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We might be closer to changing course on climate change than we realized

News Feed
Thursday, April 25, 2024

The world might soon see a sustained decline in greenhouse gas emissions. | Eric Yang/Getty Images Greenhouse gas emissions might have already peaked. Now they need to fall — fast. Earth is coming out of the hottest year on record, amplifying the destruction from hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, and drought. The oceans remain alarmingly warm, triggering the fourth global coral bleaching event in history. Concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere have reached levels not seen on this planet for millions of years, while humanity’s demand for the fossil fuels that produce this pollution is the highest it has ever been. Yet at the same time, the world may be closer than ever to turning a corner in the effort to corral climate change. Last year, more solar panels were installed in China — the world’s largest carbon emitter — than the US has installed in its entire history. More electric vehicles were sold worldwide than ever. Energy efficiency is improving. Dozens of countries are widening the gap between their economic growth and their greenhouse gas emissions. And governments stepped up their ambitions to curb their impact on the climate, particularly when it comes to potent greenhouse gases like methane. If these trends continue, global emissions may actually start to decline. Climate Analytics, a think tank, published a report last November that raised the intriguing possibility that the worst of our impact on the climate might be behind us. “We find there is a 70% chance that emissions start falling in 2024 if current clean technology growth trends continue and some progress is made to cut non-CO2 emissions,” authors wrote. “This would make 2023 the year of peak emissions.” “It was actually a result that surprised us as well,” said Neil Grant, a climate and energy analyst at Climate Analytics and a co-author of the report. “It’s rare in the climate space that you get good news like this.” The inertia behind this trend toward lower emissions is so immense that even politics can only slow it down, not stop it. Many of the worst-case climate scenarios imagined in past decades are now much less likely. The United States, the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter, has already climbed down from its peak in 2005 and is descending further. In March, Carbon Brief conducted an analysis of how US greenhouse gas emissions would fare under a second Trump or a second Biden administration. They found that Trump’s stated goals of boosting fossil fuel development and scrapping climate policies would increase US emissions by 4 billion metric tons by 2030. But even under Trump, US emissions are likely to slide downward. This is a clear sign that efforts to limit climate change are having a durable impact. Carbon Brief US emissions are on track to decline regardless of who wins the White House in November, but current policies are not yet in line with US climate goals. However, four months into 2024, it seems unlikely that the world has reached the top of the mountain just yet. Fossil fuel demand is still poised to rise further in part because of more economic growth in developing countries. Technologies like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies are raising overall energy demand as well. Still, that it’s possible at all to conceive of bending the curve in the near term after more than a century of relentless growth shows that there’s a radical change underway in the relationship between energy, prosperity, and pollution — that standards of living can go up even as emissions from coal, oil, and gas go down. Greenhouse gases are not a runaway rocket, but a massive, slow-turning cargo ship. It took decades of technology development, years of global bickering, and billions of dollars to wrench its rudder in the right direction, and it’s unlikely to change course fast enough to meet the most ambitious climate change targets. But once underway, it will be hard to stop. We might be close to an inflection point on greenhouse gas emissions Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, greenhouse gas emissions have risen in tandem with wealth and an expanding population. Since the 1990s and the 2000s, that direct link has been separated in at least 30 countries, including the US, Singapore, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Their economies have grown while their impact on the climate has shrunk per person. In the past decade, the rate of global carbon dioxide pollution has held fairly level or risen slowly even as the global economy and population has grown by wider margins. Worldwide per capita emissions have also held steady over the past decade. “We can be fairly confident that we’ve flattened the curve,” said Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at SEI US, an environmental think tank, who was not involved in the Climate Analytics study. Still, this means that humanity is adding to the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — and doing so at close to its fastest pace ever. It’s good that this pace is at least not accelerating, but the plateau implies a world that will continue to get warmer. To halt rising temperatures, humans will have to stop emitting greenhouse gases, zeroing their net output, and even start withdrawing the carbon previously emitted. The world thus needs another drastic downward turn in its emissions trajectory to limit climate change. “I wouldn’t get out any balloons or fireworks over flattening emissions,” Lazarus said. Then there’s the clock. In order to meet the Paris climate agreement target of limiting warming this century to less than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) on average above pre-industrial temperatures, the world must slash carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. That means power generators, trucks, aircraft, farms, construction sites, home appliances, and manufacturing plants all over the world will have to rapidly clean up. The current round of international climate commitments puts the planet on track to warm by 5.4°F (3°C) by the end of the century. That’s a world in which the likelihood of a major heat wave in a given year would more than double compared to 2.7°F of warming, where extreme rainfall events would almost double, and more than one in 10 people would face threats from sea level rise. “That puts us in this race between the really limited time left to bend the emissions curve and start that project towards zero, but we are also seeing this sort of huge growth, an acceleration in clean technology deployment,” Grant said. “And so we wanted to see which of these factors is winning the race at the moment and where we are at.” Grant and his team mapped out three scenarios. The first is a baseline based on forecasts from the International Energy Agency on how current climate policies and commitments would play out. It shows that fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions would reach a peak this year, but emissions of other heat-trapping gases like methane and hydrofluorocarbons would keep rising, so overall greenhouse gas emissions would level off. The second scenario, dubbed “low effort,” builds on the first, but also assumes that countries will begin to fulfill their promises under agreements like the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane pollution 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030 and the Kigali Amendment to phase out HFCs. Under this pathway, total