The Green Blueprint

This is a branded episode, produced in collaboration with Intersect Power. Sheldon Kimber has spent the last 20 years developing energy projects. He’s overseen the build-out of billions of dollars worth of large-scale solar plants. Getting those solar projects in the ground wasn't easy. Abrupt national policy shifts, international trade wars, and local regulatory hurdles made every megawatt a figh...

Climate researchers are increasingly using the term “maladaptation” to describe adaptation measures that bring unforeseen negative consequences to local communities. From building levees that inadvertently increased flood risk in Bangladesh to a hydroelectric dam that cut off land access in Vietnam, examples of maladaptation are popping up all over the world.  In the U.S., Miami has invested hundr...

President Biden entered the White House promising to use climate solutions as his main tool for raising wages, revitalizing infrastructure, and tackling inequality. But almost overnight, that framing changed from transforming the American economy to protecting consumers. Gasoline prices are at their highest levels in US history because of supply disruptions caused by Russia's attack on Ukraine. An...

The civilian and military death toll from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is growing daily. More than 1.5 million people have fled Ukraine for neighboring countries in the fastest refugee migration since WWII.   But the effects of this war aren’t just humanitarian; they’re economic. That’s because so much of it is tied up in global energy flows. Russia is one of the biggest fossil fuel pro...

Six out of seven car commercials during this year’s Superbowl touted electric vehicles (EVs). That’s up from zero EV ads just four years ago.  Ford, Chevy, GMC and Toyota are all betting big on electric, and they’re hoping electric models of their most popular light-duty trucks will entice a whole new class of drivers. It’s led many car manufacturers and analysts to call 2022 “The Year of the Elec...

Climate change is impacting people’s lives across the globe – from mass migrations to resource conflicts. For the US military, it’s become one of the nation’s top security risks.  After years of risk assessments, the military is now talking about how it intends to address those risks. It all culminated in the military’s most ambitious plan to date: A new, comprehensive climate agenda that envision...

Note: this is a crossover episode between The Carbon Copy and Columbia Energy Exchange. The conflict between Ukraine and Russia is intensifying. President Biden says that Putin could send troops into Ukraine any day. Some NATO countries, including the US, are sending military equipment to Ukraine. But Germany is holding back. And that is partly because of fears over gas supply. Jason Bordoff has b...

For the first time ever, the Winter Olympic games will rely entirely on artificial snow.  It’s a reality that could become more common as the planet warms. And it has environmental experts concerned.  Nearly 50 million gallons of water are being piped in to serve the Beijing games, possibly setting reserves in this water-stressed region back by hundreds of years. Meanwhile, China says this year's...

Batteries are everywhere. In our electronics, our power tools, our electric grid, and in our cars. And almost all those batteries use a lithium-ion chemistry. To make an all-electric world possible, we're going to need a lot of lithium. Prices are up 400 percent over 2021. And demand is expected to increase fivefold over the next decade. The Imperial Valley in southern California is home to the Sa...

Note: this is a crossover episode between The Big Switch and The Carbon Copy. If you like what you hear, consider subscribing to both. When Covid disrupted the economy and shifted energy use, it sharply brought down economy-wide carbon emissions. Many wondered: would the pandemic-related changes to our energy system help or hurt the path to a net-zero carbon economy? Two years later, we have clear...

Note: this is a crossover episode between Volts and The Carbon Copy. If you like what you hear, consider subscribing to both. Pop culture is increasingly grappling with climate change themes. And some of it is appealing to wide audiences. But Hollywood films with climate themes are often dystopic and heavy-handed. They fail to consider the forces causing it right now in nuanced ways. So when David...

Hawaii wants a carbon-free electric grid by 2045. First, the island of Oahu must replace a major coal plant later this year. But will there be enough renewable energy to fill the gap? This week on The Carbon Copy: we examine the delays that are causing complications with Hawaii’s transition away from coal.  We’re joined by Canary Senior Reporter Julian Spector, who recently traveled to Oahu to inv...

President Biden wants to slash America’s carbon emissions by half in a decade. He can’t achieve that goal without passing Build Back Better, a massive social-spending bill that devotes half a trillion dollars to clean energy. Build Back Better would be the biggest American investment in climate technologies and programs ever. The stakes couldn’t be higher. But with a slim Democratic majority in th...

Every December, TIME magazine picks an individual or group of people to be the "person of the year."  This year, TIME picked a guy who equally inspires and infuriates: Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk is a culture-shifting CEO who brought the business of climate solutions into the zeitgeist in surprising – and sometimes weird – ways He became the wealthiest person in the world partly because he sold his...

The term “carbon footprint” is everywhere. But it’s not rooted in the environmental movement. It’s rooted in a two-decade corporate marketing campaign created by an oil giant. Mashable Reporter Mark Kaufman recently dug into the backstory of the term. He looked at the history of how companies have used advertising to shift the burden of responsibility for industry pollution away from them, and ont...

At the start of the year, a city councilman in Tampa, Florida crafted a resolution for 100% clean energy by 2030. The resolution was non-binding and quite common. Nearly 200 cities around America have vowed to get 100% of their electricity from zero-carbon resources.  But it also included language that would set off a political chain reaction in the state: an aspiration to phase out fossil fuels....

In 2019, the Green New Deal became a mobilizing force. Even without federal action, organizers started pushing cities across America to craft their own versions.  One of those cities was Ithaca, New York. Ithaca is making a bold promise: to eliminate all emissions from buildings by 2030.  To make the program a reality, the city needs to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. Ithaca's budget is $80...

COP26 ended in Glasgow, Scotland last week with a final deal. It established a framework for reporting emissions and trading carbon credits, called on countries to step up their targets next year, and included a mention of fossil fuels for the first time. That mention of a “phase out” of fossil fuels almost killed the deal altogether. In the final moments of the conference, India lobbied to weaken...

When the pandemic shut down the global economy in March of 2020, demand for oil and gas collapsed. It raised questions about whether we'd hit peak demand for petroleum. But things look very different at the end of 2021. Oil and gas prices are now at multi-year highs. And as world leaders gathered for climate talks in Scotland to discuss lowering fossil fuel use, there were calls to increase oil pr...

Climate change is not a distant science story. It's a story about how everything in our carbon-based economy works -- and how it's getting re-worked. The Carbon Copy is a weekly news analysis show that explains the changing planet through the lens of current events. In each episode, we talk to a journalist, executive, subject expert, practitioner or newsmaker to understand what their story tells u...