Scientists studying plants ability to gobble up carbon from the atmosphere have found that plants will offer protection from greenhouse gasses for another 80 years. Beyond 2100, they are not sure if carbon levels will become so high that that plants will reach a breaking point where they can no longer remove carbon from the air, as Newsweek reported.
View of wind mills of the National Power and Light Company in Santa Ana, Costa Rica on Oct. 23, 2015. EZEQUIEL BECERRA / AFP / Getty Images
Costa Rica aims to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and if it's energy production in 2019 is a sign of things to come, then it is well on its way to that goal. The small Central American nation produced the most electricity in its history during the month of May and nearly 100 percent of it was from renewable sources, according to Think Geoenergy.
By Aleksandra Arcipowska, Emily Mangan, You Lyu and Richard Waite
Agriculture provides a livelihood for billions of people every day and feeds all of us. Yet food production has significant impacts on the environment through deforestation and water pollution. It's also a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.
Night long exposure photograph of wildifires in Santa Clarita, California. FrozenShutter / E+ / Getty Images
By Kristy Dahl
Last week, UCS released Killer Heat, a report analyzing how the frequency of days with a dangerously hot heat index — the combination of temperature and humidity the National Weather Service calls the "feels like" temperature — will change in response to the global emissions choices we make in the coming decades.
Machines that suck CO2 directly from the air could cut the cost of meeting global climate goals, a new study finds, but they would need as much as a quarter of global energy supplies in 2100.
A Boeing 737-800 BCF (Boeing Converted Freighter) is marked "Prime Air" as part of Amazon Prime's freight aircraft during the 53rd International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France on June 22. Mustafa Yalcin / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
It's Prime Day! The day when thousands of increasingly absurd items are discounted so deeply that you suddenly need items you never knew existed. Yes, I do need a hotdog shaped toaster next to me while I watch this Fast & Furious seven movie box set! And I need it in my house today!
Sending dozens of emails a day, making a quick call on WhatsApp, uploading some photos to the cloud, watching a short viral clip on YouTube: It's all part of the digital daily life around the world. For the individual, it may be "just one photo" or "just a few minutes of video," but, taken together, our collective internet traffic contributes enormously to climate change.
A view of the Abbot Point coal port as seen on April 25, 2019 in Bowen, Australia. Lisa Maree Williams / Getty Images
Australia's love affair with fossil fuels has it setting new records for carbon emissions, year after year, and seeing a decline in renewable energy sources, according to new research from Ndevr Environmental, an emissions-tracking organization, as the Guardian reported.
With the exception of the U.S., every country in the world has now expressed an intention to honor the Paris agreement, which means they have all committed to limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of the current century.
By Johannes Friedrich, Mengpin Ge and Andrew Pickens
A lot has happened since countries met in Paris in 2015 and agreed on an accord to combat climate change. So far, more than 140 countries have ratified or otherwise joined the Paris agreement, representing more than 80 percent of global emissions. Several major economies, including Canada, Germany and Mexico, have also developed long-term plans to decarbonize their economies.
