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Climate Trailblazer Or Corporate Giveaway: An Economic And Political Evaluation Of Cap-And-Trade In California, Benjamin Reicher
Climate Trailblazer Or Corporate Giveaway: An Economic And Political Evaluation Of Cap-And-Trade In California, Benjamin Reicher
Pomona Senior Theses
In this thesis, I conduct an economic and political analysis of California’s cap-and-trade program, the leading national (and international) example of a market-based strategy to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. I evaluate the program on several economic and political measures of success, especially as contrasted with the performance of various regulatory policies that California also relies on to meet its emissions reduction targets. These regulations exemplify a command and control approach to emissions mitigation as opposed to a market-based approach, and indeed tend to be favored by grassroots activists who may be skeptical about market-friendly policies; my thesis seeks to …
Pedal To The Metal: Accelerating The Transition To Electric Vehicles, Nicole Larson
Pedal To The Metal: Accelerating The Transition To Electric Vehicles, Nicole Larson
Pomona Senior Theses
This thesis explores barriers to widespread adoption of electric vehicles and proposes possible policy solutions. It analyzes main barriers including awareness, upfront cost, and range anxiety, as well as existing policy solutions, and a detailed case study examining policy differences in high adopting versus low adopting states. Awareness and eduction surrounding electric vehicles and their capabilities, financial incentives and market mechanisms for reducing costs, and charging infrastructure and efficiency improvements are examined. Conclusions were formed through interviews with various experts as a method of data collection. It was found that many existing state and local level policies could be scaled …
Agency Decision-Making For Climate Change: Cost-Benefit Analysis, The Precautionary Principle, And The Bounds Of Rationality, Laura Carr
Pomona Senior Theses
Climate change tests the limits of human understanding of complexity and uncertainty. It challenges assumptions about our presumed power of control over this planet. This paper examines the theory of how governmental executive branch agencies make regulation decisions about climate change using the decision-making methodologies of cost-benefit analysis and the precautionary principle, and as influenced by perceptions of the bounds of human rationality and ability to deal with risk and uncertainty.