What the EPA ruling means for the carbon footprint of your electric car

Porsche Taycan chargingElectric cars are only as clean as the grid they plug into, and the emissions from using your EV will keep dropping over the years you use it because the grid keeps getting cleaner. It’s a point we emphasize regularly, and after Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling, the assurance of a cleaner grid over time, everywhere, is no longer a...

States, Cities sue EPA over Clean Power Plan rollback

Coal power plant in ChinaThe power grid that electric vehicles plug into will get cleaner over time. But depending on where you are, the rate at which it cleans up could have a lot to do with something that’s headed to the courts. A lawsuit filed Tuesday by 22 states and seven cities, in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, aims to...

Capitol Hill Democrats declare “climate emergency”

Smokestacks pollution air qualityMany Americans consider climate change a global emergency that's worth pulling out all the stops to address—especially by buying and driving electric cars. Now, it turns out Democratic lawmakers in Washington agree. A bicameral group of Democrats on Capitol Hill introduced a resolution on Tuesday to declare climate change a national...

Climate change presents $1 trillion in risk, but more in reward: study

Ocean waves [CREDIT: Global Climate Budget 2018]The latest climate study, released Tuesday, doesn't look at sea level rise, carbon counts, or government policy—at least not directly. Instead, it takes a strictly capitalist approach. The study, by CDP, sent questionnaires to more than 200 of the largest global companies about their forecasts for how much money they're budgeting to lose to...

Trump administration takes aim at National Climate Assessment

Hurricane Florence approaches U.S. East Coast Sept. 12, 2018As the Trump administration works to reverse efforts across the government to reduce climate change, the biggest thorn in its side has perhaps been the quadrennial National Climate Assessment, a report last published in November, which the administration buried by releasing on Black Friday, as Americans hit shopping malls in record numbers. The...

Renewable energy growth falters as carbon dioxide hits record levels

Offshore wind farmThe past couple of weeks have seen the convergence of two troubling trends. Perhaps most troubling, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography released data last week from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere have reached record levels unseen not just in human history, but in the scientific...

Hawaii responds to global warming threat against Waikiki beach

Island of O'ahu, Hawaii. Image: Wikimedia CommonsClimate scientists have issued frequent warning about the effects of rising sea levels from global warming on cities such as Miami and New York. But among the first places in the U.S. that may suffer the effects of climate change could be Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, according to a 2017 report by the Hawaii Climate Commission report, which showed...

UN global climate report restores hope, lays out roadmap

Smokestacks [CREDIT: Global Climate Budget 2018]A new UN report on global climate change isn't quite as dire as one it issued last October. That special report on warming of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) showed that the effects of climate change could become catastrophic by 2040, at least 10 years earlier than scientists had predicted. Another report in December by private energy...