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After spending a week in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, I’m now gearing up to attend the 29 th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the Framework Convention on ClimateChange in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11-22.
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 climatechange and the terrifying effects of it that we see happening across the world.
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 climatechange. Important questions are still being sorted out Climate scientists are still trying to figure out what exactly made 2023 and 2024 so warm.
Understanding sea level rise as a long-term, multi-generational problem is essential to comprehending the scale of climatechange and the need for bold action now. While this knowledge may be sobering, it underscores the importance of reducing emissions, holding major polluters accountable, and adapting to a changing world.
Last week, I joined my colleagues at COP28 in Dubai , as negotiators and civil society push for a fossilfuel phaseout to meet climate goals. This year there has been a lot of attention on the more than 2,400 oil and gas lobbyists at the climate meetings. Global net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions 1990–2019.
This year has brought new evidence of what major fossilfuel companies knew and when about the role their products play in climatechange, as well as what they did in spite of what they knew.
Carbondioxide and methane (a short-lived but extremely powerful global warming gas) are emitted during the extraction, processing, storage, transportation and combustion of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum fuels used by our vehicles. We have over 284 million gasoline- and diesel-burning cars, trucks and buses on our roads.
While there are thousands of people here in Dubai at COP28 fighting for genuine change, the climate summit is facing a barrage of disinformation. Combatting climatechange has never been more urgent, and COP28 is poised to advance critical global action. According to The Global Carbon Project , approximately 36.6
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.
The decision at the Glasgow climate conference to phase down fossilfuels is an important step forward — and not just because of climatechange. We think of fossilfuels as a source of climatechange, but that’s only a one part of the problem. Consider coal. Download as PDF.
My colleague Dr. Kristy Dahl and I arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria, last week for the 61st session of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC). These documents offer an internationally accepted summary of the state of climate science, and form the backbone of many legal briefs I prepare.
And just like summertime in the US, this period (December, January, and February) has transformed into a “ danger season ” as a result of climatechange, replete with deadly heatwaves, drought, and wildfires. Sixty times more likely is a remarkable figure to me. And there would be some justice.
Production and combustion of fossilfuels imposes enormous costs on society, which the industry doesn’t pay for. I want to talk about some options for using the tax system to change that. One option, a tax on carbondioxide emissions, gets the most attention but seems politically impossible. Download as PDF.
Fossilfuel power plant owners are facing increased accountability for their air and water pollution, including from a new round of environmental and public health protections that are being rolled out by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We’ve heard these lazily disingenuous narratives before.
This June, I had the opportunity to testify at the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee’s hearing on “Hydrogen Hubs and ClimateChange.” My name is Julie McNamara, and I am a senior analyst and deputy policy director for climate and energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Climatechange is propelling these weather events to grow faster and stronger than ever before. Other climatechange impacts are accelerating as well. Many scientists thought these high ocean temperatures would be years away, but the realities of climatechange are not a distant threat.
This past week, I attended the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) meeting in Hangzhou, China. In previous posts, Ive explained what the IPCC is, why this assessment cycle is crucial , and highlighted its role in climate action. Approving expert meetings and passing the budget. Whats Next for the IPCC?
One scope is the narrow carbon picture , the one that you’ll hear about most readily: what these approaches mean in terms of how much carbondioxide (CO 2 ) comes out of a gas plant’s smokestack, or how much less a plant can be said to be emitting. And we don’t need to have all the answers to make a difference.
And fossilfuel power plants may not stick to their retirement schedules for a variety of reasons. In 2021 alone, the plants slated for retirement emitted more than 28,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxides (NO x ), 32,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), and 51 million tonnes of carbondioxide (CO 2 ), according to EIA data.
The summary for policymakers of the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) sixth synthesis report was released on March 20th (available online as a PDF ). There is a recording of the IPCC Press Conference – ClimateChange 2023: Synthesis Report for those who are interested in watching an awkward release of the report.
Candidate at UCLA Law (2L) Last week, Assemblymember Dr. Joaquin Arambula introduced AB 2623 , a bill designed to guard California communities against the dangers of transporting carbondioxide in pipelines. You might be familiar with carbondioxide as a greenhouse gas that contributes to climatechange.
This past week, I attended the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) meeting in Hangzhou, China. In previous posts, Ive explained what the IPCC is, why this assessment cycle is crucial , and highlighted its role in climate action. Approving expert meetings and passing the budget. Whats Next for the IPCC?
Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) research shows that top fossilfuel producers’ emissions are responsible for as much as half of global surface temperature increase. Updated analysis from 2020 shows that emissions traced to the 88 largest carbon producers contributed approximately 60 percent?of
Attribution science , which is about understanding the role of climatechange versus natural weather patterns and climate variability, can help us better understand the connections between extreme weather and climatechange, provide new insight into what specific emissions are driving the worst impacts, and help shape climate solutions.