global emissions reach their apex in 2025. The third scenario imagines a world where clean technology — renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy efficiency — continues gaining ground at current rates, outstripping energy demand growth and displacing coal, oil, and natural gas. That would mean greenhouse gases would have already peaked in 2023 and are now on a long, sustained decline. Climate Analytics Global greenhouse gas emissions are likely to fall in the coming years, but the rate of decline depends on policies and technology development. The stories look different when you zoom in to individual countries, however. While overall emissions are poised to decline, some developing countries will continue to see their output grow while wealthier countries make bigger cuts. As noted, the US has already climbed down from its peak. China expects to see its emissions curve change directions by 2025. India, the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter, may see its emissions grow until 2045. All three of these pathways anticipate some sort of peak in global emissions before the end of the decade, illustrating that the world has many of the tools it needs to address climate change and that a lot of work in deploying clean energy and cleaning up the biggest polluters is already in progress. There will still be year-to-year variations from phenomena like El Niño that can raise electricity demand during heat waves or shocks like pandemics that reduce travel or conflicts that force countries to change their energy priorities. But according to the report, the overall trend over decades is still downward. To be clear, the Carbon Analytics study is one of the more optimistic projections out there, but it’s not that far off from what other groups have found. In its own analysis, the International Energy Agency reports that global carbon dioxide emissions “are set to peak this decade.” The consulting firm McKinsey anticipates that greenhouse gases will begin to decline before 2030, also finding that 2023 may have been the apogee. Global emissions could just as easily shoot back up if governments and companies give up on their goals Within the energy sector, Ember, a think tank, found that emissions might have peaked in 2022. Research firm Rystad Energy expects that fossil fuel emissions will reach their pinnacle in 2025. Bending the curve still requires even more deliberate, thoughtful efforts to address climate change — policies to limit emissions, deploying clean energy, doing more with less, and innovation. Conversely, global emissions could just as easily shoot back up if governments and companies give up on their goals. “Peaking is absolutely not a guarantee,” Grant said. And if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, even at a slower rate, Earth will continue heating up. It means more polar ice will melt, lifting sea levels along every ocean, increasing storm surges and floods during cyclones. It means more dangerous heat waves. It means more parts of the world will be unlivable. We’re close to bending the curve — but that doesn’t mean the rest will be easy There are some other caveats to consider. One is that it’s tricky to simply get a full tally of humanity’s total impact on the climate. Scientists can measure carbon dioxide concentrations in the sky, but it’s tougher to trace where those molecules came from. Burning fossil fuels is the dominant way humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Since they’re closely tracked commercial commodities, there are robust estimates for their contributions to climate change and how they change over time. But humans are also degrading natural carbon-absorbing ecosystems like mangrove forests. Losing carbon sinks increases the net amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Altering how we use land, like clearing forests for farms, also shifts the balance of carbon. These changes can have further knock-on effects for the environment, and ecosystems like tropical rainforests could reach tipping points where they undergo irreversible, self-propagating shifts that limit how much carbon they can absorb. All this makes it hard to nail down a specific time frame for when emissions will peak and what the consequences will be. There’s also the thorny business of figuring out who is accountable for which emissions. Fossil fuels are traded across borders, and it’s not always clear whose ledger high-polluting sectors like international aviation and shipping should fall on. Depending on the methodology, these gray areas can lead to double-counting or under-counting. “It’s very difficult to get a complete picture, and even if we get the little bits and pieces, there’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Luca Lo Re, climate and energy analyst at the IEA. Even with these uncertainties, it’s clear that the scale of the course correction needed to meet climate goals is immense. According to the Climate Analytics report, to meet the 2030 targets for cutting emissions, the world will need to stop deforestation, stop any new fossil fuel development, double energy efficiency, and triple renewable energy. Another way to illustrate the enormity of this task is the Covid-19 pandemic. The world experienced a sudden drop in global emissions as travel shut down, businesses closed, people stayed home, and economies shrank. Carbon dioxide output has now rebounded to an even higher level. Reducing emissions on an even larger scale without increasing suffering — in fact, improving welfare for more people — will require not just clean technology but careful policy. Seeing emissions level off or decline in many parts of the world as economies have grown in recent decades outside of the pandemic is an important validation that the efforts to limit climate change are having their intended effect. “Emissions need to decrease for the right reasons,” Lo Re said. “It is reasonable to believe our efforts are working.” The mounting challenge is that energy demand is poised to grow. Even though many countries have decoupled their emissions from their GDPs, those emissions are still growing. Many governments are also contending with higher interest rates, making it harder to finance new clean energy development just as the world needs a massive buildout of solar panels, wind turbines, and transmission lines. And peaking emissions isn’t enough: They have to fall. Fast. The longer it takes to reach the apex, the steeper the drop-off needed on the other side in order to meet climate goals. Right now, the world is poised to walk down a gentle sloping hill of greenhouse gas emissions instead of the plummeting roller coaster required to limit warming this century to less than 2.7°F/1.5°C. It’s increasingly unlikely that this goal is achievable. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change To meet global climate targets, greenhouse gas emissions need to fall precipitously. Finally, the ultimate validation of peak greenhouse emissions and a sustained decline can only be determined with hindsight. “We can’t know if we peaked in 2023 until we get to 2030,” said Lazarus. The world may be closer than ever to bending the curve on greenhouse gas emissions downward, but those final few degrees of inflection may be the hardest. The next few years will shape the warming trajectory for much of the rest of the century, but obstacles ranging from political turmoil to international conflict to higher interest rates could slow progress against climate change just as decarbonization needs to accelerate. “We should be humble,” Grant said. “The future is yet unwritten and is in our hands.”

