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To adjust the focus of this picture a little closer, just our passenger cars and light trucks contribute to a whopping 58 percent of total transportation emissions, placing our car-centric society in the fossilfuel spotlight. Petroleum has accounted for more than 90 percent of transportation energy in the last 50 years.
It’s not just the poor air quality, long lines, and excessive fossilfuel company representation ; nations are still too far apart in their positions on a fossilfuel phaseout, the top priority for this COP. Yet global fossilfuel production and use continue to expand. Particulate matter (PM2.5)
Earlier this year, The Guardian ran a powerful article exposing the ties of Elsevier, one of the world’s largest academic publishing companies, to the fossilfuel industry. The article caught my attention because I’d never considered the ways in which an academic publisher might be perpetuating and enabling a fossilfuel economy.
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 simple fact is that ditching fossilfuels for low-cost cleanenergy resources is good for the planet, good for the US economy, and good for public health. The studies the DOE reviewed also found that transmission investments would provide a host of benefits beyond access to cleanenergy. The good news?
Also like a sine graph, Union of Concerned Scientists will keep moving forward no matter what (and backward technically, but I am political science major and way out of my depth here, so let’s pretend they only move forward, give me kudos for an awesome simile, and get to the recap!).
With the cleanenergy transition already under way, the US electricity mix is set to continue changing this year. Solar power is expected to make up about half of all additions of US electric generating capacity in 2023, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). I’ll start off with the good.
Codifying a floor for renewables in state law is helpful, but cleanenergy advocates must keep pushing utilities to move more quickly to incorporate higher levels of renewables not only to cut emissions faster, but also because renewables are the most cost-effective resources for ratepayers. What Still Needs to be Done?
As the climate crisis deepens, so does the urgency to hold fossilfuel companies accountable for decades of deception. As the fossilfuel industry spares no expense to obscure these truths, the work of scientists who engage with climate litigation is increasingly vital.
The shift from fossilfuels in the 100% RES scenario reduces the amount of harmful air pollution from power plants much more than in our “No New Policy”/business-as-usual scenario. Just as important, cleaning up the power grid can also decrease carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. And our modeling shows renewables’ power.
Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) research shows that top fossilfuel producers’ emissions are responsible for as much as half of global surface temperature increase. The best solution: Replace fossilfuels with renewable energy. Pitting climate and energy against each other is an insidious lie.
By Dan Gearino, ICN Staff In a year of record-setting heat, intensifying extreme weather and a bitterly partisan presidential election in which climate change was almost never mentioned, the transition away from fossilfuels made significant progress that was still not nearly enough.
Earlier this month at COP28 countries committed to transitioning off of fossilfuels and massively scaling up renewable energy instead. So you’re excused if, like me, you’re baffled by Minister Freeland’s first move in the wake of COP28: a giant new fossilfuel subsidy, via the new Canada Growth Fund.
Minnesotans are facing concurrent crises of climate change, high energy prices and inflation, and the inequitable public health impacts of fossilfuel air pollution. Renewable energy will help with all of that—but we need a grid that is designed for wind and solar instead of having to rely on expensive coal and gas plants.
Wider repercussions, including the inequitable impacts of rising food and energy prices and the potential for a food crisis hitting vulnerable populations around the world, must also be urgently addressed by global leaders. Other countries are dependent upon these fossilfuels, they don’t make themselves free of them.
Climate policy has been boosted by dramatic changes in the economics of cleanenergy. Cheaper renewable energy attracts private investment and makes limits on fossilfuels more feasible. The resulting economic growth also helps create a stronger political base for aggressive expansion of cleanenergy.
With some notable exceptions, they’ve tended to drag their feet on the energy transition. The proposed CleanEnergy Standard is one effort to deal with this problem. A big shift to renewables could leave stranded assets — existing fossilfuel plants that the utility will no longer get paid for using.
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. The West Virginia v.
There is still much we can do to bend that emissions curve sharply within this decade—but only if world leaders, especially leaders of richer countries and major emitting nations, take responsibility to act together quickly and fossilfuel companies are held accountable for their decades of obstruction and deception.
This means that, with few exceptions, new buildings will need to exclusively use electric appliances, and will not be allowed to contain any fossil-fuel infrastructure, like natural-gas lines. All-electric as the new normal. A win for climate, health & safety, and equitable process.
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.
A simple statement that masks just how complicated the issues are: mixing politics, economics, livelihoods, fisheries and endangered species in the ocean body that is the Gulf of Maine. GOM communities, not fossilfuel interests, should determine policies that affect GOM people. They should be held accountable for their actions.”