Methane gas has devastating effects on the climate system and its extraction and combustion generate numerous harms to human health. Compared to carbondioxide (CO2), methane doesn’t linger for long in the atmosphere after being emitted. But during the decade it does linger, its heat-trapping potential is 80x stronger than CO2.
Earlier this year, ExxonMobil released its annual Advancing Climate Solutions report detailing the company’s current and planned contributions to a net-zero future. These kinds of curves are fairly standard when comparing strategies to address climatechange as you can see in the comparable figure below. Who needs units anyway?
Indeed, the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) has just warned us of the decisive fate that this decade represents to act on climate for us and all the species that we depend on. Just as important, cleaning up the power grid can also decrease carbondioxide (CO 2 ) emissions.
To help avoid the worst possible consequences of climatechange, however, the alliance states need to reach that 100-percent objective much more quickly. Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants in alliance states drop 88 percent and 77 percent respectively by 2040.
It is 80 times stronger than carbondioxide (CO2) at trapping heat on short timescales. Of course, we also will have to make sharp cuts in CO2 emissions, the main driver of climatechange. Methane emissions come from two main sources : fossilfuels and agriculture—primarily animal-based agriculture.
Fossilfuels are the root cause of climatechange, of long-standing environmental injustices, and are also frequently connected to geopolitical strife and violent conflicts. Other countries are dependent upon these fossilfuels, they don’t make themselves free of them. This is a fossilfuel war.
But with estimates suggesting that sea level rise will affect more than one billion people around the world in the next 25 years, this is one member of the dysfunctional climatechange family that shouldn’t be ignored. Why is this? Read on for the science you need to know about sea level rise, in seven parts.
Drawing on research by the Union of Concerned Scientists and others, the commission report found that fossilfuel companies fully understood their products’ impact on climate as early as 1965, when their own scientists discovered them. N ovel Approaches to Climate Litigation. The Importance of Climate Litigation.
We are at the height of Danger Season , the time of year when extreme weather events driven by climatechange are most prevalent across North America. The power sector is the second highest source of climate pollution in the U.S. thus, it is crucial that we address carbon emissions from power plants.
Switching from fossilfuels like gasoline to increasingly clean electricity sources is vital for hitting climate and air pollution goals. To meet emissions goals and avoid the worst impacts of climatechange, this trend will need to accelerate over the coming decades. pounds of carbondioxide emissions per gallon.
In recent years, The Netherlands has become the leading site of climatechange litigation. Now the same district court has gone further, again in favor of environmental groups but now against Royal Dutch Shell (“Shell”) , the world’s largest non-state-owned fossilfuel company. These lawsuits face three key barriers.
With the United Nations ClimateChange Conference (COP26) coming up next month, it is strange to think that less than 100 years ago global warming was not widely accepted, even among experts. Then in 1896, preliminary calculations by Arrhenius hinted that humanity’s burning of fossilfuels could raise CO 2 levels and warm our planet.
Plastics are made from fossilfuels and over 16,000 different chemicals. Because plastics are produced from fossilfuels the lifecycle of plastics has a huge carbondioxide footprint and is a driver of climatechange.
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.
Japan ) and a second in Yokosuka in 2019 ( Yokosuka Climate Case ). In the 2019 case, the judgments focused on the procedural aspect of the replacement of the coal-fired power plant and discussion of the climate issues was limited. Background Japan has heavily relied on the use of fossilfuels for its power generation.
by Kevin Trenberth, University of Auckland When politicians talk about reaching “net zero” emissions, they’re often counting on trees or technology that can pull carbondioxide out of the air. What they don’t mention is just how much these proposals or geoengineering would cost to allow the world to continue burning fossilfuels.
At the evening seafood reception that year, in a corner near the fresh oysters, a board member of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association remarked to me, “Everyone blames everything on climatechange, but they blame the Right Whale on lobstering.” His remark has remained with me ever since.
Our national overreliance on gas is evidently undermining energy access, not strengthening it, as some fossilfuel industry players would want you to believe. These claims just add to the deluge of greenwashing and disinformation from the fossilfuel industry. Don’t believe the industry spin. There’s a better way forward.
This includes loopholes related to biomethane, whereby heavily polluting fossilfuel-fired hydrogen production facilities—the very facilities the tax credit is trying to incentivize a shift away from—can cloak themselves as “clean” and reap full tax credit rewards, without having done anything but pushed around paper.
cranks its air conditioners to get through historic high temperatures , the need for energy that slows, not hastens, climatechange is more apparent than ever. Yet, in 2022, almost 40% of electricity in the US was generated by power plants fueled by natural gas. And now, as the U.S.
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