Smoke pouring out of chimneys at a power plant.
The world might soon see a sustained decline in greenhouse gas emissions. | Eric Yang/Getty Images

Greenhouse gas emissions might have already peaked. Now they need to fall — fast.

Earth is coming out of the hottest year on record, amplifying the destruction from hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, and drought. The oceans remain alarmingly warm, triggering the fourth global coral bleaching event in history. Concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere have reached levels not seen on this planet for millions of years, while humanity’s demand for the fossil fuels that produce this pollution is the highest it has ever been.

Yet at the same time, the world may be closer than ever to turning a corner in the effort to corral climate change.

Last year, more solar panels were installed in China — the world’s largest carbon emitter — than the US has installed in its entire history. More electric vehicles were sold worldwide than ever. Energy efficiency is improving. Dozens of countries are widening the gap between their economic growth and their greenhouse gas emissions. And governments stepped up their ambitions to curb their impact on the climate, particularly when it comes to potent greenhouse gases like methane. If these trends continue, global emissions may actually start to decline.

Climate Analytics, a think tank, published a report last November that raised the intriguing possibility that the worst of our impact on the climate might be behind us.

“We find there is a 70% chance that emissions start falling in 2024 if current clean technology growth trends continue and some progress is made to cut non-CO2 emissions,” authors wrote. “This would make 2023 the year of peak emissions.”

“It was actually a result that surprised us as well,” said Neil Grant, a climate and energy analyst at Climate Analytics and a co-author of the report. “It’s rare in the climate space that you get good news like this.”

The inertia behind this trend toward lower emissions is so immense that even politics can only slow it down, not stop it. Many of the worst-case climate scenarios imagined in past decades are now much less likely.

The United States, the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter, has already climbed down from its peak in 2005 and is descending further. In March, Carbon Brief conducted an analysis of how US greenhouse gas emissions would fare under a second Trump or a second Biden administration.

They found that Trump’s stated goals of boosting fossil fuel development and scrapping climate policies would increase US emissions by 4 billion metric tons by 2030. But even under Trump, US emissions are likely to slide downward.

This is a clear sign that efforts to limit climate change are having a durable impact.

Graph showing US emissions pathways under Biden and Trump, both of which lead to lower emissions, but Biden markedly more so than Trump. Carbon Brief
US emissions are on track to decline regardless of who wins the White House in November, but current policies are not yet in line with US climate goals.

However, four months into 2024, it seems unlikely that the world has reached the top of the mountain just yet. Fossil fuel demand is still poised to rise further in part because of more economic growth in developing countries. Technologies like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies are raising overall energy demand as well.

Still, that it’s possible at all to conceive of bending the curve in the near term after more than a century of relentless growth shows that there’s a radical change underway in the relationship between energy, prosperity, and pollution — that standards of living can go up even as emissions from coal, oil, and gas go down.

Greenhouse gases are not a runaway rocket, but a massive, slow-turning cargo ship. It took decades of technology development, years of global bickering, and billions of dollars to wrench its rudder in the right direction, and it’s unlikely to change course fast enough to meet the most ambitious climate change targets.

But once underway, it will be hard to stop.

We might be close to an inflection point on greenhouse gas emissions

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, greenhouse gas emissions have risen in tandem with wealth and an expanding population. Since the 1990s and the 2000s, that direct link has been separated in at least 30 countries, including the US, Singapore, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Their economies have grown while their impact on the climate has shrunk per person.

In the past decade, the rate of global carbon dioxide pollution has held fairly level or risen slowly even as the global economy and population has grown by wider margins. Worldwide per capita emissions have also held steady over the past decade.

“We can be fairly confident that we’ve flattened the curve,” said Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at SEI US, an environmental think tank, who was not involved in the Climate Analytics study.

Still, this means that humanity is adding to the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — and doing so at close to its fastest pace ever.

It’s good that this pace is at least not accelerating, but the plateau implies a world that will continue to get warmer. To halt rising temperatures, humans will have to stop emitting greenhouse gases, zeroing their net output, and even start withdrawing the carbon previously emitted. The world thus needs another drastic downward turn in its emissions trajectory to limit climate change. “I wouldn’t get out any balloons or fireworks over flattening emissions,” Lazarus said.

