This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Scientists are sounding the alarm because this warming is shockingly bigbigger than what we would have expected given the long-term warming trend from fossilfuel-caused climate change. According to recent data from NOAAs National Center for Environmental Information, 2024 is likely to be even warmer than 2023.
After the hottest summer on record, the world continues to witness extreme weather fueled by the burning of fossilfuels. We need to stop burning fossilfuels immediately. Thankfully, we are in the midst of a much-needed transition away from fossilfuels and towards a future powered by more renewables.
In an important win for climate accountability in the United States, the US Supreme Court decided that lawsuits filed in Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawai’i, and Rhode Island against fossilfuel companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, Suncor, and others will remain in state courts.
By Bob Berwyn The latest anomaly in the climate system that cant be fully explained by researchers is a record annual jump in the global mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured in 2024.
This could be met from a variety of sources—including pollution fees on fossilfuel companies, the elimination of fossilfuel subsidies, and wealth taxes on the richest people. Despite important gains in renewable energy, there is still more progress needed and fossilfuels continue to expand at odds with this agreement.
Swain and the other authors note that previous research has focused solely on the precipitation side of the equation rather than the full bloom-and-burn cycle driven not just by lack of rain but by an increasingly thirsty atmosphere evaporating moisture out of plants and soil. But e xtreme weather is already the context.
In a new study released today, UCS attributes substantial temperature and sea level rise to emissions traced to the largest fossilfuel producers and cement manufacturers. Every delay in phasing out fossilfuels will burden future generations who need to adapt to rising seas and recover from loss and damage due to sea level impacts.
A new dataset released by InfluenceMap provides information on heat-trapping emissions traced to the 122 largest investor and state-owned fossilfuel companies in the world. Fossilfuels are the main driver of climate change and the terrifying effects of it that we see happening across the world.
The future trajectories are based on different scenarios, such as versions of the future where the world comes together to take action and phase out fossilfuels, or versions where fossilfuel production continues throughout this century.
But this new study from my colleagues working on climate change and fossilfuel accountability couldn’t be ignored. In short, the study concludes that fossilfuel companies are in part to blame for the extraordinary damages resulting from western wildfires (including those sparked by utilities). That equates to 19.8
Climate models are the main tool climate scientists use to predict how Earth will respond to more heat-trapping pollutants in the atmosphere. Just by looking at the name, you can see that a GCM is a model that simulates the circulation of Earths different physical systems like the atmosphere and ocean. What causes a circulation?
The second perspective we offer in our new analysis comes from pulling back the lens to take into account not just carbon at the smokestack, but also the carbon from other steps in the process, as well as other gases that also trap heat when thrown up into the atmosphere. And we don’t need to have all the answers to make a difference.
Climate models are the main tool scientists use to assess how much the Earths temperature will change given an increase in fossilfuel pollutants in the atmosphere. The atmosphere around us is an invisible fluid (at least to the human eye): we can apply math to that fluid to predict how it will look in the future.
Wildfires and fossilfuel burning in 2024 contributed to the biggest annual rise in atmospheric CO2 levels ever recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii
Four RCP scenarios describe different levels of radiative forcing in the atmosphere by 2100. Radiative forcing is the change in energy balance in the Earths atmosphere due to heat trapping emissions. SSP5: Taking the highway A scenario driven by economic growth and high fossilfuel use, leading to rapid warming.
Compared to carbon dioxide (CO2), methane doesn’t linger for long in the atmosphere after being emitted. New science has shown that the largest fossilfuel, dairy, and waste methane super-emitters contribute a sizeable fraction of the total methane emissions in the regions the study authors monitored.
Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) research shows that top fossilfuel producers’ emissions are responsible for as much as half of global surface temperature increase. of the observed rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and 52 percent of the rise in global average temperatures between 1880 and 2015.
This trend will continue as glacial melting, decreased rainfall, and a “thirstier” atmosphere jeopardize sources of freshwater in some parts of the globe. It finds more evidence that severe weather events are linked to carbon in the atmosphere and are becoming more extreme. Heavy rainfall will also become more common and more powerful.
Although methane doesn’t linger very long in the atmosphere, increasing methane levels are particularly bad news because it packs a big punch. But its short lifetime in the atmosphere is also a reason for hope. Methane emissions come from two main sources : fossilfuels and agriculture—primarily animal-based agriculture.
This research determines the relative contributions of different emission sources, including the oil and gas, agricultural, industrial, and transportation sectors, to the overall increase in heat-trapping gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Climate source attribution studies can inform strategies to reduce carbon emissions.
He recently published a children’s book titled Goodnight FossilFuels! that’s specifically about climate change and fossilfuel accountability. It stars a penguin who teams up with scientists to help solve the problem of how fossilfuels are harming the climate system and features colorful watercolor artwork.
3) ExxonMobil predicted the possibility of linking rising temperatures to fossilfuels ExxonMobil researchers accurately predicted when it would become possible to attribute changes in climate to human activity. Such a constraint would clearly place a limit on the amount of fossilfuels ExxonMobil could extract, produce and market.
