Union of Concerned Scientists

DECEMBER 8, 2023

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 climate change has never been more urgent, and COP28 is poised to advance critical global action. According to The Global Carbon Project , approximately 36.6

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Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 24, 2023

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 fossil fuel companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, Suncor, and others will remain in state courts.

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Legal Planet

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

The decision at the Glasgow climate conference to phase down fossil fuels is an important step forward — and not just because of climate change. We think of fossil fuels as a source of climate change, but that’s only a one part of the problem. Consider coal. Download as PDF.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 29, 2024

My colleague Dr. Kristy Dahl and I arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria, last week for the 61st session of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These documents offer an internationally accepted summary of the state of climate science, and form the backbone of many legal briefs I prepare.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

And just like summertime in the US, this period (December, January, and February) has transformed into a “ danger season ” as a result of climate change, replete with deadly heatwaves, drought, and wildfires. Sixty times more likely is a remarkable figure to me. And there would be some justice.

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Legal Planet

AUGUST 18, 2022

Production and combustion of fossil fuels 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 carbon dioxide emissions, gets the most attention but seems politically impossible. Download as PDF.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 27, 2023

Fossil fuel 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.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JUNE 26, 2024

This June, I had the opportunity to testify at the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee’s hearing on “Hydrogen Hubs and Climate Change.” 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.

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Ocean Conservancy

NOVEMBER 15, 2024

Climate change is propelling these weather events to grow faster and stronger than ever before. Other climate change impacts are accelerating as well. Many scientists thought these high ocean temperatures would be years away, but the realities of climate change are not a distant threat.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 6, 2025

This past week, I attended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (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?

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Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 15, 2024

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 carbon dioxide (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.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 23, 2023

And fossil fuel 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 carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), according to EIA data.

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Real Climate

APRIL 6, 2023

The summary for policymakers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sixth synthesis report was released on March 20th (available online as a PDF ). There is a recording of the IPCC Press Conference – Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report for those who are interested in watching an awkward release of the report.

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Legal Planet

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

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 carbon dioxide in pipelines. You might be familiar with carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 6, 2025

This past week, I attended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (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?

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Union of Concerned Scientists

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) research shows that top fossil fuel 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

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 7, 2023

Attribution science , which is about understanding the role of climate change versus natural weather patterns and climate variability, can help us better understand the connections between extreme weather and climate change, provide new insight into what specific emissions are driving the worst impacts, and help shape climate solutions.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

NOVEMBER 20, 2023

Methane gas has devastating effects on the climate system and its extraction and combustion generate numerous harms to human health. Compared to carbon dioxide (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.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 9, 2024

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 climate change as you can see in the comparable figure below. Who needs units anyway?

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Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 19, 2022

Indeed, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (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 carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MAY 12, 2022

To help avoid the worst possible consequences of climate change, 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.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

It is 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide (CO2) at trapping heat on short timescales. Of course, we also will have to make sharp cuts in CO2 emissions, the main driver of climate change. Methane emissions come from two main sources : fossil fuels and agriculture—primarily animal-based agriculture.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 30, 2022

Fossil fuels are the root cause of climate change, of long-standing environmental injustices, and are also frequently connected to geopolitical strife and violent conflicts. Other countries are dependent upon these fossil fuels, they don’t make themselves free of them. This is a fossil fuel war.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JUNE 20, 2024

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 climate change 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.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MAY 26, 2022

Drawing on research by the Union of Concerned Scientists and others, the commission report found that fossil fuel 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.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 10, 2023

We are at the height of Danger Season , the time of year when extreme weather events driven by climate change 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.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

Switching from fossil fuels 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 climate change, this trend will need to accelerate over the coming decades. pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per gallon.

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Legal Planet

JUNE 4, 2021

In recent years, The Netherlands has become the leading site of climate change 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 fossil fuel company. These lawsuits face three key barriers.

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Physics World

OCTOBER 30, 2021

With the United Nations Climate Change 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 fossil fuels could raise CO 2 levels and warm our planet.

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PA Environment Daily

JANUARY 23, 2025

Plastics are made from fossil fuels and over 16,000 different chemicals. Because plastics are produced from fossil fuels the lifecycle of plastics has a huge carbon dioxide footprint and is a driver of climate change.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 26, 2022

While there is enormous potential for UN climate negotiations to transform climate action, meaningful progress has been delayed in part by the fossil fuel industry’s deceptive tactics. Last year’s COP was notable as the first to explicitly mention “fossil fuels” in the final decision document.

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Law Columbia

FEBRUARY 27, 2025

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 fossil fuels for its power generation.

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Environmental News Bits

AUGUST 12, 2022

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 carbon dioxide 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 fossil fuels.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

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 climate change, but they blame the Right Whale on lobstering.” His remark has remained with me ever since.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

DECEMBER 20, 2022

Our national overreliance on gas is evidently undermining energy access, not strengthening it, as some fossil fuel industry players would want you to believe. These claims just add to the deluge of greenwashing and disinformation from the fossil fuel industry. Don’t believe the industry spin. There’s a better way forward.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MAY 25, 2023

This includes loopholes related to biomethane, whereby heavily polluting fossil fuel-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.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

AUGUST 17, 2023

cranks its air conditioners to get through historic high temperatures , the need for energy that slows, not hastens, climate change 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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