Energy, Climate, and the Presidential Race
Election Day 2012 is finally upon us, and energy issues have played a notable role in both presidential campaigns. There are significant differences between the energy policies proposed by President Obama and Governor Romney, which were highlighted earlier this month in a debate at MIT. RFF Nonresident Fellow Joe Aldy represented the Obama administration’s position and Oren Cass spoke for the Romney campaign.
However, both candidates have been relatively silent on issues related to climate change, as noted by RFF’s Nathan Richardson. This did not stop NYC Mayor Bloomberg from endorsing Obama, citing the president’s commitment to addressing climate issues. Aldy and Cass also weighed in on the aims of both candidates for promoting clean energy and reducing carbon emissions.
Costs of Hurricane Sandy
The impact from Hurricane Sandy has focused the nation’s attention on the costs of extreme weather events. RFF Fellow Carolyn Kousky writes about the real damages that get excluded from such cost estimates. RFF Vice President for Research Molly Macauley discusses the value of investing in information systems—such as the nation’s weather satellite network—to better track and predict extreme events. And, Sandy is responsible for the second most power outages caused by a storm in US history; RFF Senior Fellow Tim Brennan notes that cities can improve their electricity reliability by paying for it.
The storm also injected climate change into presidential campaign conversations—politicians have recently said that the country is not fully prepared to adapt to new climatic conditions. A group of RFF researchers teamed up with numerous outside experts to outline concrete policy recommendations that the federal government can take to help facilitate climate adaptation at the local and national levels.