The term “fossilfuels”, however, is mentioned 16 times. It’s indeed true that emissions must go down, but we also must explicitly acknowledge that we need to reduce our dependence on coal, oil and gas (“fossilfuels”). Humans work hard to add greenhouse gases such as CO 2 into the atmosphere.
In fact, studies show that clean energy is a more affordable option than continuing to rely on fossilfuels. The Atmospheric Fund has released analysis which indicates that Ontario is capable of ramping up renewable energy sources fast enough to meet its rising electricity demand and phase out gas-powered electricity by 2035.
Levels of helium-4 in the Earth’s atmosphere have been increasing since at least 1974, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, US that resolves a longstanding anomaly in atmospheric science. When the gas is extracted and burned, the helium is released into the atmosphere.
The IPCC enables decision-makers to move beyond fossilfuel industry-generated deception and disinformation about climate change, providing them with the science needed to make informed decisions. It’s crucial that our leaders have access to comprehensive and accurate science to guide their choices.
By Georgina Gustin The world’s oceans are massive and critical carbon sinks that absorb roughly one-third of the greenhouse gas emissions humans generate by burning fossilfuels and reshaping Earth’s landscape. Critics question whether “trawl disturbance” is different from the carbon flux that naturally occurs in oceans.
But methane’s role in atmospheric chemistry and as a source of stratospheric water vapour means that it has a bigger effect on climate than just the direct effect of its concentration. There is also a very small impact of the CH 4 oxidation to CO 2 itself for any fossil-fuel derived methane. (a) W/m 2 for CH 4.
The primary cause of accelerating sea level rise is human activity As people burn fossilfuels and emit heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, our atmosphere and our oceans warm up. As the ocean warms, it expands. Historically, this was the dominant cause of sea level rise. Source: IPCC AR6, WGI, Chapter 9, Cross-Chapter 9.1,
It finds more evidence that severe weather events are linked to carbon in the atmosphere and that those weather events are becoming more extreme. The report stated unequivocally, for the first time, that climate change is occurring due to “human influence,” namely the burning of fossilfuels and deforestation.
GOM communities, not fossilfuel interests, should determine policies that affect GOM people. ExxonMobil internal science, spanning from 1977 to 2003, featured graphs showing how temperatures would rise as a result of the heat-trapping emissions produced from burning the fossilfuels the company extracted, refined, marketed, and sold.
The fact that there is a natural greenhouse effect (that the atmosphere restricts the passage of infra-red (IR) radiation from the Earth’s surface to space) is easily deducible from; i) the mean temperature of the surface (around 15ºC) and, ii) knowing that the planet is normally close to radiative equilibrium. in IPCC TAR).
With fossil-fuel pollution trapping heat and driving up global average temperatures, those warmer months are warmer than ever. We’ll be flagging fossilfuel accountability for climate harm. What happened to summer? Danger Season” follows that more direct gaze of the sun. And, in human history, I do mean ever.
Heightened flood risk The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a recent outlook that about 44 percent of the United States is at risk of floods this spring, equating to about 146 million people. Fuel transport – Spring floods can hinder the transportation of fuels like coal.
In addition, environmental justice advocates and frontline communities routinely point to the danger of concentrated carbon dioxide , embedded siting inequities , and the use of CCS to distract from the real work of phasing out fossilfuels.) Who needs units anyway?
Without the considerable carbon absorption capacity of our lands (and oceans), we’d currently have much more CO 2 in the atmosphere and an accelerated timeline of warming. In North America, the land carbon sink between 2004 and 2013 offset roughly 39% of fossilfuel emissions , but varied substantially year to year.
Under the LCFS each fuel pathway gets a unique carbon intensity (CI) based on a lifecycle analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and use of the fuel. This approach holds fuel producers accountable for reducing fossilfuel use and other global warming pollution in their supply chains.
The majority 6–3 decision sharply curtails the EPA’s authority to set standards based on a broad range of flexible options to cut carbon emissions from the power sector—options such as replacing polluting fossilfuels with cheap and widely available wind and solar power coupled with battery storage. There is no time to waste.
Management approved her shift in emphasis, hoping that she would prove that aerosols in the atmosphere (including those from auto exhaust) would completely offset the greenhouse gas effect. In the early 1960s, he wrote again about fossilfuels as causes of global warming. He talked her into studying climate change.
Dr. Susan Avery, a physicist and atmospheric scientist, is the former director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. The fossilfuel giant now claims to be “aligned” with the Paris climate agreement, all while it continues to massively expand oil and gas exploration and production and lobby against climate action.
While there is enormous potential for UN climate negotiations to transform climate action, meaningful progress has been delayed in part by the fossilfuel industry’s deceptive tactics. Last year’s COP was notable as the first to explicitly mention “fossilfuels” in the final decision document.
Scientists have unequivocally confirmed that human activities, primarily the burning of fossilfuels, are driving unprecedented changes to the Earth’s climate, raising fundamental questions about our responsibility to safeguard the environment for future generations.
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 12,000+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content