With contentious midterm elections fast approaching, volunteers with Citizens’ Climate Lobby went to Capitol Hill this week to urge members of Congress to make climate change a bridge issue rather than a wedge issue. By Citizens Climate Lobby “If there’s one issue that shouldn’t be partisan, it’s climate change,” said CCL Executive Director Mark Reynolds. […]
Scotland’s Climate Change Secretary announced this week that the country met its statutory annual greenhouse gas emissions target for the third year in a row in 2016, which resulted in emissions being down 49% on a 1990 baseline. This puts Scotland well on the way toward an ultimate goal of 100% renewable energy. By Joshua […]
Next week’s UN meeting in Bonn, Germany, which will see the island nation of Fiji preside, will include work on the creation of a so-called rule book for the Paris Climate Accord. In preface to that, Fiji’s chief negotiator, Luke Daunivalu, says that “the current commitments nationally are woefully inadequate.” While that appraisal is itself not very good, […]
In the movie Apollo 13, a group of NASA scientists are in a room discussing how to get a crippled spaceship home without killing the three astronauts inside. The discussion is loud, even rancorous, with several people trying hard to protect their individual interests. The scene could serve as an analogy to the discussions about climate […]
At this week’s COP23 climate conference in Bonn, Germany, the pressure is on many national governments to continue implementing the Paris Agreement despite the United States’ intention to withdraw. But they’ll have help from the world’s cities. By Aniruddha Dasgupta, Wee Kean Fong and Linus Platzer World Resources Institute Bonn is shaping up to be one of the most urban-centered […]
Recently, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication published some new research on Americans’ willingness to pay a carbon tax. In YPCCC’s announcement about this new research, they explained: By Flannery Winchester Citizens Climate Lobby Respondents were asked: “If a tax on fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) to help reduce global warming were to cost […]
A top priority for the Fiji Presidency at COP23 is preparing the implementation guidelines for the Paris Climate Agreement. These guidelines help put the Paris Agreement into practice and establish how each government will implement its requirements. That’s why the implementation guidelines are sometimes referred to as the Paris rulebook. By Yamide Dagnet, Cynthia Elliott and Eliza Northrop World Resources […]
A first-of-its-kind five-year trend analysis of global investments aimed at addressing climate change found that the annual average was $410 billion, and reached a record high of $437 billion in 2015 before falling to $383 billion in 2016. By Joshua S Hill The independent analytical and advisory organization Climate Policy Initiative published this week a first-ever […]
A comprehensive new U.S. government report released Friday confirms the well-established science behind climate change: it is real, it is human-caused, it is happening faster than predicted and it poses a tremendous threat to America and the rest of the world. Titled the Climate Science Special Report, it is the first of two parts of the Congressionally-mandated National […]
The seas are rising; there is no question about that. A new study suggests the increase in sea levels could be as much as 1.3 meters (a little over 4 feet) by the end of this century or it could be half of that. It all depends on what happens to the ice in Antarctica […]
The vast expanse of the Antarctic is a region of the world particularly vulnerable to climate change, where ice loss has the potential to significantly increase sea levels. Now, for possibly the first time in 7,000 years, a phenomenon known as “upwelling” (the upward flow of warmer ocean water to the surface), is thought to […]
There’s a new study out spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy and published in the Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences which presents a series of 20 steps that can be taken to naturally mitigate the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As The Guardian reports, if adopted the effect on carbon levels would be equivalent to stopping […]
While events such as hurricanes and floods are seen by many as the face of climate change, the largest dangers to human health and survival are less flashy. What I’m talking about here is the rapid spread of common disease vectors, such as mosquitos, ticks, fleas, and micro-organisms… like the rapidly-spreading “Super Malaria” that’s rampaging through […]
Residents of Portland, Oregon, knew they were in trouble when the sky got so hazy from smoke that the sun turned red. For weeks, people like Michelle Nicola, a Portland middle school teacher, lived enshrouded in smoke from a nearby wildfire. “It’s like living in the middle of a bonfire,” Nicola said. “You can’t escape it. […]
The UK Government has announced an ambitious new Clean Growth Strategy to drastically cut carbon emissions and combat climate change, including £557 million for the country’s third renewable energy Contracts for Difference auction set for spring of 2019. By Joshua S Hill The Clean Growth Strategy is designed to grow the national economy while simultaneously cutting greenhouse […]