Ann Carlson in E&E News: Virus brings blue skies to big cities. Will that last?

Visible improvements in air quality offer an opportunity for climate action, said Ann Carlson, a law professor at UCLA who specializes in the Clean Air Act. Climate policy is complicated by the fact that greenhouse gases are invisible, meaning efforts to reduce them often go undetected by the public. But efforts to reduce traditional — and visible — air pollutants also result in lower greenhouse gases, she said. “Tying climate policy more explicitly to clean air seems like smart politics,” Carlson said. She argued that stimulus investments in EV charging infrastructure and incentives to transition the automobile fleet to cleaner cars could help achieve longer-term improvements in air quality.