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Yet, while California’s aggressive climate change policymaking hasn’t yielded dividends in CO2 emission reduction, it has produced the expected downsides – making energy more expensive. For instance, California’s all sector average electricity price in September 2015 was almost 60% higher than the rest of the nation’s average price and California’s average regular gasoline price was 33% above the national average (without California) as of November 30th. Policy decisions always have trade-offs. Those trade-offs need to be understood and debated because when looking at the facts, it becomes clear that California’s war on climate change is more rhetoric than results.

California gasoline typically costs more than in the rest of the country because of higher taxes and fees as well as a unique state-mandated blend that produces less pollution. But this year the gap has widened into more of a gulf.

It also means that utility ratepayers could end up overpaying for clean electricity to meet the state’s benchmark because lawmakers, by excluding rooftop solar, left out the source of more than a third of the state’s solar power.

Germany’s shift to renewable energy has created a power market so volatile that humans are having trouble keeping up with it.

The giant $2.2 billion Ivanpah solar plant off Interstate 15 just west of the California-Nevada border has apparently won its fight with state regulators and won’t be classified as a heavy polluter that is required to buy carbon-emissions rights in the state air board’s cap-and-trade program.

But on niche websites devoted to energy production and energy markets, the picture of how California is responding to its mandates is more muddled. A recent free report from SNL, the McGraw-Hill financial publication that typically charges for the proprietary information it provides to shareholders and potential investors, puts California’s progress in a different light:

For instance, policy makers could have chipped away at emissions efficiently with modest taxes on carbon, or by switching electrical generation to natural gas. Instead many countries, including the U.S. and those in the EU, have poured money into phenomenally inefficient subsidies for solar and biofuels, which politicians go for like catnip. The EU’s 20/20 climate policy—the goal, embarked upon in 2010, to cut emissions 20% from 1990 levels by 2020—is the clearest example of such gross inefficiency.

The state’s cap-and-trade system requires businesses to purchase allowances for their climate-altering emissions, and it has generated some $2.8 billion for climate related programs to date. The Air Resources Board is selling off potentially more than 75,000 additional permits today, promising even more funding to be directed by elected officials who still haven’t decided how to divvy up the existing pot.

A study from Bloomberg estimates that the loss of the tax credit will cause solar capacity to only quadruple, instead of quintuple, by 2022—still a substantial increase. Our own analysis reinforces this assessment: In 22 states, at least one gigawatt of solar (and often much more) could be installed at a comparable cost to retail electricity prices by 2017, tax credit not included.

Regulating emissions is a job for politicians — and they’re failing. That’s frustrating, and in the absence of effective government action, there’s an added moral obligation on companies to act. Even so, engaging in scientific research and public advocacy shouldn’t be crimes in a free country. Using the criminal law to shame and encumber companies that do so is a dangerous arrogation of power.

The women are just three of the thousands of TXU Energy customers who are at the vanguard of a bold attempt by the utility to change how people consume energy. TXU’s free overnight plan, which is coupled with slightly higher daytime rates, is one of dozens that have been offered by more than 50 retail electricity companies in Texas over the last three years with a simple goal: for customers to turn down the dials when wholesale prices are highest and turn them back up when prices are lowest.

The New York attorney general has begun a sweeping investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how those risks might hurt the oil business.

China, the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases from coal, has been burning up to 17 percent more coal a year than the government previously disclosed, according to newly released data. The finding could complicate the already difficult efforts to limit global warming.

But, what few Californians may know, is what will not count against that requirement: the rooftop solar units they put on their homes, businesses, schools or other public buildings.

California environmental regulators zeroed in on tropical deforestation Wednesday as a top cause of global climate change and looked for ways to halt the destruction of distant forests through the state’s pioneering carbon cap-and-trade program.