By FREE Staff Attempts by the federal government to enact meaningful climate policy have often been stifled due to political intransigence and infighting. A recent phenomenon documented by the Foundation for Renewable Energy & Environment (FREE) research team is the growing hostility by the national Republican party towards climate science and action, with Democratic party […]
Read More »Acceleration of Community-Wide Clean Energy Investments in the Green Bond Market
By FREE Staff In June of 2023, a local community initiative in California announced the launch of its second pre-paid ‘green bond’ of $1 billion to procure 685.5 megawatt (MW) of renewable energy to serve its one million community members. The green bond will be applied to operate four power purchase agreements, three for solar […]
Read More »How Decentralized, Polycentric Governing has Led to Innovation and Progress in the Fight Against Climate Change
“The largest city in Massachusetts, Boston, has recently started its own community clean energy (CCE) and plans to build out 100 MW in solar installations to service its low-income community members.” Over the last two decades, one of the most frustratingly consistent aspects of federal climate change policy has been inaction. The national Republican Party […]
Read More »California’s Bold Solar Energy Vision
By Joseph Nyangon How California’s New Rooftop Solar Mandate Will Build Additional Value for Its Customers The boldest new plan yet to increase electricity generation from noncarbon-producing sources has been announced by California. Highly regarded as a trendsetter and vanguard of progressive energy policies, California became the first state to require solar power installed on all […]
Read More »The Scale of the Energy Access Gap
By Benjamin M. Attia Access to electricity is a key catalyst correlated with economic development. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently estimated that over 1.5 billion people do not have access to affordable electricity, representing one quarter of the world’s population [1]. In the absence of aggressive new policies and significant financing, it is estimated that […]
Read More »China’s Cap-and-Trade Decisions
By Joseph Nyangon How China Can Shape the Future of Carbon Markets In the lead-up to the 2015 Paris climate change conference, policymakers stressed the need for creation of integrated carbon markets and called for linking new climate financing mechanisms with the United Nations-organized Green Climate Fund (GCF) based in South Korea. Both the U.S. and […]
Read More »Why the U.S. Urgently Needs to Invest in a Modern Energy System
By Joseph Nyangon Investment in ‘smart’ energy offers a viable and effective long-term solution that allows the energy industry to shift its supply sources, build new transmission and storage systems, and increase its energy efficiency goals. In a speech commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2009, former U.S. secretary of state, […]
Read More »