Then there’s the clock. In order to meet the Paris climate agreement target of limiting warming this century to less than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) on average above pre-industrial temperatures, the world must slash carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. That means power generators, trucks, aircraft, farms, construction sites, home appliances, and manufacturing plants all over the world will have to rapidly clean up.

The current round of international climate commitments puts the planet on track to warm by 5.4°F (3°C) by the end of the century. That’s a world in which the likelihood of a major heat wave in a given year would more than double compared to 2.7°F of warming, where extreme rainfall events would almost double, and more than one in 10 people would face threats from sea level rise.

“That puts us in this race between the really limited time left to bend the emissions curve and start that project towards zero, but we are also seeing this sort of huge growth, an acceleration in clean technology deployment,” Grant said. “And so we wanted to see which of these factors is winning the race at the moment and where we are at.”

Grant and his team mapped out three scenarios. The first is a baseline based on forecasts from the International Energy Agency on how current climate policies and commitments would play out. It shows that fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions would reach a peak this year, but emissions of other heat-trapping gases like methane and hydrofluorocarbons would keep rising, so overall greenhouse gas emissions would level off.

The second scenario, dubbed “low effort,” builds on the first, but also assumes that countries will begin to fulfill their promises under agreements like the Global Methane Pledge to cut methane pollution 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030 and the Kigali Amendment to phase out HFCs. Under this pathway, total global emissions reach their apex in 2025.

The third scenario imagines a world where clean technology — renewable energy, electric vehicles, energy efficiency — continues gaining ground at current rates, outstripping energy demand growth and displacing coal, oil, and natural gas. That would mean greenhouse gases would have already peaked in 2023 and are now on a long, sustained decline.

Graph showing global emissions pathways under different scenarios. Climate Analytics
Global greenhouse gas emissions are likely to fall in the coming years, but the rate of decline depends on policies and technology development.

The stories look different when you zoom in to individual countries, however. While overall emissions are poised to decline, some developing countries will continue to see their output grow while wealthier countries make bigger cuts.

As noted, the US has already climbed down from its peak. China expects to see its emissions curve change directions by 2025. India, the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter, may see its emissions grow until 2045.

All three of these pathways anticipate some sort of peak in global emissions before the end of the decade, illustrating that the world has many of the tools it needs to address climate change and that a lot of work in deploying clean energy and cleaning up the biggest polluters is already in progress.

There will still be year-to-year variations from phenomena like El Niño that can raise electricity demand during heat waves or shocks like pandemics that reduce travel or conflicts that force countries to change their energy priorities. But according to the report, the overall trend over decades is still downward.

To be clear, the Carbon Analytics study is one of the more optimistic projections out there, but it’s not that far off from what other groups have found. In its own analysis, the International Energy Agency reports that global carbon dioxide emissions “are set to peak this decade.” The consulting firm McKinsey anticipates that greenhouse gases will begin to decline before 2030, also finding that 2023 may have been the apogee.

Within the energy sector, Ember, a think tank, found that emissions might have peaked in 2022. Research firm Rystad Energy expects that fossil fuel emissions will reach their pinnacle in 2025.

Bending the curve still requires even more deliberate, thoughtful efforts to address climate change — policies to limit emissions, deploying clean energy, doing more with less, and innovation. Conversely, global emissions could just as easily shoot back up if governments and companies give up on their goals.

“Peaking is absolutely not a guarantee,” Grant said. And if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, even at a slower rate, Earth will continue heating up. It means more polar ice will melt, lifting sea levels along every ocean, increasing storm surges and floods during cyclones. It means more dangerous heat waves. It means more parts of the world will be unlivable.

We’re close to bending the curve — but that doesn’t mean the rest will be easy

There are some other caveats to consider. One is that it’s tricky to simply get a full tally of humanity’s total impact on the climate. Scientists can measure carbon dioxide concentrations in the sky, but it’s tougher to trace where those molecules came from.

Burning fossil fuels is the dominant way humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Since they’re closely tracked commercial commodities, there are robust estimates for their contributions to climate change and how they change over time.

But humans are also degrading natural carbon-absorbing ecosystems like mangrove forests. Losing carbon sinks increases the net amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Altering how we use land, like clearing forests for farms, also shifts the balance of carbon. These changes can have further knock-on effects for the environment, and ecosystems like tropical rainforests could reach tipping points where they undergo irreversible, self-propagating shifts that limit how much carbon they can absorb.

All this makes it hard to nail down a specific time frame for when emissions will peak and what the consequences will be.

There’s also the thorny business of figuring out who is accountable for which emissions. Fossil fuels are traded across borders, and it’s not always clear whose ledger high-polluting sectors like international aviation and shipping should fall on. Depending on the methodology, these gray areas can lead to double-counting or under-counting.

“It’s very difficult to get a complete picture, and even if we get the little bits and pieces, there’s a lot of uncertainty,” said Luca Lo Re, climate and energy analyst at the IEA.

Even with these uncertainties, it’s clear that the scale of the course correction needed to meet climate goals is immense.

