska and Louisiana, among other right-leaning states. If voters ever figure out what Mr. Obama's carbon rule really means to their state economies, Democrats would lose every one....

Having failed to get the Democrats’ cap-and-trade scheme through Congress, President Obama intends to create it through fiat, with the Environmental Protection Agency scheduled to issue today what amounts to a bill of attainder against coal-fired electricity generators. The regulation will set a national limit on greenhouse-gas emissions from coal plants and then offer states a phony menu of choices for meeting that standard, stacking the policy deck in such a way as to force them into cap-and-trade programs administered by multistate cartels. It is far from obvious that the Obama administration has anything like the legal authority for this;...

The Environmental Protection Agency will seek a 30% reduction in U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030 from existing power plants based on emission levels from 2005, according to two people briefed on the rule, setting in motion the main piece of President Barack Obama's climate-change agenda. The draft rule, to be proposed Monday and scheduled to be completed one year from now, will give flexibility to the states, which must implement the rules and submit compliance plans to the EPA by June 2016. States can decide how to meet the reductions, including joining or creating new cap-and-trade programs, deploying more renewable...

PLIMER: "Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland .. Since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you. Of course, you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress - it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life. I know....it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings...

Despite being soundly rejected a few years ago, cap-and-trade will soon get its U.S. encore — but not in Congress. The Obama administration will likely use its executive power to unilaterally impose carbon dioxide emissions trading systems. The plan is being sold as a “flexible” one. By allowing states a menu of policy options to meet federal mandates, the standards will ostensibly meet the unique needs of each individual state. But the stark reality behind the proposal is that it will be a boon for states that have already imposed cap-and-trade systems — which are overwhelmingly Democratic states. “While President...

em>"Probably for the next decade, the most dominate technology around the world will be coal..." -Jeff Immelt The fastest growing source of energy in the world last year was coal, and it is going to stay that way for a very long time. With that in mind, one has to wonder why President Obama has insisted on the gut-wrenching destruction of the coal industry that has costs thousands of jobs, and has sent electricity costs to all-time highs. This, combined with last month's report from the International Energy Agency, state that reaching the goal of carbon emission reduction would cost...

FR is prohibited from posting from Wired.com, title and link only: http://www.wired.com/2014/03/clean-coal/

It's California’s latest spending rush--and this time it involves carbon. For years, the Wall Street Journal has been reporting that cap and trade's real purpose was to create another revenue stream for politicians while dodging accountability for raising taxes. Now Senate President Darrel Steinberg is suggesting that cap and trade revenues be used to finance the state’s $68 billion "bullet" train. One problem: The cap-and-trade revenues must be used to reduce carbon emissions. According to one analyst, the train's construction will do just the opposite; it will increase emissions. An initiative that was once intended to reach green programs (e.g....

We have to first assume that global warming, or climate change, or whatever it's called this week, is caused by us. That is a big assumption, one that Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama embraces. Plus, as reinforcement, we have this Fact Sheet from Obama about methane gas as a contributor to global warming, I mean climate change, uh, I mean ... : ... last June, President Obama issued a broad-based Climate Action Plan, announcing a series of executive actions to reduce carbon pollution, prepare the U.S. for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to address global climate...

OSLO (Reuters) - A little-known technology that may be able to take the equivalent of China's greenhouse gas emissions out of the carbon cycle could be the radical policy shift needed to slow climate change this century, a draft U.N. report shows. Using the technology, power plants would burn biomass - wood, wood pellets, or plant waste like from sugar cane - to generate electricity while the carbon dioxide in the biomass is extracted, piped away and buried deep underground. Among techniques, a chemical process can strip carbon dioxide from the flue gases from combustion. The process - called bio-energy...

Flows of money towards climate adaptation projects are becoming increasingly unpredictable, making it difficult for vulnerable countries to prepare for the hardships caused by global warming. Future fundraising tactics would have to be “extremely aggressive” in order to raise enough money to continue their work, according to board members of the UN-run Adaptation Fund, the primary finance provider for adaptation projects around the world. “We are essentially going with our hands out to everyone,” Philip Weech, the board member from the Bahamas representing the Latin American and Caribbean regions, told RTCC. “We take funds from anyone, any inch, but the...

.................Premier Li Keqiang last week declared war on pollution, which is expected to speed up the process of turning China's limited environmental levy into a full-blown tax targeting the nation's major polluters. But the all-out efforts to combat China's disastrous pollution levels might get in the way of plans to tax carbon dioxide emissions in a bid to stunt the rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions, Zhu Guangyao, the vice environment minister, said...... A carbon tax is increasingly controversial among lawmakers, said Zhu, adding that an environment tax would be easier to push through without carbon in the mix. The...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants is tainted by secretiveness and collusion with environmental groups, according to a conservative environmental lawyer. Energy and Environmental Law Institute attorney Chris Horner has presented an 81-page regulatory comment showing the EPA’s “New Source Performance Standard” (NSPS) — which limits carbon emissions from new coal plants — was developed by officials masking their true agendas, using secret and private email accounts and in collusion with environmental groups.

President Obama speaking at a Safeway distribution center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, while speaking about fuel standards: "So for decades, the fuel efficiency standards of our cars and trucks was stuck in neutral even as other kinds of technology leapt forward," Obama said. "And that left families and businesses and our economy vulnerable to fluctuations in oil prices. Every time oil prices shot up the economy got hurt. Our automakers were in danger of being left in the dust by foreign automakers. Carbon pollution was going unchecked, which was having severe impacts on our weather."

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Roger Bezdek. The Environmental Protection Agency, other government agencies and various scientists contend that fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming and climate change. They use this claim to justify repressive regulations for automobiles, coal-fired power plants and other facilities powered by hydrocarbon energy. Because these rules are costing millions of jobs and billions of dollars, a federal Interagency Working Group (IWG) devised the “social cost of carbon” concept – which attaches arbitrary monetary values to the alleged impacts of using hydrocarbons and emitting carbon dioxide. SCC estimates...

Video at link. Stymied by the GOP's long resistance to cap and trade legislation, the EPA this week began public hearings -- the next step toward a final rule -- to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new coal plants. The rule would limit emissions to 1100 pounds per Megawatt hour, a level the coal industry says is technologically unattainable. Green energy proponents disagree. "Opponents say this will prevent ever building another coal-fired plant in the United States today. They say that the technology is not commercially available. These claims are scare tactics," Rep. HenryWaxman, D-Calif., said in a press conference...

Binding national targets on renewable energy are expected to be dropped from new EU proposals due to be unveiled on Wednesday. The UK has lobbied hard to have the mandatory 2030 target watered down, saying it would drive up energy bills. The EU executive will also outline a goal on emissions cuts for 2030, set to be 35 or 40% below 1990 levels. But green groups said the proposals lacked ambition and were the acts of a "burnt out" Commission. Seven years ago, the EU set out a three-pronged energy and climate strategy for 2020. Emissions of greenhouse gases were...