Category: Climate

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration said Tuesday it is allowing more time for the public to weigh in on draft regulations controlling carbon emissions from hundreds of fossil-fuel power plants across the country after a majority of senators called for the extension. The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it was extending by 45 days its public-comment period that was originally scheduled to end Oct. 16. In a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy last week, 53 senators, including several Democrats up for re-election this year, urged the administration to allow 60 more days; the comment period was originally 120 days. The new closing date is Dec. 1. Announced on June 2, the proposed rule seeks to cut carbon emissions from the nation’s power plants 30% by 2030 based on emissions levels from 2005. EPA has set different standards for each state, based upon regional energy mixes and what the agency has […]

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Government and industry leaders need not choose between fighting climate change or growing the world’s economy. They can do both, according to a new study. Countries can expand their economies through emissions reductions in cities, land use and energy, according to a report released today by the Global Commission on the Economy & Climate, a panel set up by seven nations including the U.K. to advise on the best ways to tackle global warming. The report, which found that about $90 trillion will be invested in city infrastructure over the next 15 years, comes a week before world leaders head to New York for a climate summit hosted by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Building better-connected cities relying on mass public transportation may save more than $3 trillion in investment costs over the next 15 years and would improve economic performance and quality of life, according to the […]

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In decades of public debate about global warming, one assumption has been accepted by virtually all factions: that tackling it would necessarily be costly. But a new report casts doubt on that idea, declaring that the necessary fixes could wind up being effectively free. A global commission will announce its finding on Tuesday that an ambitious series of measures to limit emissions would cost $4 trillion or so over the next 15 years, an increase of roughly 5 percent over the amount that would likely be spent anyway on new power plants, transit systems and other infrastructure. When the secondary benefits of greener policies — like lower fuel costs, fewer premature deaths from air pollution and reduced medical bills — are taken into account, the changes might wind up saving money, according to the findings of the group, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate . “We are […]

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 (UPI) — USGS analysis finds water temperatures from July to September in the region in recent decades were about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer when compared to a century earlier. Ilsa Kuffner, lead author for the USGS report, said water temperatures are on average 84 degrees Fahrenheit during the late summer months . "When corals are exposed to water temperatures above 84 F they grow more slowly and, during extended exposure periods, can stop growing altogether or die," the USGS marine biologist said. The study comes on the heels of two reports warning of the impact of global climate change. A report this week from the World Meteorological Organization finds the warming effect of the atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases is increasing in part because of the continued use of fossil fuels . A study from the National Audubon Society suggests many North American bird species may […]

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"We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. WMO published its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin Tuesday. It found the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere last year reached a new record in part because of an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide levels are 142 percent higher than a 1750 benchmark, a year WMO set as the start of the industrial era. For methane, emissions are 253 percent higher and nitrous oxide emissions were 121 percent more than the 1750 benchmark. Since 1990, the WMO said radiative forcing — the warming effect on the climate — is up 34 percent because of the persistence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Last year, WMO said, CO2 levels in […]

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"You can go green and continue to prosper and develop — that is the strong message we will be taking to the global community in the coming months," British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey said in a statement. The British government launched its so-called Paris 2015 document ahead of next year’s international climate summit in France. The document outlines how acting now on cutting greenhouse gas emissions can help deter future climate disasters. The government’s agenda describes how it’s giving "a decisive political signal" that the future of energy is low-carbon . Davey said the United Kingdom is already feeling the worst impacts of climate change. The British government said winter storms in December and January led to the wettest period in the country since record-keeping began. There’s an "increasing body of evidence" to suggest intense weather is "consistent with what is expected from the fundamental physics […]

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If you’re a politician, science is a bitch; it resists spin. And a new set of studies—about, of all things, a simple molecule known as CH4—show that President Obama’s climate change strategy is starting to unravel even as it’s being knit. To be specific: most of the administration’s theoretical gains in the fight against global warming have come from substituting natural gas for coal . But it looks now as if that doesn’t really help. In a very real sense it’s not entirely the president’s fault. When Obama took office in 2008 he decided to deal with health care before climate change, in essence tackling the biggest remaining problem of the 20th century before teeing up the biggest challenge of the 21st. His team told environmentalists that they wouldn’t be talking about global warming, focusing instead on “green jobs.” Obama did seize the opportunity offered by the auto industry […]

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Greenhouse gases reached historic highs in 2013, a U.N. report says, in part because of rising emissions from automobiles and smokestacks. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images) Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose at a record-shattering pace last year, a new report shows, a surge that surprised scientists and spurred fears of an accelerated warming of the planet in decades to come. Concentrations of nearly all the major greenhouse gases reached historic highs in 2013, reflecting ever-rising emissions from automobiles and smokestacks but also, scientists believe, a diminishing ability of the world’s oceans and plant life to soak up the excess carbon put into the atmosphere by humans, according to data released early Tuesday by the United Nations’ meteorological advisory body. The latest figures from the World Meteorological Organization’s monitoring network are considered particularly significant because they reflect not only the amount of carbon pumped into the air by […]

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