Facing intense opposition from major industries and some Democrats, the Biden administration on Thursday said it would delay the most contentious element of its plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The Environmental Protection Agency will exempt existing gas-fired plants, at least for now, from a new regulation that would require power plants […]
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Ross Gelbspan, Who Exposed Roots of Climate Change Deniers, Dies at 84
Ross Gelbspan, an investigative journalist whose reporting on climate change exposed a campaign of disinformation by oil and gas lobbyists to sow doubt about global warming — a denialism that was embraced by Republican officials and, in some cases, by a credulous news media — died on Jan. 27 at his home in Boston. He […]
Read MoreThree Climate Takeaways From Indonesia’s Presidential Election and the Vote for Subianto
Coal, nickel, palm oil, rainforests. The riches of Indonesia matter to the rest of the world. Therefore, so does its presidential election. Early results on Wednesday in the world’s third-largest democracy signaled the victory of Prabowo Subianto, a former army general linked to human rights abuses, as the country’s next president. The new government’s approach […]
Read MoreU.S. Carbon Emissions Fell in 2023 as Coal Use Tumbled to New Lows
America’s greenhouse gas emissions fell 1.9 percent in 2023, in large part because the burning of coal to produce electricity plummeted to its lowest level in half a century, according to estimates published on Wednesday by the Rhodium Group, a nonpartisan research firm. The drop means that United States emissions have now fallen roughly 17.2 […]
Read MoreNations at COP28 Climate Summit Agree to Move Away From Fossil Fuels
For the first time since nations began meeting three decades ago to tackle climate change, diplomats from nearly 200 countries agreed to a global pact that explicitly calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” like oil, gas and coal that are dangerously heating the planet. The sweeping agreement, which comes during the hottest year in […]
Read MoreU.S. Supports ‘Largely’ Phasing Out Fossil Fuels, John Kerry Says at Climate Summit
John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, said on Wednesday that the United States supported a phaseout of fossil fuels, his clearest statement yet on America’s position on one of the most intractable issues under debate at the United Nations climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Mr. Kerry said that “largely” ending […]
Read MoreCan Carbon Capture Live Up to the Hype?
World leaders at the annual United Nations climate talks have battled for years over whether they should “phase out” fossil fuels like coal or just phase them “down.” Now, another phrase has taken center stage at this year’s summit in Dubai: Should countries agree to end the use of “unabated” fossil fuels? That peculiar word […]
Read MoreIt’s Big Oil vs. Science at the COP28 Climate Summit
With fresh promises to cut methane and billions of dollars in new commitments to help poor countries adapt to a warming planet, a sense of momentum and optimism pervaded the first days of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai. Now comes the hard part. Five days into the two-week conference, known as COP28, the […]
Read MoreThe Colombian Murder Case That Refuses to Die
The Murders “Alabama Coal Giant Is Sued Over 3 Killings In Colombia,” ran the headline above a New York Times story on March 22, 2002. The lawsuit, which Collingsworth and Otero entered in federal court in Alabama on behalf of Sintramienergética and the families of Locarno, Orcasita, and Soler, was brought under the Alien Tort […]
Read MoreVietnam Is Jailing Environmentalists Who Helped It Secure Billions
When Vietnam was awarded a multibillion-dollar deal by a group of nine wealthy nations last year to work on reducing its use of coal, it agreed to regularly consult with nongovernmental organizations. Instead, the government has arrested several prominent environmentalists from those organizations who shaped policies that helped secure the funding, prompting concerns over sending […]
Read MoreFormer Coal Towns Get Money for Clean-Energy Factories
In Weirton, W.Va., in the heart of coal country, a company started by MIT scientists plans to build a plant that will produce a metal and alloy critical for clean energy, fuel cells and cleaner steel. In Vernon, Texas, also a former coal town, a third-generation wind entrepreneur plans to manufacture turbines suitable for remote, […]
Read MoreU.S. and China Agree to Displace Fossil Fuels by Ramping Up Renewables