According to the Climate Analytics report, to meet the 2030 targets for cutting emissions, the world will need to stop deforestation, stop any new fossil fuel development, double energy efficiency, and triple renewable energy.

Another way to illustrate the enormity of this task is the Covid-19 pandemic. The world experienced a sudden drop in global emissions as travel shut down, businesses closed, people stayed home, and economies shrank. Carbon dioxide output has now rebounded to an even higher level.

Reducing emissions on an even larger scale without increasing suffering — in fact, improving welfare for more people — will require not just clean technology but careful policy. Seeing emissions level off or decline in many parts of the world as economies have grown in recent decades outside of the pandemic is an important validation that the efforts to limit climate change are having their intended effect. “Emissions need to decrease for the right reasons,” Lo Re said. “It is reasonable to believe our efforts are working.”

The mounting challenge is that energy demand is poised to grow. Even though many countries have decoupled their emissions from their GDPs, those emissions are still growing. Many governments are also contending with higher interest rates, making it harder to finance new clean energy development just as the world needs a massive buildout of solar panels, wind turbines, and transmission lines.

And peaking emissions isn’t enough: They have to fall. Fast.

The longer it takes to reach the apex, the steeper the drop-off needed on the other side in order to meet climate goals. Right now, the world is poised to walk down a gentle sloping hill of greenhouse gas emissions instead of the plummeting roller coaster required to limit warming this century to less than 2.7°F/1.5°C. It’s increasingly unlikely that this goal is achievable.

Graph showing how much global emissions need to fall in order to meet Paris agreement targets. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
To meet global climate targets, greenhouse gas emissions need to fall precipitously.

Finally, the ultimate validation of peak greenhouse emissions and a sustained decline can only be determined with hindsight. “We can’t know if we peaked in 2023 until we get to 2030,” said Lazarus.

The world may be closer than ever to bending the curve on greenhouse gas emissions downward, but those final few degrees of inflection may be the hardest.

The next few years will shape the warming trajectory for much of the rest of the century, but obstacles ranging from political turmoil to international conflict to higher interest rates could slow progress against climate change just as decarbonization needs to accelerate.

“We should be humble,” Grant said. “The future is yet unwritten and is in our hands.”

Read the full story here.
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Net zero by 2050 'impossible' for UK, says Badenoch

The Conservative leader says the target is impossible "without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us".

Net zero by 2050 'impossible' for UK, says BadenochSam FrancisPolitical reporterPA MediaKemi Badenoch has said it is "impossible" for the UK to meet its net zero target by 2050 - a goal set by a previous Conservative government.The UK is legally committed to reaching net zero by 2050 under a law passed by Theresa May in 2019. It means the UK must cut carbon emissions until it removes as much as it produces, in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.Badenoch said net zero cannot be achieved by 2050 "without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us".The Conservative leader did not set out a replacement for the target, but her words mark a sharp break from years of political consensus.A source close to Badenoch said the Conservative leader still backs net zero, but not by 2050. In a preview of a speech on Tuesday, Badenoch called lower energy costs and environmental protection "noble aims" but said current policies were "largely failing" to improve nature, while raising energy prices.She said: "We're falling between two stools - too high costs and too little progress. "Net zero by 2050 is impossible. "I don't say that with pleasure. Or because I have some ideological desire to dismantle it - in fact, we must do what we can to improve our natural world."She will say she is not making a "moral judgment" on net zero or debating whether climate change exists. But she said her Tory party is going to "deal with the reality" of the target, something she argues Labour and past Conservative governments ignored.Badenoch's speech kicks off a new chapter in her leadership, launching an overhaul of Conservative policies - starting with energy and net zero.Badenoch won her party's leadership on a promise to return the Conservatives to "first principles" before setting out detailed policies.In her speech, Badenoch will announce details of a "policy renewal programme" - putting each of her shadow cabinet in charge of a policy area.Badenoch's comments come as governments worldwide are investing in renewables to meet international climate targets and lower carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.The UN and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have warned that global CO2 emissions must reach net zero by then to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C.Target areas for cutting emissions include:reducing air travel minimising energy useimproving home insulation and energy efficiencyswitching to electric vehiclesreplacing gas central heating with electric systems such as heat pumpscutting consumption of red meatLabour is expanding renewable energy and said in its election manifesto it would invest £8.3bn in Great British Energy, a state-owned clean energy company, over five years.Electricity is increasingly generated from renewable energy in the UK, and the cost of renewable generation has significantly fallen in the past decade.Labour promised to bring down household energy bills by "up to £300 by 2030" - and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has stood by the pledge.But UK energy bills went up in January, and are expected to rise again in April.The main reason for high energy prices in the UK has been an increase in the price of gas, which has been the largest source of fuel for years.A Labour spokesperson said: "Kemi Badenoch claims she's ready to 'deal with reality' while remaining in complete denial about the reality of the Tories' appalling record in government."The Tory leader's position is at odds with her own historic views. In government, she openly championed net zero."It's clear the Conservatives stand for nothing and have learned absolutely no lessons. They haven't changed."As a minister, Badenoch promoted the 2050 target as "crucial" to "achieve a cleaner, green future".Some Conservative voices criticised her latest move.Sam Hall, Director of the Conservative Environment Network, called it a "mistake" and argued Badenoch's speech "undermines the significant environmental legacy of successive Conservative governments".He said Badenoch was right to criticise Labour's approach, but argued "the net zero target is driven not by optimism but by scientific reality; without it climate change impacts and costs will continue to worsen". But Lord Craig Mackinlay, a Conservative peer and net zero sceptic, praised Badenoch's "reality check" on the 2050 target."Most of the world has already given up any pretence that it is affordable or achievable," said Lord Mackinlay, founder of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group."Intermittent renewables that only stack up on the back of buckets of taxpayer cash are not the answer when we need cheap, reliable and secure energy."Her comments suggest she is not expecting to go as far as Reform UK, which has called for net zero targets to be scrapped in their entirety.Last month, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said his party "will scrap net stupid zero" if it won the next general election, and recover money paid in subsidies to wind and solar companies via a series of new taxes.

