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Limited Progress Seen Even as More Nations Step Up on Climate

Photo An area of the Amazon rain forest burned to make way for pasturelands. Brazil has pledged to end illegal deforestation. Credit Lalo de Almeida for The New York Times The pledges that countries are making to battle climate change would still allow the world to heat up by more than 6 degrees Fahrenheit, a new analysis shows, a level that scientists say is likely to produce catastrophes ranging from food shortages to widespread extinctions of plant and animal life. Yet, in the world of global climate politics, that counts as progress. The new figures will be released Monday in New York as a week of events related to climate change comes to an end. The highlight was an urgent moral appeal at the United Nations on Friday from Pope Francis, urging countries to reach “fundamental and effective agreements” when they meet in Paris in December to try to […]

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Asia taking climate initiative

Asian Development Bank announces planned increase in climate spending ahead of key pledges from the U.S. and Chinese leaders. File photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI MANILA, Sept. 25 (UPI) — By 2020, the amount of funding to support the fight against climate change will double to $6 billion, the president of the Asian Development Bank said. World leaders gathering in New York this weekend are expected to announce commitments to more than a dozen sustainable development goals. With China, a world emissions leader, planning to lead the announcements, ADB President Takehiko Nakao said the growing Asian economies have a major role to play in the fight against climate change. "Nowhere is tackling climate change more critical than in Asia and the Pacific, where rising sea levels, melting glaciers, and weather extremes like floods and droughts are damaging livelihoods and taking far too many lives," he said in a statement. Nakao […]

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U.S. and China team up on global warming

U.S. President Barack Obama and China’s President Xi Jinping (L) hold a joint news confernce in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington September 25, 2015. – Tensions between the United States and China are running high on issues including cyber security, the South China Sea and currency values. So why are the U.S. and China working so well together on climate change? And what does it mean for the world? Today, President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping announced an important climate agreement. If that sentence sounds familiar, there’s a reason. At their first summit (in California in 2013), President Obama and President Xi announced plans to cooperate in phasing out HFCs, a super-pollutant with huge global warming impacts. At their second summit (in Beijing in 2014), the two leaders reached an historic agreement to limit total emissions of heat-trapping gases in each country. Expectations for […]

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E.P.A. to Bolster Testing Because of Volkswagen Scandal

Photo A 2014 Jeep Diesel being tested at the Center for Alternative Fuel Engines and Emissions at West Virginia University. Credit Tom M. Johnson for The New York Times Government regulators said Friday that they planned to step up the testing requirements of cars in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal. The Environmental Protection Agency , which disclosed last week that it had learned that Volkswagen diesel cars had equipment to evade smog-testing standards, said it had sent a letter to manufacturers of gasoline and diesel cars saying that regulators would be looking for so-called defeat devices in all vehicles. The agency said Volkswagen had used a device programmed to fool emissions testers into thinking that the car was emitting much less pollution than it was during regular driving. “Manufacturers should expect that this additional testing may add time to the confirmatory test process,” the E.P.A. wrote in its […]

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California Restores Rule to Cut Carbon in Fuel by 10%

By Alejandro Lazo SAN FRANCISCO–California regulators on Friday voted to reinstate a rule to require a 10% cut in the carbon content of transportation fuels sold in the state by 2020, despite oil industry objections that it would raise gasoline prices. The California Air Resources Board voted 9-0 to move forward with the state’s low-carbon fuel standard, which was the first regulation of its kind in the U.S. when it was established in a 2007 executive order by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It had been frozen since 2013, as the state made revisions to the law following a court challenge. Oregon adopted its own carbon fuel standard in 2009. The California regulation further tightens the state’s emissions regulations, already the most stringent in the U.S. It requires fuel makers to reduce emissions by developing cleaner fuels or adopting greater use of biofuels. It also requires fuel producers to take into […]

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U.S., China to Announce Steps to Fight Climate Change

U.S. President Barack Obama with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the White House grounds Thursday. The U.S. and China on Friday will announce significant steps in their efforts to combat climate change, including a pledge by China to launch a program by 2017 to cap some emissions and put a price on carbon, senior Obama administration officials said Thursday. The announcements will detail the two countries’ strategies for reaching emissions targets and aim to bolster efforts to complete an international accord to reduce global carbon-dioxide emissions, which is meant to be wrapped up in December. The Obama administration officials, touting a new era of U.S.-China climate diplomacy, said the statement would demonstrate to the world the countries’ commitment to reaching agreed-upon targets. Chinese President Xi Jinping ’s decision to put a price on CO2 emissions with a cap-and-trade system marks the first time China has launched such an initiative. […]

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EPA hears widely different views on methane emission threat

AP Photo/Brennan Linsley DENVER (AP) — Over-regulating methane emissions could discourage the use of environment-friendly natural gas, an energy industry representative told the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday. However, a former Colorado air quality official countered that such controls would be a cost-effective way to fight climate change. The EPA heard radically different views as it opened public hearings in Denver on its proposal to slash allowable methane emissions from oil and gas production. Sessions were also scheduled in Dallas on Wednesday and in Pittsburgh on Sept. 29. The proposed rules are aimed at cutting the emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2025 compared with 2012 levels. Methane is a key component of natural gas and a powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat in the upper atmosphere. The EPA estimates the new rule would cost industry from $320 million to $420 million annually by 2025 but would reduce […]

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After Volkswagen Revelation, Auto Emissions Tests Come Under Global Scrutiny

Photo The Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. The emissions cheating scandal at Volkswagen has initiated a reconsideration of how pollution tests are carried out worldwide. Credit Alexander Koerner/Getty Images In the United States, automakers conduct their own emissions tests and submit the results to the government. In Europe, automakers pick who conducts the tests and where they are done. And these two regulatory systems are considered the world’s gold standards. Questions about the wisdom of allowing automakers so much sway in how air pollution standards are enforced grew on Wednesday after the resignation of Volkswagen’s chief executive , following the company’s diesel emissions cheating scandal . Regulators in several European countries have opened investigations, attorneys general in the United States have joined federal inquiries, and there has been broader criticism of Volkswagen , and diesels, in markets from South Korea to Brazil. Volkswagen has admitted installing software in 11 […]

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As UN says world to warm by 3 degrees, scientists explain what that means

As nations around the world prepare to sign a global climate treaty in Paris this December at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP21), the U.N.’s climate chief has said thatthe world is still on track for dangerous warming. Most leaders and scientists have agreed that limiting the global average temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius over the next century could yet ward off the worst effects of climate change . But the world remains on a trajectory to experience an increase of 3 C — even if the national emission reduction pledges to be codified in the Paris treaty are implemented — said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Her comments came ahead of visiting Pope Francis’ U.N. General Assembly speech on Friday, when he is widely expected to weigh in on the dangers of climate change. Al Jazeera asked scientists […]

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US Catholic groups debate divesting from fossil fuels

When Pope Francis speaks to Congress on Thursday, environmentalists expect him to renew his call for rich countries to do more to combat climate change, and some believe that effort should begin with Catholic institutions in the U.S., which are facing a small but vocal effort to pressure them to divest from the fossil fuel industry. “The [divestment] conversations are happening now at a level they weren’t a year ago,” said Kevin Ahern, a religious studies professor at Manhattan College. “Pope Francis is trying to ask the church institutions, ‘How do we really embody what we’re teaching?’” Pope Francis puts GOP in a corner on climate change Pope’s comments on climate sparks debate on coal In an encyclical issued in June, the pope delivered a dramatic and unambiguous rebuke of humanity’s environmental stewardship . “We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels … needs […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple