Climate Now

On this week's episode of Climate News Weekly, James Lawler is joined by Julio Friedmann and Darren Hau as they discuss the latest US-China climate statement ahead of COP28, new developments in the EV space , the US's Fifth National Climate Assessment , the impact of climate change on Taylor Swift concerts , and more. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn , Facebook , and Instagram . Contact us...

In this week's episode of Climate News Weekly, James Lawler and Ben Hone, Climate Now's Marketing Manager sit down with Nathaniel Stinnett, Founder & Executive Director of the Environmental Voter Project, to go over last week's US elections and what they mean for climate action. Then, James is joined by Julio Friedmann and Darren Hau to discuss the past week's top climate h...

“Geoengineering” refers to the intentional intervention in Earth processes for the purpose of mitigating climate change. A controversial topic, geoengineering is typically divided into two categories: carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management. This second category, also known as SRM, made headlines this summer when the White House released a report that “ opened the door ” to future re...

On today’s Climate News Weekly episode, James Lawler is joined by Julio Friedmann. They pay tribute to Saleemul Huq , leading climate action advocate from Bangladesh who passed away on October 28, discuss issues facing the Panama Canal and how they impacts global trade , and have a conversation about two offshore wind stories: Ørsted's announcement that it is abandoning its New Jersey project...

On today’s Climate News Weekly episode, James Lawler is joined by Dina Cappiello to discuss Chevron's latest acquisition of Hess , what really happens when CO2 is captured in the US , the severe impacts of Hurricane Otis and what they mean , and more. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn , Facebook , and Instagram . Contact us at contact@climatenow.com Visit our website for all of our content and s...

In 2015, Pope Francis - head of the Catholic Church - published Laudato Si: On Care For Our Common Home , a “papal cyclical,” or open letter, to the world’s more than 1.3 billion Catholics   about the ethical imperative of addressing climate change, and the relationship between environmental stewardship and social justice. The publication had an impact: in church-goers’ confidence in the scientifi...

On today’s Climate News Weekly episode, James Lawler, Julio Friedmann, and Dina Cappiello discuss the need to invest in our grids to ensure a reliable energy transition , in the US and abroad , the sobering reality that climate change is speeding up species' extinctions , and how new European climate reporting rules for companies will impact future decision-making.  Follow us on Twitter, Link...

On today’s Climate News Weekly episode, James Lawler, Julio Friedmann, and Dina Cappiello discuss Tesla's new prices for their electric vehicles , Exxon's massive purchase of rival Pioneer Natural Resources for $60 billion , the announcement of 7 new hydrogen hubs by the White House , and the latest on the EU's progress towards their climate goals . Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn ,...

The US's energy system is at a crossroads. As more and more renewable energy projects come online and demand for electricity keeps rising , many utilities and developers are being asked to build more transmission infrastructure to bring all this power to consumers.  In this episode, we explore the challenges faced in developing new long-distance, high-voltage transmission lines, and the impor...

On today’s Climate News Weekly episode, James Lawler and Julio Friedmann discuss how a US government shut down could impact firefighter pay , the oil and gas industry Adipec conference and what it means ahead of COP28, the latest EV sale numbers , and how Pope Francis' new letter, "Laudate Deum," relates to climate action.  Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn , Facebook , and Instagram ....

On today’s Climate News Weekly episode, Dina Cappiello recaps her Climate Week NYC experience. We discuss the International Energy Agency’s updated 1.5°C scenario , including an in-depth explanation of what a “scenario” is, China’s strong stance against phasing out fossil fuels , and the potential promises of Fervo Energy’s newest geothermal plant breaking ground . Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn ,...

The United States’ aging electricity grid is a problem. Over 70% of the major transmission networks – which transfer electricity from power generation centers to endpoint users in homes and buildings, sometimes in other states – are at least 25 years old, and much of the grid was built in the 1960s and 1970s. As the number of renewable energy projects being built to meet clean energy goals increas...

From a new White House climate jobs training program that echoes the Civilian Conservation Corp of the FDR era, to UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rolling back carbon reduction targets , global leaders are taking a stance after the UN’s Climate Week in New York. Also, big industry is grappling with finding low-carbon business models that can outlive government subsidies, a close examination of cli...

This has been a big week for nations and companies ‘talking the talk’ about reducing their emissions footprints, from updated commitments at the G20 summit , to a carbon-neutral product launch by Apple, and the family that owns the Mærsk shipping company creating its own clean shipping fuel supply chain with a green methanol subsidiary company.  But which of these groups are also ‘walking the walk...

When the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law in August 2022, policy analysts predicted that the incentives it provided for renewable energy deployment, home electrification and EV adoption would put the U.S. on track to reach at least two thirds of its 2030 emissions reduction target . Twelve months later, we can now start to track how well the nation is progressing towards those pred...

This past week the climate has been busy inundating every aspect of life: Hurricane Idalia caused damages across Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas , fueled by increased ocean temperatures . Meanwhile insurance companies are leaving, yet Florida's governor refuses to take money from the Inflation Reduction Act to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state. In Ecuador, the Yasuní Refer...

You may recall an Auxin Solar tariff case in which a small domestic solar PV manufacturer, Auxin Solar, alleged that solar cells produced in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam were circumventing U.S. trade duties against China. On August 18th, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued their final ruling in the case , determining that solar cells from those countries were in fact circumventing...

There are over 8 billion square meters of rooftops in the US that are viable for solar energy generation, and could produce as much as 40% of national energy needs. And yet, only 8% of US households have installed rooftop solar panels. With so much available space, and with the average cost of energy from solar much lower than the cost of energy from the grid, why aren't more homeowners insta...

One of the most controversial parts of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act - the most ambitious climate spending bill in history - was the large pot of federal dollars that could now subsidize the nascent Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) industry. The bill provides for the expansion of the 45Q tax credit , which now allocates up to $85 per metric ton of CO2 that is captured from a point source of emi...

The Nobel-prize winning discovery of how to create synthetic ammonia has been called the “ most momentous technical advance in history ,” and for good reason. Today about half of the food consumed worldwide comes from the increased harvest yields resulting from ammonia-based fertilizers. We could not sustain the global population without it. While ammonia production is critical to modern day globa...

2020 was a record breaking season for forest fires in California. Over 4 million acres burned , releasing enough CO2 into the atmosphere to wipe out the prior 18 years of emissions reductions progress in the state. Effective forest restoration and management can make forests more resilient to the increasing threats of climate change: drought, fire and insects, and help ensure that the carbon trapp...

In September 2022, two pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia across the floor of the North Sea were sabotaged, rupturing and emitting an estimated 500,000 tons of the potent greenhouse gas methane (the primary component of natural gas) into the atmosphere before they could be sealed again. While the impact of these Nord Stream pipeline explosions on climate change was widely covered in the ne...

The Biden Administration in the U.S. has set a goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050 , which among other things means that U.S. households, and the appliances and machines that run within them, will need to be powered almost entirely by carbon-free electricity. A practical implication of that goal is that about 1 billion machines in homes across the nation will need to be replaced...

In 2003 , the U.S. Department of Defense released a report entitled, “ An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security ,” which “imagined the unthinkable” – that gradual global warming could lead to relatively abrupt changes in climate patterns, significantly reducing global food production, and with it “the human carrying capacity of the Earth’s environm...

Landfills emit about 2% of the world's greenhouse gases , but in terms of lowering global emissions, they represent some of the lowest hanging fruit. When organic waste – like municipal food waste, agricultural waste, and forest residue – is disposed of by burial in a landfill or incineration, the organic material within is broken down to methane or CO2, and released to the atmosphere. But if...