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most Americans would support energy-conserving policies only if they cost households less than $200 per year — woefully short of the investment required to keep warming under catastrophic rates. This inaction is breathtakingly immoral.

Why would we mortgage our future — and that of our children, and their children — rather than temper our addiction to fossil fuels? Knowing what we know, why is it so hard to change our ways?

Deeply empathic people tend to be environmentally responsible, but our caring instincts are shortsighted and dissolve across space and time, making it harder for us to deal with things that haven’t happened yet.

Back in 2016, as she campaigned for Hillary Clinton, Laura Hubka could feel her county converting.

"People were chasing me out the door, slamming the door in my face, calling Hillary names," Hubka recalled.

In 2012, Howard County voted for then-President Barack Obama by 21 percentage points. In 2016, it voted for candidate Donald Trump by 20 points.

Record global greenhouse gas emissions are putting the world on a path toward unacceptable warming, with serious implications for development prospects in Africa.

But IPCC, the world’s foremost authority for assessing the science of climate change, says it is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5° C—if, and only if, there are “rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities.” For sub-Saharan Africa, which has experienced more frequent and more intense climate extremes over the past decades, the ramifications of the world’s warming by more than 1.5° C would be profound. Temperature increases in the region are projected to be higher than the global mean temperature increase; regions in Africa within 15 degrees of the equator are projected to experience an increase in hot nights as well as longer and more frequent heat waves.

As part of the Paris Agreement, countries made national commitments to take steps to reduce emissions and build resilience. The treaty also called for increased financial support from developed countries to assist the climate action efforts of developing countries. But even at the time that the Paris Agreement was adopted, it was recognized that the commitments on the table would not be enough. Even if the countries did everything they promised, global temperatures would rise by 3° C this century. According to the IPCC, projections show that the western Sahel region will experience the strongest drying, with a significant increase in the maximum length of dry spells. The IPCC expects Central Africa to see a decrease in the length of wet spells and a slight increase in heavy rainfall.

How big a deal are the climate provisions? The World Resources Institute has called the bill “one of the most significant pieces of climate legislation that Congress has passed in its history.”

The major provisions include: a $35 billion investment in new zero-emission energy technology (including solar, wind, nuclear, and carbon-capture storage); an extension of tax credits for wind and solar energy, which were set to expire; and, most significantly, a plan for phasing out hydrofluorocarbons, a small but extremely potent greenhouse gas used as a coolant.

the amount of good climate policy in this bill is shocking

A trade pact with 14 other Asian nations. A pledge to join other countries in reducing carbon emissions to fight global warming. Now, an investment agreement with the European Union.

In doing so, he has underlined how difficult it will be for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to forge a united front with allies against China’s authoritarian policies and trade practices, a central focus of the new administration’s plan to compete with Beijing and check its rising power.

China agreed, at least on paper, to loosen many of the restrictions imposed on European companies working in China, open up China to European banks and observe international standards on forced labor.

When President Trump flies to California on Monday to assess the state’s raging forest fires, he will come face to face with the grim consequences of a reality he has stubbornly refused to accept: the devastating effects of a warming planet.

“It’s mind-boggling, the ignorance that he displays on this subject,” Ms. Whitman said in an interview on Sunday. “He doesn’t understand climate change. He doesn’t particularly believe in science. It’s all about him and his re-election.”

Mr. Trump has doubled down on his anti-climate agenda as a way of appealing to his core supporters.

many of his policies are being cut down by the courts — even by Republican-appointed jurists who the administration had hoped would be friendly.

many of his policies are being cut down by the courts — even by Republican-appointed jurists who the administration had hoped would be friendly.

A second term, coupled with a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court, could save some of his biggest environmental rollbacks.

getting Joe Biden elected is important for the left, for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with Biden’s own politics. If Donald Trump is reelected, the chance of serious climate action dwindles to nothing, while there is at least a chance of compelling Biden to actually act on his climate platform. It will not be easy. At every turn the Democratic Party will try to compromise and take measures that are symbolic rather than substantive. But there is a conceivable strategy. 

Understandably, many leftists are not terribly pleased by the prospect of having to vote for Joe Biden, a man who has shown contempt for them and their values, and has a documented history of predatory behavior towards women. But when voting is considered in terms of its consequences rather than as an expressive act, our personal opinions of Joe Biden become essentially irrelevant. If, under the circumstances we find ourselves in, a Biden presidency is a precondition for any form of left political success, and there are no other options, then we must try to bring it about

Isn’t supporting “the lesser of two evils” still supporting evil? Why should I help someone get into office who has shown no willingness to support my policies, who feels entitled to my vote, who is not going to do anything to woo me?

Trump is pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, signed by almost every country, and has lifted limits on planet-warming emissions

Trump has weakened the Endangered Species Act, arguing that it hurt the economy, and rolled back regulations on hunting, fishing and animal welfare.

Trump has cut protections for wetlands, shrunk national monuments and backed logging and drilling in national forests and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.Biden wants to ban new oil and gas permits on public lands and in public waters, and protect 30 percent of the country’s land by 2030.

pocalypse often feels inevitable. After all, aren’t we in the “sixth mass extinction”? Haven’t populations of wild animals already crashed by 60 percent? Don’t we have just “10 years left” to avert climate meltdown? Do we really dare to hope?

in every case, there is a path through.

framing can make extinction feel like a force too huge and powerful to avert.

As his state was racked by an electricity crisis that left millions of people without heat in frigid temperatures, the governor of Texas took to television to start placing blame.

