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The destruction caused by climate change is directly linked to human activity, primarily burning fossilfuels. There are multiple realistic, tangible solutions that would rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, yet policy addressing anthropogenic climate change remains slow and insufficient.
Production and combustion of fossilfuels imposes enormous costs on society, which the industry doesn’t pay for. One option, a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, gets the most attention but seems politically impossible. A more promising alternative might be a clean-up tax on the fossilfuel industry.
If burned, global fossilfuel reserves would release 3.5 trillion metric tons of carbonemissions, more than has been unleashed since the start of the Industrial Revolution, according to the Global Registry of FossilFuels, a new database launched by Carbon Tracker and Global Energy Monitor.
They’re called Scope 3 emissions, and they are key to understanding the big picture of a company’s impact on the environment. First, let me explain the three “scopes” of carbonemissions. Scope 1 emissions come from power plants, oil rigs and other sources directly owned or controlled by a company.
To underscore the negative impacts of fossilfuels on our grid, I also pointed to key research around resilience. With a robust climate plan, Wisconsin utilities would have to look beyond their legacy preference for fossilfuels and consider cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternatives.
Previous IPCC reports have concluded that human activities such as burning fossilfuels are the primary cause of climate change: about 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from burning fossilfuels for electricity, transportation, and industry. The result is a world that is rapidly warming.
Quickly and sharply tapering down the use of fossilfuels, which are the main driver of human-caused climate change, is just as crucial if we are to have any chance of keeping climate extremes from spiraling further out of control. We must also demand that fossilfuel companies be held accountable for the harms they are causing.
And, because the process reduces methane emissions from the sewage and displaces fossilfuel-powered energy, utilities can slash their net emissions in the process. Are they capturing and avoiding more methane emissions than would otherwise occur? The post Waste-To-Energy Tech Could Slash U.S.
Policy drivers State leadership has been important in driving the development and adoption of clean energy for decades, and remains key to accelerating the move toward clean energy and away from fossilfuels.
Among many other provisions, CEJA includes carbonemission limits for coal and fossil gas plants that phase in over several years, starting in 2030. Prior UCS analysis has also shown that it’s helpful to locate storage in the general vicinity of fossilfuel plants that will be retired in the future.
Since the summer of 2021, five Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed bills banning their state governments from doing business with financial institutions that they allege have divested from fossilfuel companies as a result of ESG investment policies. Another six statehouses are considering similar bills.
The majority 6–3 decision sharply curtails the EPA’s authority to set standards based on a broad range of flexible options to cut carbonemissions from the power sector—options such as replacing polluting fossilfuels with cheap and widely available wind and solar power coupled with battery storage.
Half of the worlds climate-heating carbonemissions come from the fossilfuels produced by just 36 companies, analysis has revealed. The researchers said the 2023 data strengthened the case for holding fossilfuel companies to account for their contribution to global heating.
That’s because the case, which was about the nature and scope of EPA authority in regulating carbonemissions from existing power plants, turned on a rule that does not exist. First and foremost, despite some fossilfuel interests swinging for the fossilfuel-favored fences, the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v.
Because one of Pennsylvania’s two hubs, ARCH2, is also proposing to be heavily reliant on fossilfuel-based hydrogen production projects, I also detailed the serious risks of policymakers propping up such an approach. Here are three critical flags with pursuing a fossil-based “clean” hydrogen future.
They can also look at known carbonemission sources and model the world with and without those added emissions. As extreme weather events have become more frequent and severe, climate event attribution science underscores the need to dramatically reduce carbonemissions and help communities adapt to the climate change impacts.
It attempted to move away from fossilfuels and toward zero-carbon sources like solar power to supply electricity. Fossilfuel plants — coal-fired power plants in particular — cause serious air pollution problems. EPA might well get substantial reductions in carbonemissions this way.
But there is no question about the impact that EVs will have on reducing climate-changing emissions. Replacing gasoline with electricity greatly reduces the carbonemissions from driving, even when emissions from mining, manufacturing, and generating electricity are included.
Texas and a number of other states have passed laws banning what they call “boycotts of fossilfuel companies.” ” More precisely, they ban state investment or contracting with firms that “boycott” fossilfuel companies. That’s generally — but not always — going to be firms “utilizing” fossilfuels.
. – Ontario has launched the second phase of a program to expand fossilfuel gas pipelines to new communities. This is a big subsidy for fossilfuels and a step in the wrong direction, when the government could have chosen to support clean technologies, help customers save money long term, lower capital costs, and cut carbonemissions.
One place to look is the power grid , responsible for a quarter of the United States’ carbonemissions. Paul Arbaje is an energy analyst in the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and an expert on electricity policies and reforms that reduce fossilfuel use and reliance.
Trading in disinformation In its climate lobbying report, ExxonMobil deemed 52 associations “aligned” for acknowledging the risks of climate change, publicly backing the Paris Agreement goal of limiting average global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and taking steps to reduce carbonemissions.
With economic growth have come carbonemissions. As of 2016, half of its total emissions are from the power sector, with 20% from industry and 15% from transportation, and. According to the Energy Information Agency , South Korea’s power sector is heavily reliant on fossilfuels. 50% coal, 26% gas, and 25% nuclear.
