Climate Pragmatism Coverage

"Climate Pragmatism: Innovation, Resilience, and No Regrets," a new report* from the Hartwell Group, was released this morning. The report is based on the idea that the old paradigms for dealing with climate change -- global accords, abatement timetables, carbon pricing -- have either come up short or failed completely. Thus, a new pragmatic strategy must take hold, and the authors of "Climate Pragmatism" believe the have identified such a strategy. A pragmatic approach to dealing with the causes and effects of global climate change will rely on three general policy goals:

1. Energy Innovation
2. Climate Resilience
3. No-regrets Pollution Reduction

These three elements, often thought of as ancillary goals of what might be considered the more ambitious and sweeping paradigms that failed in the past, can add up to meaningful action on climate change, so say the authors**.

The report, available for only a few hours as of this posting, has already generated considerable coverage.

• Bryan Walsh at TIME Magazine: "What's needed in this long hot season is an oblique approach to climate change, one that sidesteps the roadblocks by taking advantage of popular, no-regrets actions that are worth doing even if global warming wasn't real. It's not as simple or as elegant as one global deal — but it might actually work."
• Teryn Norris at Americans for Energy Leadership: "Climate Pragmatism is an important and welcome contribution to the debate and will surely spark much-needed rethinking among energy and climate policy advocates."
• Michael Levi at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I have nothing against doing the things that the Climate Pragmatism authors recommend. It may even be true that society can’t do much more. But if that’s the case, we need to admit the full implications, so that we can start preparing to deal with the consequences."
• Walter Frick at the New England Clean Energy Council: "Yes, some policies will always be heavier lifts than others. But embracing pragmatism for the long-term means not only evaluating the “realm of the possible” in the short-term, but working to shape it over time."
• Marc Gunther via his blog: "I’m not persuaded that we should talk less about the climate–because we really haven’t began to have an honest debate about global warming...It leads me to wonder whether the authors of this report have the problem exactly backward."

Will update as further coverage comes in...

Click here [PDF] to read the whole report.
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*Full disclosure: I am currently employed as a policy fellow at the Breakthrough Institute, one of the publishers of "Climate Pragmatism."
**The full list of authors can be found here.