The United States and China, the world’s two largest climate polluters, have agreed to jointly tackle global warming by ramping up wind, solar and other renewable energy with the goal of displacing fossil fuels, the State Department said Tuesday. The announcement comes as President Biden prepares to meet Wednesday with President Xi Jinping of China […]
Read MoreComing Soon: More Oil, Gas and Coal
It’s no secret that fossil fuels are still going strong, as we discussed last month. But a new United Nations-backed report paints an alarming picture of how dramatically coal, oil and gas production is expected to grow in the coming years. If current projections hold, the United States will drill for more oil and gas […]
Read MoreFossil Fuel Use Increasing, Not Decreasing, as Key Target Looms
In 2030, if current projections hold, the United States will drill for more oil and gas than at any point in its history. Russia and Saudi Arabia plan to do the same. They’re among the world’s fossil fuel giants that, together, are on course this decade to produce twice the amount of fossil fuels than […]
Read MoreChina Is Winning in Solar Power, but Its Coal Use Is Raising Alarms
China is installing about as many solar panels and wind turbines as the rest of the world combined, and is on track to meet its target for clean energy six years early. It is using renewables to meet nearly all of the growth in its electricity needs. Yet there is another side to that rapid […]
Read MoreFor Many in Wyoming, a Biden Plan to Protect Land Is Beyond Unpopular
Of all of the efforts by the Biden administration to protect environmentally fragile lands, few have generated as much vitriol as a proposal that would block oil and gas drilling on 1.6 million acres of high desert sagebrush steppe in Wyoming. One lawmaker in the Republican-led Wyoming Legislature called President Biden’s plan an attempt at […]
Read MoreI.E.A. Sees Oil, Gas and Coal Demand Peaking By 2030
For more than a century, the world’s appetite for fossil fuels has been expanding relentlessly, as humans have continued burning larger amounts of coal, oil and natural gas almost every year to power homes, cars and factories. But a remarkable shift may soon be at hand. The world’s leading energy agency now predicts that global […]
Read MoreAs Coal Plants Shutter, a Chance to Redevelop ‘the Gates of Hell’
After the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company flipped the switch on its sprawling new Avon Lake site in 1926, the brick behemoth, then one of the world’s largest coal-fired power plants, helped usher in a new era of regional economic growth in northeastern Ohio. Nearly a century later, the plant sits dismantled and disconnected. It was […]
Read More‘Big Jim’ and Babydog Go to Washington?
Out of the driver’s seat of the Suburban with the ‘‘Coal 3’’ license plate emerged Gov. Jim Justice, Big Jim as they call him, looming over everyone who had been waiting for the past hour and a half. He had come to a gravel patch in the hills of West Virginia for another groundbreaking, this […]
Read MoreFact Check: Trump on Electric Vehicles in Michigan
As seven Republican presidential contenders debated on Wednesday night in California, former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for the nomination, spoke at an auto parts plant in Michigan, where he assailed President Biden’s policies embracing electric vehicles. Mr. Biden on Tuesday visited the state to join the United Automobile Workers on the picket line. […]
Read MoreMichael Bloomberg Goes After Petrochemicals
Michael Bloomberg is many things: former New York City mayor, founder of a financial data company, failed presidential candidate and the 11th richest man in the world. Since leaving public office 10 years ago, Mr. Bloomberg, 81, has also emerged as perhaps the world’s single largest funder of climate activism, making himself an expensive thorn […]
Read MoreU.N. Chief’s Test: Shaming Without Naming the World’s Climate Delinquents
The world’s top diplomat, António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, has lately been unusually blunt in his broadsides against fossil fuel producers. He has accused them of “profiting from destruction.” He has urged governments to stop funding coal and to put the brakes on new oil and gas projects. “History is coming for the […]
Read MoreClimate Report Card Says Countries Are Trying, but Urgently Need Improvement
Eight years after world leaders approved a landmark agreement in Paris to fight climate change, countries have made only limited progress in staving off the most dangerous effects of global warming, according to the first official report card on the global climate treaty. Many of the worst-case climate change scenarios that were much feared in […]
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