Oregon, nine other states hit big electric vehicle goal

The states have collectively registered 3.3 million new electric vehicles in the last 12 years.

Oregon and nine other states recently achieved a collective goal of shifting new car buyers toward electric rather than gas-powered vehicles in an effort to reduce pollution and combat climate change.The states have collectively registered 3.3 million new electric vehicles in the last 12 years, fulfilling a 2013 agreement to do so by 2025, according to a report shared Monday by the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a Boston-based nonprofit association of state air pollution control agencies.In 2013, the then-governors of Oregon, California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont collectively agreed that they would boost policies and public information that could spur the sales of zero-emission vehicles in their states.Transportation was and remains the largest source of planet warming greenhouse gases in Oregon and the nation. When then-Gov. John Kitzhaber signed onto the 2013 agreement, just 300 electric vehicles were registered in Oregon. Today, more than 100,000 electric vehicles have been registered in the state, according to the Oregon Department of Energy. That’s about 5% of all new cars registered in the state in the last decade.Gov. Tina Kotek in a news release called the growth of electric vehicle adoption in Oregon, and the realization of the 2013 goals, a “milestone.”“Transportation electrification is key to meeting Oregon’s climate goals,” she said. “Strong partnerships between states and private sector partners will be key to the nation’s success in the years to come.In 2013, there were 16 electric vehicle models available for purchase in the U.S., according to the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. Today, there are more than 150 models.Cumulative electric vehicle sales across the 10 states grew steadily in the first few years after the 2013 memorandum, but sales fully doubled from 2022 to 2024. In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act that included a $7,500 tax rebate on the purchase of a new electric vehicle. Oregon’s own rebate program, passed in 2017, and offers up to $7,500 back on the purchase of an electric vehicle. The program, which has paused issuing rebates since June of 2024 for a lack of adequate funding, is expected to resume sometime in 2025, according to the Department of Environmental Quality.One-third of all electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles registered in Oregon received one of the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebates, according to officials at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, which distributes the rebates. The rebates have been worth nearly $100 million since 2017.Since 2013, five more states have created their own zero-emission vehicle programs similar to those of the original taskforce states to spur electric vehicle adoption and expand charging infrastructure through public investment and tax rebates, according to the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. Oregon and those 14 other states now account for more than one-third of all U.S. sales of new electric vehicles.-- Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital ChronicleThe Oregon Capital Chronicle, founded in 2021, is a nonprofit news organization that focuses on Oregon state government, politics and policy.

An Ode to My Family’s E-Bike

It’s safe, cheap, and gentle on the environment. But its true appeal is much deeper.

