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Category: Climate Change

Germany’s new government had big plans on climate, then Russia invaded Ukraine. What happens now?

Germany’s new government had big plans on climate, then Russia invaded Ukraine. What happens now?

Inside Climate News reports: Vladmir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made Germany’s reliance on Russian oil and gas untenable, and led the center-left government of Chancellor Olav Scholz to accelerate the transition to clean energy. This is more than just talk. German leaders are in the early stages of showing the world what an aggressive climate policy looks like in a crisis. Scholz and his cabinet will introduce legislation to require nearly 100 percent renewable electricity by 2035, which would…

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Ice shelf collapses in East Antarctica, an area previously viewed as stable

Ice shelf collapses in East Antarctica, an area previously viewed as stable

The Associated Press reports: An ice shelf the size of New York City has collapsed in East Antarctica, an area long thought to be stable and not hit much by climate change, concerned scientists said Friday. The collapse, captured by satellite images, marked the first time in human history that the frigid region had an ice shelf collapse. It happened at the beginning of a freakish warm spell last week when temperatures soared more than 70 degrees (40 Celsius) warmer…

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How Putin’s war is sinking climate science

How Putin’s war is sinking climate science

Andrea Pitzer writes: In the end, the war came three days early. It found me in Moscow, where I watched a Russian news anchor on state television call tanks crossing into Ukraine a “special operation.” A Russian friend watched with me. We sat without speaking, dull and blank as the snow outside. Soon after, another Russian friend came over, and we discussed whether the ticket I’d bought for the next day would get me out of the country soon enough,…

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Shifts in El Niño may be driving climates extremes in both hemispheres

Shifts in El Niño may be driving climates extremes in both hemispheres

Inside Climate News reports: The record-breaking heat wave last week in East Antarctica, the coldest region on Earth, saw temperatures surge as much as 85 degrees Fahrenheit above average, bringing readings near freezing and unexpected surface melting instead of the usual sub-zero conditions. The heat wave adds to a quickly growing list of previously “unthinkable” climate events, and puts an exclamation point on an Austral summer that included brutal heat waves and record-high intensity wildfires in Argentina and Chile and…

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SEC proposes landmark rule requiring companies to tell investors of risks posed by climate change

SEC proposes landmark rule requiring companies to tell investors of risks posed by climate change

Inside Climate News reports: Public companies will have to report their greenhouse gas emissions and inform investors about the dangers that climate change poses to their businesses under a highly anticipated proposal unveiled Monday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. “This is a watershed moment for investors and capital markets,” said Commissioner Allison Herren Lee, one of three Democrats on the four-member commission who voted to support the draft rule. “The science is clear and alarming and the links to…

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UN secretary general says global climate target ‘is on life support’

UN secretary general says global climate target ‘is on life support’

The Washington Post reports: The head of the United Nations on Monday warned that the world is “sleepwalking to climate catastrophe,” as the ongoing pandemic, the war in Ukraine and a lack of political willpower undermine humanity’s efforts to slow the warming of the planet. “There is no kind way to put it,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told attendees of the Economist Sustainability Summit, saying in prepared remarks that the most ambitious goal of the 2015 Paris accord —…

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Antarctica, Arctic simultaneously 70 and 50 degrees above normal

Antarctica, Arctic simultaneously 70 and 50 degrees above normal

The Associated Press reports: Earth’s poles are undergoing simultaneous freakish extreme heat with parts of Antarctica more than 70 degrees (40 degrees Celsius) warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 50 degrees (30 degrees Celsius) warmer than average. Weather stations in Antarctica shattered records Friday as the region neared autumn. The two-mile high (3,234 meters) Concordia station was at 10 degrees (-12.2 degrees Celsius),which is about 70 degrees warmer than average, while the even higher Vostok station…

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Recent megafire smoke columns have reached the stratosphere, threatening Earth’s ozone shield

Recent megafire smoke columns have reached the stratosphere, threatening Earth’s ozone shield

Inside Climate News reports: Scientists researching how the recent spike in extreme wildfires affects the climate say that just a few weeks of smoke surging high into the stratosphere from one intense fire can wipe out years of progress restoring Earth’s life-protecting ozone layer. Close study of Australia’s intense Black Summer fires in late 2019 and early 2020 suggests the smoke they emitted was a “tremendous kick” to the atmosphere, depleting the ozone layer by 1 percent, said MIT scientist…

