E2 Round-up: Carper says climate bill possible, IPCC tries to learn from mistakes, and Vermont says no to reactor

President Barack Obama said yesterday that he still supported putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions, telling a group of CEOs that energy and climate legislation was a critical component of a healthy economy.

He’s not the only Democrat who thinks a climate bill could still pass this year, even if the parties seem irrevocably split on this and other issues. Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) told the International Trading Emissions Association Wednesday that finding agreement on climate legislation may not be likely but it is possible.

According to Bloomberg: “While the cap-and-trade legislation was ‘pretty much dead’ at the end of 2009, Obama has ‘breathed fresh life into it,’ Carper said.” 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is looking to learn from past mistakes that led to the inclusion of the unsubstantiated claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 and other errors, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“The world's leading organization on climate change says it is working on a strategy to better police the experts who produce its high-profile reports, to try to ensure they adhere to rigorous scientific standards,” the WSJ states.

In Vermont, state senators voted against extending a permit to allow a nuclear reactor operated by Entergy to continue operating beyond 2012. Unless reversed, the overwhelming vote would be the first time in 20 years “the public or its representatives has decided to close a reactor,” according to a New York Times report.

Entergy didn’t do much to help its own case apparently.

More from the Times: “Plant officials had testified under oath to two state panels that there were no buried pipes at Vermont Yankee that could leak tritium, although there were. No tritium has turned up in drinking water, but even plant supporters expressed dismay at the leak and the misstatements.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) supports the move.