On a chilly morning last October, my 8-year-old daughter and I took our new e-bike, which she had named Toby, on its maiden voyage to school. We admired trees exploding in vibrant golds and flocks of geese soaring above. To amuse ourselves, we’d brought along a life-size Halloween skeleton, which sat in the back with my daughter, arms outstretched in a friendly wave. Along the way, people honked, smiled, and stopped to chat. I felt connected to our neighborhood in a way I hadn’t ever experienced.Before Toby, mornings spent driving my daughter to school were monotonous and filled with traffic. Since the purchase, our commutes have become daily highlights. My daughter and I bond with each other and our community, and we get to appreciate the time outdoors, all while saving on car maintenance and mitigating our carbon footprint. But the e-bike has changed our life in many other ways too—some of them unexpectedly profound.Our family’s motivation to get an e-bike started with climate concerns. Kids learn by example, and my husband and I often wondered if we were setting the right one by driving two gas-guzzling cars. But the alternatives were limited. We couldn’t afford to purchase an electric vehicle. Electric scooters were out of the question—they’re meant to transport only one person and can be dangerous for children. I tried biking to school once, my daughter behind me in a trailer. Many miles later, I showed up drenched in sweat—great as a workout, but impractical for day-to-day.[Read: How school drop-off became a nightmare]So when our city introduced subsidies on e-bikes, we decided to give one a try. They’re fairly safe, cheaper than cars, and gentle on the environment. Plus, one study shows that they make for some of the happiest commuters. We chose one in a zippy sky blue, with two padded bench seats, metal safety bars, and oversize storage bags on either side. It’s cheerful and somehow charismatic, befitting its sweet name.From our first trip that October day, it was clear how much easier and more pleasant getting around on Toby would be than driving in a car. We avoided the worst of the car traffic and all the huffing and puffing of cycling. E-bikes are still great exercise—riders burn only about 15 to 30 percent fewer calories on them than people on typical bikes do—but you probably won’t get sweaty enough to need a shower. I also felt good knowing that riding Toby enabled us to act more in line with our environmental values. Research from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on energy, has found that if all drivers in the 10 most populous American cities switched from cars to e-bikes for trips shorter than five miles—a category that makes up more than 60 percent of all car trips in the United States—the emissions reductions would be “equivalent to avoiding the use of four natural gas plants over the course of a year.”And the costs were affordable for our family. Our e-bike was $1,200 after the subsidy, requires an annual $200 tune-up, and accrues negligible electricity costs. They’re a bit pricier without the subsidies—good ones go for about $2,000—but savings on gas could add up fast.More than the practicality, I’ve appreciated how much easier Toby has made it to connect with my daughter. Sitting directly behind me, she’s more involved in our journey than when she’s in the back seat of a car, so opportunities for learning come naturally. I alert her to upcoming bumps, narrate various turns and stops, and ask her to double-check for cars coming up behind us. We’ve discussed the satisfaction of using our bodies to get somewhere rather than letting the throttle do all the work. Toby can go up to 25 miles per hour, so I’ve explained the importance of slowing down for pedestrians.Being out in the open air also gives us a chance to stop and say hello to people we recognize and to meet our neighbors, which we rarely did before. “We don’t belong in silo’d cars driving around our neighborhoods,” Arleigh Greenwald, a bike mechanic and the creator of the online community resource Cargo Bike Life, told me in an email. Whereas cars shut us off from other people, bikes open up opportunities to bond. Riding them is a step toward “creating a connected community,” Greenwald wrote.[Read: The real reason you should get an e-bike]Of course, e-bikes aren’t for everyone. Families in high-level apartments without elevators would struggle to lug them upstairs. Parking them outside takes some forethought and a good lock. Most batteries last for only about 15 to 60 miles, so the bikes are best for shorter travel. They won’t help much with moving either. Toby can handle Costco runs for our family of three, but probably not for a big family.For those who do use an e-bike, getting around can be tricky. Cities weren’t built for e-bikes, and Greenwald pointed out that some roads aren’t safe for them. She recommended testing routes on your own before you bring your kids, asking local bike shops about safe options, and accepting when you’ll have to go with another mode of transport. “If I’m replacing as many car trips with safe e-bike trips as possible,” Greenwald told me, “I’m doing great!” In our rides, my daughter and I have encountered plenty of these infrastructural hurdles. Some routes don’t have bike lanes or have lanes that end at random spots; others expect us to go up stairs. When this happens, my daughter and I chat about why, and then we contact our local representatives together to request improvements—an important lesson in civic engagement.But once we found our best route to school, these obstacles faded. It takes five extra minutes each way, but that time is spent along a river trail where we’ve spotted herons, kingfishers, and kestrels. Our time outside has otherwise decreased as my daughter has gotten older, so this tether to the outdoors has been a gift. Being in nature can help kids manage stress, grow more self-confident, and maintain their mental health, Pooja Tandon, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, told me in an email. I see this in my daughter, who seems cheerful and refreshed most mornings, not half-awake like she used to be.No matter how well her day starts, school can still be an interpersonal minefield. When I picked my daughter up in the car, she dealt with the residual stress by communicating through grunts. Now, perhaps energized by our rides, she tells funny or embarrassing tales, and updates me on the second-grade gossip. I’ve found that challenging conversations are easier on Toby too. When our cat recently passed away, my daughter waited until our commute to ask hard questions about death. Surrounded by nature and without the pressure of direct eye contact, I was able to think calmly about how to answer her in honest, age-appropriate ways.It’s been about five months since Toby’s first journey, and we’ve ridden nearly 1,000 miles. These days, e-biking feels easier than driving, even in situations you might not expect. We recently biked home after school as dark clouds rolled in over the Rockies and the first snowflakes of a late-winter storm feathered the sky. At a red light, we heard my daughter’s name and saw her classmate’s family in an SUV next to us; they seemed shocked that we were biking in the cold.I might have felt that way once too. But we were dressed warmly, and we didn’t want to give up our ride along the river path. That day, we watched waterfowl tuck into the river shallows for the evening and stopped to tell a neighbor with a new baby that we’d shovel their driveway in the morning. I worried that my daughter might have felt embarrassed about the stoplight encounter, but as we unbuckled our helmets in our driveway, she said she bet her friend had been wishing he was on an e-bike too. She clearly understood what I’d come to learn about e-bikes: Yes, our commutes were slightly slower and a little chillier than they once had been, but they were also so much richer.

