Climate 411

Accelerating clean energy innovation is key to solving the climate crisis

By Susanne Brooks / Published: March 14, 2019

Co-authored by Elgie Holstein

Our nation has a history of tackling big challenges and leveraging the ingenuity of American entrepreneurs to develop solutions that have changed the world – from curing diseases to exploring space to launching the internet.

Today, climate change is one of our most urgent global challenges, for which there is little time left to prevent the most destructive impacts. To combat it, we must bring every bit of our nation’s entrepreneurial creativity and scientific excellence to bear. That means accelerating the deployment of existing low-carbon technologies as well as investing in new and emerging innovations that can transform our economy to 100% clean energy. And we have to do it quickly.

Fortunately, there are recent indications that a clean energy innovation agenda can attract bipartisan support in Congress, even as the debate over broader climate policy remains gridlocked. Recently, in the Republican-controlled Senate, the Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing focused on a bipartisan bill that would invest in research on cutting- edge approaches such as direct air capture (DAC), a “negative emissions technology” (NET) that might someday be able to suck carbon pollution directly out of the air and store it or recycle it into fuel, fertilizer, and concrete. Read More »

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Andrew Wheeler takes the helm at EPA. What’s next for crucial safeguards?

By Martha Roberts / Published: March 7, 2019

Just last week, the Senate confirmed Andrew Wheeler as EPA administrator. His installation signals a broader pivot point in defending EPA safeguards.

Over the last two years, the Trump administration’s efforts to categorically suspend crucial safeguards without public notice or comment failed across the board.

Looking ahead, Wheeler has almost two years to build on his troubling record by finalizing numerous deeply harmful major rollbacks. These rollbacks, if successful, risk thousands of premature deaths, hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks, and billions of tons of additional climate-destabilizing pollution.

We need to be making more, faster progress towards a clean energy and transportation future – not tearing down the safeguards we have in place.

Here’s a look at where we stand on three major issues — the opportunities we could seize, as well as the challenges ahead.  Read More »

Also posted in Cars and Pollution, Cities and states, Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, Economics, Energy, EPA litgation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Jobs, Policy / Read 2 Responses

Trump administration ends talks with California, presses ahead with Clean Car Standards rollback

By Martha Roberts / Published: February 21, 2019

EDF attorney Erin Murphy co-authored this post 

The Trump administration announced today that it will end negotiations with California and press ahead with its attempts to roll back America’s successful Clean Car Standards.

Rolling back the Clean Car Standards would increase pollution and raise costs for American families. The administration’s justification for weakening these safeguards is based on a deeply flawed and biased analysis that contradicts the technical progress the auto industry is making to reduce pollution. An earlier expose highlighted the roll of the oil industry in pushing and benefiting from the administration’s rollback.

State leadership under attack

The administration says it is pressing ahead with its attacks on long-standing state authority to enforce tougher standards than those implemented at the federal level.  Read More »

Also posted in California, Cars and Pollution, Clean Air Act, EPA litgation, Jobs, Partners for Change, Policy / Read 1 Response

Clean Power Plan “Replacement” Will Increase Carbon Pollution in Many States – New Study

By Rama Zakaria / Published: February 13, 2019

A new study is now confirming what our earlier analysis found – the Trump Administration’s proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan would actually be worse than doing nothing in many states.

The Clean Power Plan sets America’s only nationwide limits on carbon pollution from power plants. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has formally released a cynical proposal to scrap the plan and “replace” it with a do-nothing framework that sets no binding limits on carbon pollution at all. The agency recently finished taking public comments on that dangerous proposal – appropriately enough, on Halloween.

EDF undertook an analysis last year that concluded the Trump administration’s sham proposal would be a step down from doing nothing in many states. Now the new study by researchers at Resources for the Future and Harvard, Boston, and Syracuse Universities confirms that conclusion. Read More »

Also posted in Clean Power Plan, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Comments are closed

Hearings in the House of Representatives put climate change back in the spotlight

By Ben Schneider / Published: February 7, 2019

A day after President Trump did not even utter the words “climate change” in his State of the Union Address, two separate House committees brought climate change back to the legislative forefront for the first time in years. And after such a long hiatus, it was encouraging to see that a clear theme emerged from both hearings– climate change is an urgent threat, but we can address it if we attack it head on.

Here are some things that stood out to us – the good and the bad – from the first Congressional hearings on climate change in far too long:

Highlights

Hearings brought a long overdue spotlight to this critical issue

Leadership from both the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment and Climate Change and the full Natural Resources Committee recognized that while the threat of climate change is urgent, there is still time to act. Rep. Paul Tonko, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, invoked NASA’s moon missions as proof positive that America can rise to great technological challenges. “This climate challenge is not beyond us,” Tonko said. “Time is running out but it is not gone.”

Speakers recognized that acting now is less expensive than ignoring the problem Read More »

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Heatwaves to become more deadly and increase global inequality

By Monika Barcikowska / Published: January 24, 2019

A new study shows that heatwaves will worsen in the future and that the most vulnerable populations will be hit the hardest

Source: Flickr/
Rupert Ganzer

Human-caused climate change has already increased the frequency and severity of heatwaves across the globe, and new research shows that heatwaves will get even worse as the planet warms further.

Scientists have found that climate change played a major role in recent heatwaves: the chance of extreme heat at the levels seen in northern Europe in 2018 has doubled; the “Lucifer” heatwave in Europe’s Mediterranean region during summer of 2017 is four times more likely to occur; and the scorching 2016-2017 summer in New South Wales, Australia, was made at least 50 times more likely.

The new study, published on January 11th, 2019 in Nature Communications, shows the growing threat of heatwaves in a warming world, especially for less developed nations. In fact, the researchers found that less developed countries will likely be more affected by heatwaves in a 1.5°C (2.7°F) warmer world than developed countries will be in a 2°C (3.6°F) warmer world.

Read More »

Also posted in Extreme Weather, Health, Science / Comments are closed