Browsed by
Category: Climate Change

The Supreme Court just okayed Biden’s ‘social cost of carbon’ — but it’s still way too low

The Supreme Court just okayed Biden’s ‘social cost of carbon’ — but it’s still way too low

Vox reports: The Supreme Court decided on May 26 to allow President Joe Biden’s administration to continue using a key metric in the fight against climate change. The court’s order, in refusing to put back an order from a federal judge in Louisiana that had blocked the administration, is just one line long. But it represents a big setback for the Republican-led states that have been suing the president over the metric, known as the social cost of carbon: a…

Read More Read More

Department of Commerce decision puts fate of U.S. solar industry in jeopardy

Department of Commerce decision puts fate of U.S. solar industry in jeopardy

George Strobel writes: On March 28, in a decision that would put the U.S. solar industry on hold, the U.S. Department of Commerce initiated an anti-dumping investigation into imports of solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam in response to a petition from a small California solar panel manufacturer, Auxin Solar. The investigation could result in tariffs of up to 250% on imports from these four countries, which account for more than 80% of all U.S. solar…

Read More Read More

How an organized Republican effort punishes companies for climate action

How an organized Republican effort punishes companies for climate action

The New York Times reports: In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk. In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation. And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major…

Read More Read More

Will Australia become a renewable energy superpower?

Will Australia become a renewable energy superpower?

Al Jazeera reports: Australia’s election has brought in a wave of Greens and independents pushing for aggressive targets to cut carbon emissions. The election result, with the pivotal role climate change played, represents a remarkable shift for Australia, one of the world’s biggest per-capita carbon emitters and top coal and gas exporters. It was shunned at last year’s Glasgow climate summit for failing to match other rich nations’ ambitious targets. “Together we can end the climate wars,” incoming Prime Minister…

Read More Read More

Australian voters deliver strong message by placing climate crisis first

Australian voters deliver strong message by placing climate crisis first

CNN reports: Australian voters have delivered a sharp rebuke to the center-right government, ending nine years of conservative rule, in favor of the center-left opposition that promised stronger action on climate change. Australian Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese claimed victory Saturday, though it was unclear as counting continued if his party would have the 76 seats required to form a majority. Early counting showed a strong swing towards Greens candidates and Independents who demanded emissions cuts far above the commitments…

Read More Read More

Could Google’s carbon emissions have effectively doubled overnight?

Could Google’s carbon emissions have effectively doubled overnight?

Bill McKibben writes: The temperature in parts of the Antarctic was seventy degrees Fahrenheit above normal in mid-March. Pakistan and India saw their hottest March and April in more than half a century, and the temperature in areas of the subcontinent is above a hundred and twenty degrees this week. Temperatures in Chicago last week topped those in Death Valley. But, on Tuesday, three nonprofit environmental groups jointly released a report containing a different set of numbers that appear to…

Read More Read More

Most conflict-affected countries are also highly vulnerable to climate change

Most conflict-affected countries are also highly vulnerable to climate change

Catherine Wong writes: The Paris Agreement was nothing less than a landmark agreement. Legally binding, adopted by 196 parties to the convention, it has inspired hope and ambition to get to net-zero emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The Paris Agreement does not, however, mention conflict or fragility, neither peace nor security, even once – neither did the Kyoto Protocol before it, nor does the Sendai Framework directly address any of these issues either. What is…

Read More Read More

EU plans ‘massive’ increase in green energy to help end reliance on Russia

EU plans ‘massive’ increase in green energy to help end reliance on Russia

The Guardian reports: The EU plans a “massive” increase in solar and wind power, and a short-term boost for coal, to end its reliance on Russian oil and gas as fast as possible. In a plan outlined on Wednesday, the European Commission said the EU needed to find an extra €210bn (£178bn) over the next five years to pay for phasing out Russian fossil fuels and speeding up the switch to green energy. Senior officials conceded that in the short…

Read More Read More

Climate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief

Climate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief

The Guardian reports: The world’s leading energy economist has warned against investing in large new oil and gas developments, which would have little impact on the current energy crisis and soaring fuel prices but spell devastation to the planet. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), was responding to an investigation in the Guardian that revealed fossil fuel companies were planning huge “carbon bomb” projects that would drive climate catastrophe. He said countries must seek to…

Read More Read More

The race against radon

The race against radon

Chris Baraniuk writes: Deep in the frozen ground of the north, a radioactive hazard has lain trapped for millennia. But UK scientist Paul Glover realized some years back that it wouldn’t always be that way: One day it might get out. Glover had attended a conference where a speaker described the low permeability of permafrost — ground that remains frozen for at least two years or, in some cases, thousands. It is an icy shield, a thick blanket that locks…

Read More Read More

The ‘carbon bombs’ set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown

The ‘carbon bombs’ set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown

The Guardian reports: The world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are quietly planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts, a Guardian investigation shows. The exclusive data shows these firms are in effect placing multibillion-dollar bets against humanity halting global heating. Their huge investments in new fossil fuel production could pay off only if countries fail to rapidly slash carbon emissions, which scientists say is vital….

Read More Read More

The race to produce green steel

The race to produce green steel

May 11, 2022 by Marcello Rossi In the city of Woburn, Massachusetts, a suburb just north of Boston, a cadre of engineers and scientists in white coats inspected an orderly stack of brick-sized, gunmetal-gray steel ingots on a desk inside a neon-illuminated lab space. What they were looking at was a batch of steel created using an innovative manufacturing method, one that Boston Metal, a company that spun out a decade ago from MIT, hopes will dramatically reshape the way…

Read More Read More

Climate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

Climate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

The Guardian reports: The year the world breaches for the first time the 1.5C global heating limit set by international governments is fast approaching, a new forecast shows. The probability of one of the next five years surpassing the limit is now 50%, scientists led by the UK Met Office found. As recently as 2015, there was zero chance of this happening in the following five years. But this surged to 20% in 2020 and 40% in 2021. The global…

Read More Read More

How much does eating meat affect nations’ greenhouse gas emissions?

How much does eating meat affect nations’ greenhouse gas emissions?

Science News reports: The food we eat is responsible for an astounding one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities, according to two comprehensive studies published in 2021. “When people talk about food systems, they always think about the cow in the field,” says statistician Francesco Tubiello, lead author of one of the reports, appearing in last June’s Environmental Research Letters. True, cows are a major source of methane, which, like other greenhouse gases, traps heat in the…

Read More Read More

An attack on Ukraine and climate change cooperation

An attack on Ukraine and climate change cooperation

Genevieve Kotarska and Lauren Young write: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, energy security has been a central feature of public discourse. As Russia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of oil and gas, the energy market has become a crucial factor as the humanitarian and environmental crisis unfolds. With many countries dependent on Russia for energy supplies, the international community is now in a position where its ability to respond forcefully to the invasion is…

Read More Read More

The climate movement in its own way

The climate movement in its own way

Charles Komanoff writes: After decades of critically documenting nuclear power’s outsize costs, I finally admitted to myself that the carbon-reduction benefits from continuing to run US nuclear plants are substantial, and in some respects irreplaceable. I made the case for keeping them open in an April article on TheNation.com. Closing New York’s Indian Point reactors last year was a climate blunder, I wrote. Not just because fracked gas is now filling the breach, but because the need to replace the…

Read More Read More