For those who follow the debate in France on the @gabrielzucman.bsky.social tax : the mood among the ultra rich is about the same 🫠

Was cursing against DB for being late again and sabotaging long-distance, low-carbon travel. A missed connection in Cologne would have cost me 3 extra hours of travel. And then🙏 they announced that the train to Brussels would wait for the connecting passengers. Thank you @deutschebahn.com !

Please share 📢 The Belgian Climate Centre (Federal Gov) is hiring a Head of Department to lead its team and mission at the heart of Belgium’s climate transition. www.climatecentre.be/post/job-opp... Deadline: Sept 22 (need to speak either FR or NL)

A quote from robertreich.substack.com/p/a-betrayal... that also applies to our leaders in the EU. Time to uphold int'l and humanitarian law. Time to ask for journalists to be let in. And of course high time to let humanitarian organizations and food in.

I had the pleasure to work with Bea and Eric on scaling finance for forests in the Global South. Our starting point: the nature-based VCM is broken. Higher standards and better monitoring will not fix it. It can’t serve as a template for nature. Why? It can’t deal with nature’s impermanence. 🧵1/6

That would be my guess too. Currently collecting data that will help us figure that out. Stay tuned.

If you’re in Brussels today: the dress code is red. Alongside 150 civil society organizations, let's give our politicians some courage to draw the red line for Gaza. 11.be/en/draw-the-... #RodeLijn #LigneRouge

👏👏 The power of remote sensing (and a little bit of AI). Can it one day replace the costly Monitoring-Reporting-Verification cycle ?

Interesting. Yet again evidence of how this conflict is eroding the foundations of our societies. Across the world.

Good news of the day: EU one percentage point away from meeting its 2030 climate target (-55% relative to 1990). Yes, it can be done 💪 (and we have not even started doing the more difficult stuff: behavior & agriculture) on.ft.com/4mr3Ro9 Next milestone: 2040 and -90% relative to 1990.

EV charging is a great source of flexibility for electricity markets. But we need EV charging prices that reflect the state of the wholesale market. Curious to read if Bram receives other answers.

Happy for Canada today. 🍁 From Carney’s victory speech: “Virtue is a muscle that grows with its exercise. We become just by doing just acts, brave by doing brave acts. When we are kind, kindness grows.” and, on top, he's a great economist interested in evidence and evidence-based policies.

Interesting about emissions from the LULUCF sector in Finland but also great data organisation and vizualisation by @robbieandrew.bsky.social Everything you want to know about energy and emissions at your fingertips.

Just came across this interesting blog on why carbon removal markets don't scale up. Choices made in the past still influence things today. There are lessons for the emerging biodiversity market too (don’t use the existing carbon credit market as a template), but maybe not the same tradeoffs.

Sad to read about Pat's passing. I fondly remember him from my Ph.D time at Harvard. He had just joined as an AP. Excited about the new developments then in empirical auctions ... and fishing in the Midwest. My thoughts are with his family.

La France étudie la suppression des Low Emissions Zones. Marion Leroutier 🧵résume l’impact de ces mesures : les bénéfices santé sont clairs, on en sait moins sur l’impact sur la mobilité des ménages. Et si on s’y intéressait réellement, plutôt que de les supprimer ou les postposer comme à Bruxelles?

We should all sweep in front of our doors. This report by AI reminds me of a quote in a recent Brussels Times article: Many people don't care about asylum seeker rights, but "what is happening now with their rights is exactly what will happen to ours tomorrow." Not proud of my country.

Go Princeton 💪

Daylight savings time jetlag is a thing. But DST also pushes solar generation nicely into the evening peak load ☀️. Which is nice. 🔌💡 @energy-charts.bsky.social

"A climate of fear has descended on the research community. Researchers, afraid of losing their funding or job security, are removing their names from publications, abandoning studies, and rewriting grant proposals and papers (...)." 😬

This is a great list. As someone who has also been teaching the political economy of the green transition this term, a few additional resources I've found useful 🧵:

New decorations and posters have appeared on campus this past week. Sometimes it is useful to remind ourselves of the obvious … 😍 1/4

NEW RESEARCH: A nuclear renaissance is “far from certain” with doubts over economic viability, technological scalability and long timelines. More in FT piece www.ft.com/content/82d7...

🚨 Energy & climate job posts at Bruegel - Apply by April 6 🚨 As we keep expanding Bruegel's work on energy and climate, we are recruiting: - 1 energy and climate economist: www.bruegel.org/careers/ener... - 2 research assistants: www.bruegel.org/careers/rese... Please share/apply! 🚀

Krugman: "I don’t know if Americans realize how big a shock it has been that European citizens are being arrested and detained by ICE. Suddenly it’s clear that America is not an ally, may not even be a democracy, and Europe must look after itself." Indeed 🤔 paulkrugman.substack.com/p/is-the-sle...

I couldn't agree more with this eloquent statement from my colleagues @vickymurillo.bsky.social @pagefortna.bsky.social @profsaunders.bsky.social Turkuler Isiksel and Allison Carnegie. Columbia happened to be first in Trump et al's sights, but they won't stop here.

In 2012 @IEA.org CEO Fatih Birol was deeply concerned about climate change (attached). Today, half a trillion tonnes of fossil fuel emissions later, he’s parroting “drill baby drill”. Has the allure of sycophancy to the POTUS sent his integrity to the four winds or have the laws of physics changed?

4th edition of this successful series: Important topic: most of the investment required for decarbonization is long-term, so uncertainty is key. Great set of lecturers: Matti Liski, Verena Hagspiel-Janssen and Sjak Smulders, on top of Karsten Neuhoff and yours truly.

👍 Not the first time, I'm hearing this (the first time was in the ctx of pharma tech). We need a real internal market in Europe to provide economies of scale and European companies happy to act as early adopters.

Sad

Ember's data tool for European electricity prices and costs is a good starting place for anyone interested in electricity price developments. Easy to use. Well documented methodology. Downloadable data.

What's happening in the US scientific community concerns us all. A good summary by @mariusgilbert.bsky.social, our vice-rector for research:

We are seeing some impact on reproducibility efforts with the transition to the new US administration. For now, I suggest that you make backups of any data that required you to actively interact with the Federal government, as there may be a delay in response times.... #openscience

Soon no more language issues in Belgium ? 🎊 English becomes the most widely-spoken language among the 14-34 yr-olds in Belgium, before Dutch and French. More data at: languageknowledge.eu 1/3

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. "Then they came for the trade unionists … "Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." —Martin Niemöller #econsky #academicsky marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2025/01/pres...

Great service to the scientific community and journalists (the Sabin Center was already behind another database used by researchers: the climate litigation database). Thank you !

The Fed, charged with supervising and regulating banks to help preserve financial stability, is withdrawing from the Network on Greening the Financial System. This is an agency that, by statute, is independent, not answerable to the President. www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/p...

Starting today at ULB : A primer on electricity market design by Natalia Fabra