Ex-California Gov. & China Launch Think Tank to Fight Climate Change

Here is more from Bloomberg:

Two of President Donald Trump’s biggest foils are teaming up on an issue he loves to scoff at: climate change.

Former California Governor Jerry Brown and China’s chief climate official, Xie Zhenhua, are launching a think tank to push policymakers on both sides of the Pacific to jointly develop better ways to cut greenhouse gases. A key part of the effort, based at the University of California, Berkeley, is trying to block Trump’s plan to roll back vehicle emissions standards.

Brown, a Democrat, said one of his goals for the initiative, called the California-China Climate Institute, is to push China to toughen its own vehicle emissions standards. The move, he said, would make it “very likely” that automakers continue to make low-emission vehicles even if Trump succeeds in rolling back American standards.

The initiative at Berkeley will work with government agencies in California and China, as well as the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Here is a link to the think tank's new website.

Trump Hotel to Host Climate-Denial Think Tank Conference

Here is more from ThinkProgress:

In late July, climate science deniers will descend upon the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. — located right across the street from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — to attend the Heartland Institute’s annual climate conference. The theme this year is “Best Science, Winning Energy Policies.”

When Trump announced in June 2016 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate deal, representatives from longtime anti-climate action groups like Koch-funded think tanks the American Energy Alliance, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation were all present in the Rose Garden.

Many of these same think tanks will be attending Heartland‘s conference next month, where speakers will offer up policy ideas “to lead a post-alarmist world in climate realism” as well as discussing “the benefits of ending the Democrats’ war on fossil fuels.”

Heartland’s conference comes as the head of the group, former Republican Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp, abruptly stepped down last week, just two years after taking the position, while offering no explanation. The think tank has in recent years faced funding uncertainties, with even ExxonMobil no longer donating to the organization. As head of Heartland, Heulskamp focused on energy policy and promoting coal at the state level as opposed to vocal attacks on climate science as his predecessor Joseph Bast did.

The news of Huelskamp leaving his post comes shortly after another Koch-funded libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, quietly announced it was disbanding its climate denial program, the Center for the Study of Science. A Cato spokesperson at the time, however, said this didn’t change the organization’s stance on human-caused climate change.

Heartland has been working for years to unravel environmental rules. The think tank has also played a major role in staffing various EPA posts within the Trump Administration.

Do Think Tanks Make Americans Skeptical About Climate Change?

Do think tanks contribute to the fact that so many Americans are skeptical about climate change?  Here is more from a new Yale study, as detailed in the Washington Post:

Climate change has long been a highly polarizing topic in the United States, with Americans lining up on opposite sides depending on their politics and worldview. Now a scientific study sheds new light on the role played by corporate money in creating that divide.

The report, a systematic review of 20 years’ worth of data, highlights the connection between corporate funding and messages that raise doubts about the science of climate change and whether humans are responsible for the warming of the planet. The analysis suggests that corporations have used their wealth to amplify contrarian views and create an impression of greater scientific uncertainty than actually exists.

“The contrarian efforts have been so effective for the fact that they have made it difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust,” said Justin Farrell, a Yale University sociologist and author of the study, released on Monday in the peer-reviewed journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Numerous previous studies have examined how corporate-funded campaigns have helped shape individual views about global warming. But the Yale study takes what Farrell calls the “bird’s-eye view,” using computer analytics to systematically examine vast amounts of printed matter published by 164 groups—including think-tanks and lobbying firms—and more than 4,500 individuals who have been skeptical of mainstream scientific views on climate change.

The study analyzed the articles, policy papers and transcripts produced by these groups over a 20-year period. Then it separated the groups that received corporate funding from those that did not.

The results, Farrell said, revealed an “ecosystem of influence” within the corporate-backed groups. Those that received donations consistently promoted the same contrarian themes—casting doubt, for example, on whether higher levels of man-made carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere were harmful to the planet. There was no evidence of such coordination among the non-funded groups.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on whether new think tanks are needed to address climate change.

New Think Tanks Needed to Solve Climate Change?

Many think tanks work around the clock to address climate change issues.  Nevertheless, there are calls for even more think tanks to help solve the problem.  Here is more from Xinhua:

A senior Chinese academic has called for the government to spark an "energy revolution" by forming specialist policy think tanks and building showcase projects as well as pouring in investment and encouraging innovation.

China lags behind developed countries in the energy sector, relying on imported core technology, warned Xie Kechang, vice president of the Chinese Association of Science and Technology and a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The country should formulate a blueprint for developing energy technology focusing on greater efficiency, use of fossil fuels, smart power grids, renewable resources and advanced nuclear power, said Xie.

According to the latest ranking, the top energy and resource policy think tanks in the world are:

1.  Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES)
2. World Resources Institute (WRI)
3. Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ)
4. James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
5. RAND Corporation

According to the latest rankings, the top environment think tanks in the world are:

1. World Resources Institute
2. Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)
3. Worldwatch Institute
4. Brookings Institution
5. Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES)

The International Center for Climate Governance also has a worldwide "observatory" of climate change tanks.  As of this month, it has mapped 310 think tanks.

Here is a Bloomberg piece from today which quotes Robert Brulle, a sociology professor at Drexel University, saying that "corporate funders create and and support corporate think tanks which then pass off climate misinformation as valid."

Here is a Think Tank Initiative piece on think tanks at COP21.   And here is a list of what European think tanks are saying about COP21.

Oren Cass, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, opines about why the Paris climate deal is meaningless.