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The man who could help big oil derail America’s climate fight

The man who could help big oil derail America’s climate fight

Chris McGreal reports: In the spring of 2019, Phil Goldberg, a lawyer and hired gun for a front organisation serving some of America’s most powerful oil firms, spotted an opportunity to serve his masters. The University of Hawaii was holding a conference about a wave of lawsuits against the oil industry, and Goldberg was alarmed the event failed to include representatives from the energy business. So the day before the symposium, he fired off an email to the university demanding…

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Investors push 10,000 companies to disclose environmental data to CDP

Investors push 10,000 companies to disclose environmental data to CDP

Reuters reports: Investors managing over $130 trillion in assets have written to more than 10,000 companies calling on them to supply environmental data to non-profit disclosure platform CDP. The call comes as money managers demand better information on climate change, biodiversity and water security to help them analyse the performance of company boards as the world looks to come good on a plan to limit human-driven global warming. While more companies are committing to net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century and…

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Will Russia’s war against Ukraine spur Europe to move on green energy?

Will Russia’s war against Ukraine spur Europe to move on green energy?

Paul Hockenos writes: Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is sparking a wide-ranging revamping of energy policy in Europe with a bold new objective: to wean the continent off Russian gas — as rapidly and comprehensively as possible — and accelerate Europe’s green energy transition. In late-night sessions, Europe’s leaders have been drafting a spectrum of crisis strategies not only to pivot to other natural gas suppliers — as the United States, which imports much less gas and oil…

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Joe Manchin, the oil industry’s representative in the U.S. Senate, sank Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination

Joe Manchin, the oil industry’s representative in the U.S. Senate, sank Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination

Kate Aronoff writes: On Friday, an energetic Joe Manchin spoke to a room full of oil and gas executives in Houston. The following Monday, after long declining to state his position publicly, he came out against Biden’s nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to become the top banking cop at the Federal Reserve, as vice chair of supervision. Like his Republican colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee—who boycotted a vote on all pending Fed nominations over Raskin’s professed willingness to incorporate…

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How oil companies rebranded deceptive climate ads as ‘free speech’

How oil companies rebranded deceptive climate ads as ‘free speech’

The Guardian reports: On 24 October 2019, Maura Healey, the attorney general of Massachusetts, sued ExxonMobil for “deceptive advertising” and for “misleading Massachusetts investors about the risks to Exxon’s business posed by fossil fuel-driven climate change”. It was the culmination of an investigation Healey had launched in 2016 looking into how Exxon allegedly misled the public about climate, decades after its own scientists had briefed the company on the realities of the issue. This week, the Massachusetts supreme court is…

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What’s better than a ban on Russian oil imports? Ending our dependence on fossil fuels

What’s better than a ban on Russian oil imports? Ending our dependence on fossil fuels

In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times says: Biden needs to think bigger and pursue more ambitious measures to deploy clean energy in the United States and Europe within months to a year. That means quickly ramping up programs that make it easy and attractive for people to switch from gas-fueled cars to electric vehicles and replace natural-gas-fueled water heaters and furnaces with energy-efficient electric heat pump models. These actions will fight climate change, save American families money and insulate…

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Is the Amazon approaching a tipping point? A new study shows the rainforest growing less resilient

Is the Amazon approaching a tipping point? A new study shows the rainforest growing less resilient

Georgina Gustin writes: The world’s largest rainforest is losing its ability to bounce back from droughts and fires, pushing it farther toward a threshold where it could transform into arid savannah, releasing dangerous amounts of greenhouse gases in the process. A study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change found that the Amazon has become less resilient as deforestation has continued and rising temperatures have worsened drought. The authors said the rainforest’s ability to recover from such events has…

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Climate change is intensifying Earth’s water cycle at twice the predicted rate, research shows

Climate change is intensifying Earth’s water cycle at twice the predicted rate, research shows

The Guardian reports: Rising global temperatures have shifted at least twice the amount of freshwater from warm regions towards the Earth’s poles than previously thought as the water cycle intensifies, according to new analysis. Climate change has intensified the global water cycle by up to 7.4% – compared with previous modelling estimates of 2% to 4%, research published in the journal Nature suggests. The water cycle describes the movement of water on Earth – it evaporates, rises into the atmosphere,…

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