Articles by Paul
One year later, Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ still dominates GOP
On this first anniversary of the Donald Trump-inspired insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last Jan. 6 during which five people died, we find the Republican Party speeding toward a new identity as the “ReTrumplican Party.”…
EU must reduce reliance on Russian gas supplies
Megan Greene’s op-ed (Opinion, December 16) is right that near-term US sanctions against Russia have very limited effectiveness. This is precisely why the EU must pursue longer-term strategies to reduce Russian sway, including cutting the EU’s costly reliance on Russian natural gas…
Can America prevent a global warming cold war?
At the 11th hour of climate negotiations in Scotland last week, the U.S. and China released a “Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s” outlining increased cooperation on a wide range of climate and clean energy topics…
How to Limit Temperature Increases in the Very Near Term
If the years of devastating droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires since the Paris climate agreement was adopted have taught us anything, it’s that we have underestimated the pace of extreme, destabilizing climate change…
America needs a climate plan compromise
President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is making its way through Congress via a budget reconciliation bill — a once-in-a-generation opportunity for America to reassert its leadership in combating the climate crisis…
All Democrats must compromise to pass economic plans, just like 1993
With the benefit — and the challenge — of very narrow Democratic majorities in Congress, a first-year president attempts to pass his major economic plan to reanimate the American middle-class…
Congress must ensure electric vehicles are within reach for all American drivers
There is growing consensus in the auto industry, the Biden administration and among Democrats in Congress that electric vehicles are critical to both the future of American manufacturing and to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions…
We need Biden’s economic plan to rebuild the middle class
For more than 40 years, a central narrative of American politics, successfully pushed by the Republican Party, has been that government is ineffectual at best, and counterproductive more often than not. Or, as President Ronald Reagan, a former…
Climate devastation is upon us. Congress must act.
Last week, on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ida unleashed 150 mile-an-hour winds and slammed into New Orleans, super-fueled to huge size and rain-making power by the Gulf of Mexico whose temperatures are 3 to 5 degrees higher…
Letter: Autocratic states are thwarting climate action
Leslie Hook’s insightful story on G20 climate action (July 26) noted that autocratic regimes in China, Russia and Saudi Arabia deliberately prevented a decision to end fossil fuel subsidies…
VIDEO: Paul Bledsoe discusses extreme heat and climate change
California State Senator Melissa Hurtado and former Communications Director for the White House Climate Change Task Force Paul Bledsoe talk to Kendis Gibson and Lindsey Reiser about the dangerous new reality of extreme heat.
Radio Interview: Reality Check
Paul Bledsoe joined Charles to discuss his op-ed, It’s Time to Build the Clean Grid of the Future.
Major climate win that tees up more in reconciliation bill
Some far-left environmental activists are criticizing the bipartisan infrastructure deal that President Biden has reached with senators of both parties…
The Arctic is ground zero in the climate battle
Tony Barber’s important column on the growing rivalry of great powers over the Arctic rightly notes that Arctic climate change “is an urgent matter for everyone”. Since the Arctic is warming at twice as fast as the global average…
Attacks from far-right and far-left only prove Biden’s energy plan occupies sensible center
Republican critics are using the excuse of a cyberattack from Russian hackers on a key gasoline pipeline to show that somehow President Biden must move to the far right on energy and climate policy.
China’s emissions now eclipse the developed world — preventing climate protection
At the recent White House climate change summit President Biden made the extraordinarily ambitious pledge of reducing U.S. emissions by 50 percent over 2005 levels by 2030…
Slashing emissions by 2050 isn’t enough. We can bring down temperatures now.
Even as President Biden prepares to host a White House global climate summit on Earth Day, April 22, new science shows that the climate crisis is accelerating and demanding greater emergency measures…
Biden must compel China and Russia to act on climate
In recent weeks, a mini-Cold War has threatened to break out, with the American officials of all types becoming increasingly critical of authoritarian actions by both China and Russia…
Washington’s Most Influential People
THE 250 EXPERTS AND ADVOCATES—OUTSIDE THE GOVERNMENT—WHO’LL BE SHAPING THE POLICY DEBATES OF THE YEARS TO COME…
Government must come clean about the total costs of climate change
The March 18 front-page article “Regulators push Wall Street for disclosure on climate risks” noted that government statistics found 22 extreme weather events last year cost the nation nearly $100 billion…
Energy permitting is broken: New analytics can fix it
The energy permitting reforms included in the recent bipartisan budget agreement represented modest progress — but they didn’t fix the problem. The main challenge, and the huge economic opportunity, is the…
Sleepwalking Toward Climate Catastrophe
The last few weeks have brought unprecedented high temperatures in the U.S. and globally, including the four hottest days in a row worldwide ever in recorded history…
A Trade-Based Climate Policy Can Cut Emissions Globally
The recent reopening of diplomatic dialogue by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese leaders highlighted the enormous importance of climate change action by the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters. But it did not yield…
Biden Needs To Remind Voters He’s Always Been Pro-Business
Anew AP poll found that only 31% of Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy, a result both shocking and familiar. Shocking because no modern president has received such poor marks during a period of…
President Biden’s Earth Day promise: The incumbent has a real plan for a greener future, unlike Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis
Last week, a meeting of Florida flooding policy managers was washed out in South Florida by a deluge of 26 inches of rain in just eight hours, unprecedented rainfall made far larger due to the climate change crisis that…
Permitting reform can cut consumer energy costs and emissions
America could have cleaner, cheaper energy if only we could agree to get out of our own way. The obstacle we have created is a thicket of federal and state regulations requiring energy projects to undergo lengthy, expensive, one-by-one…
Can the UAE help get a planet-saving methane deal at COP28?
Environmental advocates are rightfully skeptical that the head of a national oil company can credibly steer the parties at the upcoming UN climate summit COP28 to the strong climate mitigation needed to meet the climate emergency, especially…
Maximizing the climate benefits of natural gas exports
A major question facing American energy and climate policymakers today is what role abundant U.S. natural gas should play in the global clean energy transition. Some environmental activists oppose all gas use. But a new…
Cutting Chinese emissions requires US and EU to work together
Thank goodness that Adam Tooze has questioned the recent EU and UK furore over America’s Inflation Reduction Act, a law that could be a turning point in global climate protection, but is hardly a protectionist disaster for western trade…
As History Shows, Incumbents Have the Edge
A key reason that Democrats should support President Biden for re-election is that history shows that a sitting president has the best chance of winning. Several recent Democrats have run again…
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