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31 Dead, 250,000 Evacuated in California Fires as Governor Blames Climate Change
California suffered a devastating weekend as wildfires raging in both the south and north of the state killed 31 and forced 250,000 to flee their homes, BBC News reported Monday. More than 200 people are still missing.
The Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise Thursday, tied the 1933 Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles for the deadliest fire in California history when the death toll reached 29. It is also the most destructive in terms of the number of structures burned, with a total of more than 6,700 as of Saturday, ABC 7 News reported. So far it has burned more than 109,000 acres and is almost 25 percent contained as of the most recent reporting by BBC News.
In a rebuke to the Trump administration, California will launch its "own damn satellite" to monitor pollution, Gov. Jerry Brown announced last week on the last day of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco.
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Over the past three days, more than 4,000 people have gathered in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) convened by California Governor Jerry Brown to mobilize regional, local and business leaders around climate change.
Seventeen states and 400 cities, representing together the world's third largest economy, have now joined Brown and summit co-chair and UN special envoy for climate action Michael Bloomberg's "We're Still In" commitment to honor the terms of the Paris agreement despite President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw, and Bloomberg announced at the summit Thursday that the group was making progress, The Nation reported.
Some of the world's most prominent climate leaders will descend this week in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) hosted by California Gov. Jerry Brown.
The Sept. 12 to 14 gathering will feature numerous seminars, notable speakers such as former vice president Al Gore and former secretary of state John Kerry, and will culminate Friday with a call urging international governments to commit greater efforts in averting dangerous global warming under the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
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The California State Assembly on Tuesday voted 43-32 on a bill that aims for 100 percent renewable energy by 2045, one of the nation's toughest clean energy mandates.
Should the bill become law, California has to entirely transition away from fossil fuel electricity in less than three decades. Utilities would also have to get 50 percent of their energy from solar, wind or other specific renewable sources by 2026 and 60 percent by 2030. The legislation requires the state to slowly transition away from natural gas, which is California's top electricity source.
Wildfires, Heat Waves, Sea Level Rise to Be Increasingly Destructive to California, State Climate Change Report Warns
Climate change will create a devastating new normal in California of intense heatwaves and destructive fires if nothing is done to curb emissions, a new state report finds.
California's fourth-annual Climate Change Assessment finds that large fires like this summer's record-breaking Mendocino Complex and Carr fires will increase 50 percent by 2100 and burn 77 percent more land under a business-as-usual emissions scenario.
By Andy Rowell
Two leading political figures from the U.S. and Canada, who have boasted about the need to fight climate change, are now under fire for being climate change hypocrites: saying they care about the climate, but allowing drilling and fossil fuel infrastructure to be built anyway.
On Wednesday, more than 750 public interest groups from California and around the world, including Oil Change International, started a campaign urging the governor of California, Jerry Brown, to stop building fossil fuel infrastructure, including no new exploration permits offshore.
This was a year of tug-of-war for the environment. With Donald Trump becoming president of the U.S. at a time when wildfires, hurricanes, and floods were devastating the country, it was challenging for scientists, activists and concerned citizens to get their voices heard. But several stood out as global leaders on climate and helped give rise to those who were silenced. Below are 14 of the most notable influencers of 2017 and how they fought for a cleaner, safer environment for all.
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As California Burns, State Pushes Back on Trump's Anti-Climate Policies in Court
Amid record wildfires devastating the north and an unusual October heatwave scorching the south, conditions in California right now are a perfect snapshot of our ever-warming world.
As California Gov. Jerry Brown said an interview with BBC's Today program on Tuesday, "Climate change is occurring, global warming is occurring, California is beginning to burn up."
With aid from easing winds, the 11,000 firefighters beating back the Northern California wildfires are making "good progress," as the number of major blazes dropped to 15, the state's fire agency Cal Fire announced Sunday.
But as Cal Fire noted‚ "Sadly, the death toll has risen to 40 people."
California is on fire. Multiple major fires broke out in many parts of the state, burning more than 100,000 acres.
More than a dozen wildfires ravaged across Northern California as of Tuesday morning. At least 11 people have died, 100 have been injured, tens of thousands evacuated, and more than 1,500 homes and businesses were destroyed. In Sonoma County, fire officials fielded 100 phone calls about missing persons.