We need more electricity to transition our homes and cars off fossilfuels, but we can’t afford to let that electricity come from more gas power plants. Aging plants and state cleanenergy goals are certainly helping that trend. But we’ve also reached the point where the economics of renewables are just much better.
Without additional climate or cleanenergy policies, gas (and to a lesser degree, coal) will both provide electricity and will be used to balance the grid with growing levels of variable wind and solar generation. Transformative change to our energy system is needed if we are to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
By Dave Jenkins, Conservatives For Responsible Stewardshi p The following goest essay first appeared in the Erie Times on March 27, 2023 -- We are at an inflection point on energy: 2022 was the first year when global investment in carbon-free sources of energy matched investment in fossilfuels. Energy is energy.
Much of our electricity system is 50 to 70 years old, yet current plans for domestic manufacturing, electric vehicle fleets, community solar gardens and more cleanenergy all depend on a modern grid. Add the supply We have more energy-producing facilities than ever before, and the United States is producing record levels of energy.
This is despite the cleanenergy progress the power sector has experienced to date—and despite the groundwork laid for more progress from leading states, as well as the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). And more gas is slated to come. Will EPA use CCS or other means as the BSER?
By Anders Lorenzen The United Nations (UN) has warned that dis- and misinformation campaigns by primarily fossilfuel companies, slowing down the cleanenergy transition. This is directly due to the climate crisis, and directly due to the use of fossilfuels.
By Anders Lorenzen The UK’s Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Ed Miliband, used a speech at the UK’s trade association for the energy sector, Energy UK Annual Conference, to make a compelling case for scaling up the cleanenergy transition.
These owners understood both the need for a supply of energy, and the value and reliability of cleanenergy. A significant fraction of the cleanenergy built in the US was financed on the commitments by such high profile, public data companies. Data centers’ total energy demand is challenging to meet.
By Bernice Lee Following the Paris Agreement, corporate enthusiasm for climate action surged, with net-zero commitments and the energy transition taking a central role in both government and business agendas. However, political shifts and implementation challenges have slowed that momentum.
Despite being in the same political party that created it, the UK’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, is in the process of completely changing the country’s energy policy. Energy Security. The government believes that opening up new fossilfuel areas for production will boost energy security.
As the water in hydropower reservoirs drops, hydropower production is reduced, possibly increasing energy prices, or forcing some utilities to compensate for energy demands by using more fossilfuels for power generation. Higher water and energy prices disproportionately affect low-income families.
Governmental agencies and utilities involved in the energy sector can pair an energy justice framework with meaningful community engagement to assess their actions and decisions and realize the benefits of energy equity for their constituents.
Exxon , the cities and towns allege that the fossilfuel companies were liable because they knowingly produced and marketed products that have caused climate change harms, while concealing and misrepresenting the associated dangers. have filed more than twenty cases seeking damages from fossilfuel companies for climate harms.
By Emily Foxhall, The Texas Tribune This article was first published by The Texas Tribune , a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans—and engages with them—about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
By Jeremy Williams Over the past 200 years, political power has become deeply entwined with fossilfuels. The energy transition is now troubling the peace, and those alliances are shifting. As renewable energy takes over from fossilfuels, there is a tug-of-war underway to control the narrative.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, fossilfuel production accounts for 35% of global greenhouse gas emissions. For the first time, Ocean Conservancy attended the annual International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Assembly to help advance a just clean-energy transition.
There’s also a clear enemy in Steyer’s mind, and the role of the fossilfuel industry in delaying and obstructing change is a recurring theme throughout the book. We should direct our attention to what matters most, which is systemic change and politics, not little lifestyle changes.
But with the recent influx of government incentives for hydrogen production, new and improving production and storage technologies, and greater political will than ever before, H 2 ’s reputation is gaining favor. All this is not to say there is no place for hydrogen in a cleanenergy future.
Throughout his career, Minott and the Clean Air Council earned a reputation for holding government agencies and fossilfuel companies accountable. Mr. Minott holds two degrees in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Villanova University School of Law.
The Governor approved a notable slate of climate legislation with a package that includes more stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets and measures designed to reduce the state’s reliance on fossilfuels. CleanEnergy.
In Germany, fossilfuels are king. While Germany has had a huge focus on renewable energy this has done little to reduce its reliance on fossilfuels. Ironically, the country already gets a lot of its electricity supply via interconnectors from France – produced through nuclear energy.
Climate Envoy Kerry: No Rolling Back CleanEnergy Transition PA Politics - Everything Is Connected -- Inquirer: 100 Days: A Look At Shapiro’s ‘Common Ground’ Approach To Governing One Of The Nation’s Most Politically Divided States -- Post-Gazette Guest Essay: Pennsylvania’s House Takeover - A Tale Of Two Speakers - By Fmr Rep.
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