The main problem was frigid temperatures that stalled natural gas production, which is responsible for the majority of Texas’ power supply. Wind makes up just a fraction — 7 percent or so, by some estimates — of the state’s overall mix of power generation this time of year.

The efforts came despite the fact that the burning of fossil fuels — which causes climate change by releasing vast amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere — is helping to drive the phenomenon of increasingly dangerous hurricanes and other storms, as well as unusual weather patterns.

Mr. Biden’s lofty goal is to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury and to eliminate fossil fuel emissions from the power sector by 2035

In the simplest terms, this will mean electrifying everything in sight: a huge increase in battery-powered cars and in charging stations to serve them; a big jump in the number of homes and buildings heated by electric heat pumps instead of oil and gas; and, crucially, a grid that delivers all this electricity from clean energy sources like wind and solar.

This, in turn, will require from Congress a cleareyed look at the climate-driven calamities that have beset California, the Caribbean and, most recently, Texas. It will also require an honest accounting of their great cost, in both human and financial terms,

Without the oil industry’s balance-sheets and project-management skills, it is hard to imagine the world building anything like enough wind farms, solar parks and other forms of clean energy to stop catastrophic global warming.

The question is no longer “whether” Big Oil has a big role to play in averting the climate crisis. It is “when”.

To cynics, all the climate-friendly noises amount to little in practice, since few people are ready to make carbon-cutting sacrifices that would force oil firms’ hand. But noises are sometimes followed by action. Should they be this time, the 2020s may be do-or-die for the oil industry.

They feel that China, the world’s biggest emitter, is doing more than it is given credit for, including plans to peak coal consumption by 2025 and add more new wind and solar power capacity by 2030 than the entire installed electricity system of the US.

Wang, a key consultant on China’s decarbonisation strategy and five-year plan, said his country had delivered a policy framework and detailed roadmap to cut emissions, while other nations were congratulating themselves on vague long-term promises

“To reach our targets, we have outlined a change to our entire system, not just in the energy sector but across society and the economy. Nobody knows this.”

Carbon capture has been a popular idea within the coal, oil and gas sectors for years now. The technology is not out of reach. Plenty of pilot projects have been launched. But so far no one has been able to make it a paying proposition. A pioneering $7.5 billion carbon capture power plant in Mississippi was razed with dynamite on Oct. 9 after its owners wrote it off as an 11-year-old economic failure. North Dakota hopes to break through that last barrier, for both coal and oil.

“True wealth is created by a partnership between man and earth,” said Bohrer. If Project Tundra can show that stuffing carbon dioxide back into the earth is economically feasible, he said, “it’s opening the door for a CO2 economy. It gives the lignite industry a way to survive.”

His group has launched a promotional campaign called Drive Electric North Dakota, which sponsors promotional events, conducts public attitude surveys and lobbies for EVs in the state capital. It has been an uphill struggle so far, but the idea is that the electricity needed to charge cars and trucks can’t all come from unreliable wind or solar, and this will give coal a way to stay in the mix and help keep the grid in fine tune. “The more demand we have in North Dakota,” Bohrer said, “the easier it is to soak up our domestically produced electricity.”

Despite the climate crisis deepening by the day, Greta Thunberg has learned how to be happy.

Thunberg is now 18 years old and campaigning as ferociously as ever, while living in her own apartment (where she is speaking from), hanging out with friends and having fun. She is turning into the kind of young woman that neither she nor her parents could have ever envisaged.

At the age of 11 she fell into a deep depression and stopped eating and talking. Why does she think she was so unhappy? “One of the reasons was I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that people didn’t seem to care about anything, that everyone just cared about themselves rather than everything that was happening with the world. And being an oversensitive child with autism, it was definitely something I thought about a lot, and it made me sad.”

In a 368-page document published this week, the government announced its strategy to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 and confirmed its target for all electricity to come from low carbon sources by 2035. 

the net zero debate has essentially boiled down to how quickly the cultural elite can enforce total eco-austerity, rather than a nuanced discussion about trade-offs. Parliament declared a climate emergency in May 2019, and hasn’t looked back since.

Proponents of net zero justify the policy with a range of pathways that supposedly show that it is both achievable and affordable. But a vast number of uncertain assumptions undermine their claims

Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said the U.S. economy is facing unprecedented risks that have him preparing for dramatic upheavals.

Consumers and businesses are flush with cash, wages are rising and the economy is growing rapidly after its pandemic slowdown. While consumer confidence has declined, Mr. Dimon says the more important gauge is booming spending.

Yet Mr. Dimon warned that the war in Ukraine could collide with rising inflation to slow the pandemic recovery and alter global alliances for decades to come.

in a televised election debate that saw centre-left frontrunner Olaf Scholz declared winner despite swipes from his conservative rival.

Scholz accused his CDU rival of being “dishonest” for suggesting he himself stood accused of wrongdoing, and boasted of his own effort to modernise the ministry he has led for three years.

The Green candidate criticised the largest two parties for their unambitious carbon emissions targets, arguing that Germany needed to switch off its coal power plants significantly earlier than 2038, as planned.

Over the next five years, the CHIPS Act will direct an estimated $67 billion, or roughly a quarter of its total funding, toward accelerating the growth of zero-carbon industries and conducting climate-relevant research, according to an analysis from RMI, a nonpartisan energy think tank based in Colorado.

That means that the CHIPS Act is one of the largest climate bills ever passed by Congress. It exceeds the total amount of money that the government spent on renewable-energy tax credits from 2005 to 2019

And it’s more than half the size of the climate spending in President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill. That’s all the more remarkable because the CHIPS Act was passed by large bipartisan majorities, with 41 Republicans and nearly all Democrats supporting it in the House and the Senate.