Minnesotans are facing concurrent crises of climate change, high energy prices and inflation, and the inequitable public health impacts of fossilfuel air pollution. Minnesota’s current goal is to reduce statewide carbonemissions 30 percent by 2025 compared to 2005 levels and 80 percent by 2050.
To many in the climate movement, the fossilfuel industry is the enemy. It is the carbonemissions from coal, oil and gas that are driving the breakdown of the climate. But what to do with the fossilfuel industry? After all, fossilfuel companies have unrivalled experience in delivering enormous projects.
In a recent column , Paul Krugman argued that cutting carbonemissions doesn’t have to mean an end to economic growth. Carbonemissions and growth aren’t joined at the hip. The numbers are really clear about the disconnect between the trajectories of GDP and emissions. He’s right about that.
New research from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) confirms renewables are continuing to outpace fossilfuels on cost. They found that the share of renewable energy that achieved lower costs than the most competitive fossilfuel option doubled in 2020. C climate pathway.
Some events last week sent a strong signal that the tide is turning against fossilfuels. To paraphrase Churchill, this may not be beginning of the end for fossilfuels, but at least it is the end of the beginning of the campaign against them. Each of the events standing alone would have been noteworthy.
It turns out that most of them are 50-60% reliant on fossilfuels, with a lot of the remainder coming from nuclear and hydro. However, there are important differences in the mix of gas and coal in generation, which matters a lot since coal-fired generators emit much more carbon per kilowatt. FossilFuel Use.
In December 2018, after having successfully reduced greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 53.3%, a majority of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) jurisdictions announced plans to design a program to address carbonemissions from the combustion of transportation fuels.
Today marks one year since the precedent-setting court ruling in the Netherlands, which ordered Shell to cut its activities’ carbonemissions by 45 percent compared to 2019 levels to align with the Paris climate agreement. The industry’s actions, the CHR report said, were driven “not by ignorance, but greed.”
Carbon-reduction plans, if not well designed, can worsen water scarcity and pollution. Plans to reduce carbonemissions should take water into account. Some low-carbon energy options require significant amounts of water. But is there the same focus on water’s role in reducing carbonemissions as there is for adaptation?
Replacing gasoline with electricity greatly reduces the carbonemissions from driving. Based on where electric vehicles (EVs) have been sold, driving the average EV in the US produces global warming emissions equal to a hypothetical 94 mile per gallon gasoline car, or less than a third of the emissions of the average new gasoline car.
The Substitution Effect: Could Reducing FossilFuel Sales Truly Have No Impact? The Court overturned a landmark ruling that had required Shell, whose energy sales in 2023 were 91% derived from major GHG sources, to reduce its carbonemissions by 45% by 2030. Nonetheless, the Court ruled that Milieudefensie et al.
Mexico’s carbonemissions are about the same as those of Texas, the highest-emitting US state. Per capita emissions, however, are far lower, given Mexico’s much larger population. AMLO has come under criticism for his commitment to fossilfuel production and refining in Mexico.
New California legislation will require corporations to disclose their carbonemissions. Cheaper renewable energy attracts private investment and makes limits on fossilfuels more feasible. California set a 2035 deadline for eliminating gas and diesel cars, and eight other states are following suit.
GOM communities, not fossilfuel interests, should determine policies that affect GOM people. He was on to something And the lobsterman was correct: we can blame carbonemissions for ocean acidification and warming in the Gulf of Maine. They should be held accountable for their actions.”
A brief history of the land carbon sink Every year, globally, land-based ecosystems remove roughly 30% of human emissions from the atmosphere, slowing both the accumulation of atmospheric CO2 and increases in global temperature. These same environmental changes can also increase carbon losses from land-based ecosystems.
EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA) A. Standards for carbon and methane emissions from new sources Permitting requirements for carbonemissions from new stationary sources of major sources of existing pollutants. Standards for emissions from new vehicles.
Through the Clean Air Act , and as affirmed—and reaffirmed—through multiple legal sagas, EPA is statutorily obligated to address carbon pollution from fossilfuel-fired power plants. Indeed, EPA still retains the ability to set strong standards that curtail carbon pollution at the scale, speed, and rigor required.
Some estimates suggest they could disappear by 2030 due to the climate change triggered by human fossilfuel use, which began less than 200 years ago. By contrast, the glaciers in Glacier National Park are retreating at a disturbingly rapid pace. After leaving the road, we began the steep ascent up to Swiftcurrent Pass.
As a result, when today’s fossilfuel end uses can be directly electrified via renewables instead, such as for heating in buildings , it is overwhelmingly a better decarbonization path. And in an encouraging sign, DOE raised many of these issues in its February’s request for information (RFI) on H2Hubs implementation strategy.
Polling showed broad public support for more aggressive cuts in carbonemissions. Labor’s climate policy calls for a 43% reduction in carbonemissions by 2030. Australia gives AU$11 billion a year to subsidize fossilfuel industries, and another AU$55 billion for supportive infrastructure and activities.
This much-needed set of 18 projects will improve electricity reliability, address overloaded wires , and help unlock more lower-cost wind and solar power to replace costly, polluting fossilfuel plants in Michigan and many other states in the Midwest (including Illinois and Minnesota ).
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