In New Zealand, sheep and cattle outnumber people. All that livestock passes gas, which means emitting more methane into the atmosphere. As such, the country has proposed to tax farmers for their livestock’s emissions. New Zealand’s agriculture makes up almost half of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. According to the BBC, there are about 5 […]
In 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that, in order to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, no new oil and gas fields or coal mines could be developed. Now, a study published in Environmental Research Letters Tuesday goes even further: In order […]
A new forecast by scientists from the UK’s Meteorological Office shows that the likelihood of the planet breaching the threshold temperature of 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels — above which irreversible damage to Earth’s ecosystems and devastating impacts on human, animal and plant life would be likely to occur — is increasing. The probability […]
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released its first report describing the financial impact of climate inaction in the U.S. The analysis outlines the taxpayer cost should climate change remain unchecked, and it amounts to over $2 trillion per year by 2100. “Climate change threatens communities and sectors across the country, […]
Policies in place to reduce emissions as of December 2020 would lead the planet to 3.2 degrees Celsius of warming, more than double the 1.5 degrees limit that scientists say is essential for avoiding the worst impacts of the climate crisis. That’s the urgent warning from the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released Monday.
If all of the world’s forests disappeared tomorrow, how much hotter would the world be? A first-of-its-kind study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Thursday found that the world’s forests keep the planet around 0.5 degrees Celsius cooler than it would be otherwise. That 0.5 degrees is the same crucial difference between two […]
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said Thursday that it would delay implementing a new proposal to consider the climate and environmental justice impacts of new gas projects before approving them. The delay follows pushback from legislators who argued the new policy would make it harder to get natural gas to Europe in the […]
Food travels long distances – sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles – to reach our plates. Mapping the trajectory of many processed foods is to draw zig-zags across the globe, connecting faraway fields, factories, distribution centers, and store shelves. The concept of “food miles” was created in the 1990s to warn consumers of the connection […]
The risks posed by the climate crisis are far-reaching, and in order to begin to ameliorate those risks, quantifying them can be helpful. Until now there hasn’t been a clear rule governing the disclosure of climate risks by businesses, but it looks like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is about to change that. Public […]