Articles

A critical step on the path towards climate neutrality, the European Union’s 2040 target calls for a 90-per-cent reduction in emissions. Yet as far-reaching as this goal may seem, its provisions constitute a weakening of Europe’s climate ambitions under the Green Deal. By allowing costly and ineffective CO2 removal and storage technologies as a way of lowering emissions, the target risks deterring direct emission cuts and outsourcing pollution.

Exclusive: ‘Devastating consequences’ now inevitable but emissions cuts still vital, says António Guterres in sole interview before Cop30

A climate-focused report out of Europe throws serious shade at plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) cars, pointing out that they emit nearly as much carbon dioxide emissions as combustion engine-powered vehicles. In fact, it highlights how real-world emissions from supposedly greener PHEVs has increased over the years above officially recorded figures to nearly five times. Yikes! The findings come from the European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E), a clutch of non-government organizations focused on sustainable transport policy across the continent. The report has been published ahead of a review of automotive CO2 emission standards, which would see Europe continue to sell plug-in hybrid electric vehicles beyond 2035, when they're set to be phased out in order to meet EU climate targets.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has described her plan to “maximise extraction” of the UK’s oil and gas from the North Sea as a “common sense” energy policy. Politicians are using language like this increasingly often – calling themselves “pragmatic” on climate change and invoking “common sense”. It sounds reasonable, reassuring, and grownup – the opposite of “hysterical” campaigners or “unrealistic” targets.

Facebook and other social media platforms need to act to stop intimidation and harassment of environmental protectors

The Trump administration is releasing its proposal to undo the “endangerment finding,” the long-standing rationale and legal imperative for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act

Breaching threshold would ramp up catastrophic weather events, further increasing human suffering

Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree

Le Science based targets network devrait publier d'ici mi-2025 ses premières cibles "fondées sur la science" pour la protection des océans.

President formally files new plans under Paris agreement and hails ‘boldest climate agenda in American history’. Joe Biden has announced tougher targets on the US’s carbon dioxide emissions for the next decade, in a defiant final gesture intended as a “capstone” on his legacy on the climate. With just weeks to go before Donald Trump enters the White House, the Biden administration is formally filing new plans under the Paris agreement – the global climate treaty from which Trump has vowed to withdraw.

As the world’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists swarmed a Washington venue last week, the packed halls have been permeated by an air of anxiety and even dread over a new Donald Trump presidency that might worsen what has been a bruising few years for science.

This research reinforces the scientific consensus that the only viable strategy to limit catastrophic climate change requires drastic and immediate emissions cuts. An important study was published last month in the journal Nature, titled “Overconfidence in climate overshoot.” While increasingly dire warnings of the catastrophic impacts of global climate change continue to be published by scientists, the findings of this new paper provide another stark reminder of the urgent necessity to limit global warming by immediately reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The election of Donald Trump as president for a second time and the Republican takeback of the U.S. Senate could undo many of the national climate policies that are most reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to climate solutions experts.When they list measures that are making the most difference, it lines up with policies Trump has said he’ll target. These rollbacks will come as more lives are being lost in heat waves, record amounts of climate pollution are accumulating in the atmosphere, the United States has been hit with what may be two of its most expensive hurricanes, and nations, which will meet in Baku, Azerbaijan next week for climate negotiations, have failed to take strong action to change these realities.

The EU is being sued for failing to set ambitious climate targets in sectors that contribute more than half of the bloc’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

Exclusive: Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds

The European Commission has received an open letter signed by 110 academics, businesses, civil society organisations and research institutions urging the EU to separate emissions reductions, land-based sequestration and permanent carbon removals in the EU’s post-2030 climate framework. This separation should be at the heart of both the setting and the implementation of the 2040 target and associated plans.

Abusive, often violent tweets denying the climate emergency have become a barrage since Elon Musk acquired the platform, say UK experts

In his Cop27 speech this week, our will-he-go, won’t-he-go prime minister said that stopping the planet dangerously overheating was still within our grasp, leaving many wondering just what planet he was on. According to Rishi Sunak, last year’s Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow was all about keeping alive the possibility of preventing the global average temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution from climbing above 1.5C. That is “alive”, as in connected to a drip, in a coma and suffering cardiac arrest every few hours.

Eleven of the 20 largest economies got a C or worse on a renewable energy report card, which assessed their plans to reach net zero and their targets for producing and using renewable energy

Climate tipping points in the Antarctica, the Arctic and the Amazon are at risk of being reached before or at the current level of global warming of 1.2 degrees Celsius, requiring a “major rethink” of global climate goals and the action necessary to achieve them, according to a recent report.