Virginia court delays state’s return to carbon market as Youngkin fights ruling

A Virginia judge has paused the state’s court-ordered return to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) while Gov. Glenn Youngkin appeals the decision, delaying millions in climate and flood-preparedness funding.Charles Paullin reports for Inside Climate News.In short:A Floyd County judge ruled Virginia does not have to rejoin RGGI while Youngkin's appeal proceeds, extending the legal battle potentially for years.RGGI had generated about $830 million for Virginia since 2021, with funds directed toward energy efficiency and flood preparedness programs.Environmental groups argue Youngkin's withdrawal was illegal and has already led to increased emissions and lost funding for clean energy initiatives.Key quote:“Unfortunately, we also know that Helene will not be the last disaster we face in Virginia.”— Emily Steinhilber, Environmental Defense FundWhy this matters:RGGI is a multi-state effort to cut carbon emissions by requiring power producers to buy pollution allowances, with proceeds funding climate resilience projects. Virginia’s withdrawal has already led to higher emissions and halted funding for flood preparedness. With severe weather becoming more frequent, the loss of these funds could leave vulnerable communities unprotected. Youngkin’s opposition — calling RGGI a "tax" — puts the program’s future at risk, especially as the state’s leadership may change following upcoming elections.Related: Virginia Democrats push to rejoin carbon market as Youngkin seeks disaster relief fund

A Virginia judge has paused the state’s court-ordered return to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) while Gov. Glenn Youngkin appeals the decision, delaying millions in climate and flood-preparedness funding.Charles Paullin reports for Inside Climate News.In short:A Floyd County judge ruled Virginia does not have to rejoin RGGI while Youngkin's appeal proceeds, extending the legal battle potentially for years.RGGI had generated about $830 million for Virginia since 2021, with funds directed toward energy efficiency and flood preparedness programs.Environmental groups argue Youngkin's withdrawal was illegal and has already led to increased emissions and lost funding for clean energy initiatives.Key quote:“Unfortunately, we also know that Helene will not be the last disaster we face in Virginia.”— Emily Steinhilber, Environmental Defense FundWhy this matters:RGGI is a multi-state effort to cut carbon emissions by requiring power producers to buy pollution allowances, with proceeds funding climate resilience projects. Virginia’s withdrawal has already led to higher emissions and halted funding for flood preparedness. With severe weather becoming more frequent, the loss of these funds could leave vulnerable communities unprotected. Youngkin’s opposition — calling RGGI a "tax" — puts the program’s future at risk, especially as the state’s leadership may change following upcoming elections.Related: Virginia Democrats push to rejoin carbon market as Youngkin seeks disaster relief fund

Olympics-Olympians Make Climate Plea to IOC Presidential Candidates

By Nick MulvenneySYDNEY (Reuters) - More than 400 Olympians from nearly 90 countries around the world have joined in a call for the winner of next...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - More than 400 Olympians from nearly 90 countries around the world have joined in a call for the winner of next week's International Olympic Committee presidential election to make climate their top priority.The signatories to an open letter calling for IOC action on climate change range from Australia's most decorated Olympian, swimmer Emma McKeon, to Cyrille Tchatchet II, a weightlifter who represented the refugee team at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021."To the incoming President, we ask that over the coming years and the course of your presidency one issue be above all others: the care of our planet," the letter read."Rising temperatures and extreme weather are already disrupting competition schedules, putting iconic venues at risk and affecting the health of athletes and fans."Extreme heat is raising real concerns about whether Summer Games can be held safely in future years, and Winter Games are becoming harder to organise with reliable snow and ice conditions diminishing annually."Seven candidates are vying to replace Thomas Bach as president in a ballot of IOC members at Costa Navarino, Greece, on March 20.The Olympians called for an early meeting with the successful candidate after the election to discuss environmental concerns, and said the IOC must strengthen existing commitments on the cutting of carbon emissions.They also want the IOC to advocate for "broader environmental action", champion sustainable practices with cities hosting Olympics, and "set a standard" on sponsorship deals with companies which have a poor pollution records.Sailor Hannah Mills was one of the British Olympians who initiated the letter and she said the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, the venue for the 2028 Summer Olympics, had illustrated that climate change was an immediate threat."I'm not sure we've ever seen so many athletes from around the world speak with one voice," said the twice Olympic champion, who is an IOC sustainability ambassador."The terrible LA wildfires couldn't have been clearer: the time is now to set a course for a safe, bright future."The Olympics has held and fulfilled the dreams of so many over its history but I can't have any bigger dream than a future in which my children can thrive."The IOC's existing "reduce, compensate, influence" climate commitment includes a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, compensating more than 100% of the residual emissions and encourages stakeholders and fans to act against climate change.World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe, multiple Olympic swimming champion Kirsty Coventry, who is Zimbabwe's sports minister, and IOC vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch are among the favourites to succeed Bach.International cycling chief David Lappartient, Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan, International Gymnastics Federation head Morinari Watanabe and Johan Eliasch, who heads the International Ski Federation, complete the list of candidates.Prince Feisal said he welcomed the "powerful message from Olympians around the world", while Coe, who has been vocal on the impact of climate change on athletics, said he would be delighted to meet the athlete advocates to "share ideas and initiatives".(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, additional reporting by Iain Axon in London, editing by Peter Rutherford)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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