U.S. Debates Climate Impact of Development Investments

A debate is heating up here over the extent to which U.S. government-facilitated private-sector development investments should be required to take into account how those ventures impact on climate change.

Q&A: “The Last Great Exploration Is to Survive on Earth”

Newly arrived from London, Robert Swan is facing a promise he made to famed marine researcher and conservationist Jacques Cousteau decades ago.

Cheap Power Stymies Renewables in Kyrgyzstan

Almost five years ago, as his village in northern Kyrgyzstan endured daily power outages, rays of light always emitted from Sabyr Kurmanov’s garage. They came from his egg incubator, a 12-volt contraption powered by something he and his neighbours have in abundance – wind.

U.S. Task Force Urges Climate Change Preparations

The United States government is recommending new preparations aimed at protecting vulnerable communities from climate change-related disasters, a year after a major hurricane devastated swaths of the country’s East Coast.

Critics Push to Stall New Obama “Social Cost of Carbon” Calculations

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced it is accepting a petition from a conservative advocacy group critical of a recent substantial increase to official calculations of the so-called “social cost of carbon”.

A Stark Choice: Extreme Heat or Dirty Fuels

Two reports released Wednesday reveal the dangerous gap between science and politics. New climate research shows that extreme events such as the severe heat wave in the U.S. last year will double in 2020, increase 400 percent by 2040, and then get far worse without significant carbon reductions.

EU Bank ‘Funding Polluters’

The European Investment Bank, the largest institutional bank in the world, is facing criticism for its funding of fossil fuel projects and for weaker standards for lending to coal plants than currently proposed in both the U.S. and Canada.

Climate Change Promises Tough Times for Asia and Africa – Report

Extreme heat, flooding and water and food shortages will rock South Asia and Africa by 2030 and render large sections of cities inhabitable, if the world continues to burn huge amounts of coal, oil and gas, the World Bank is warning.

Behind the Climate Finance Headlines

Developed countries report that they delivered more than 33 billion dollars in Fast Start Finance (known as FSF), beyond the pledges they made at COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009. Recent analysis suggests that the funding delivered may have exceeded 38 billion dollars.  But that is not the whole story.

Rich Countries Drag Feet at Climate Talks

Another week of international climate negotiations ended in Bonn, Germany last Friday, but there was little mid-level bureaucrats could do when world leaders remain in thrall to the fossil fuel industry, say environmentalists.

Leave It in the Ground, Climate Activists Demand

Nearly 70 percent of known reserves of oil, gas and coal must remain in the ground to avoid dangerous climate change. So why did the energy industry spend 674 billion dollars in 2012 looking for more?

U.S. Cities Joining Push to Dump Fossil Fuel Investments

Nearly a dozen U.S. cities have announced their interest in withdrawing municipal investments from fossil fuel companies, joining a fast-growing movement among colleges and universities that supporters say is allowing citizens concerned with environmental degradation and global climate change to act in lieu of federal action from the U.S. Congress.

U.S. Regulator Lodges “Environmental Objections” to Keystone Plan

Advocacy groups here are applauding the publication of new government concerns, formally expressed Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over a recent assessment of the environmental impact of a major oil pipeline that would run between Canada and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Keystone Opponents Deepen Criticism of Proposed Pipeline

Two new reports, put out by a cross-section of U.S. environmental and public interest groups, are attacking central rationales for the construction of a major new Canada-U.S. oil pipeline proposal, which has emerged as an emblematic cause for green groups who have angrily denounced a U.S. government approvals process.

Eternal Energy Revolution Picking Up Steam

“Be a climate-protection hero, not a climate victim” is the message energy experts from around the world are bringing to San Francisco Tuesday.

OP-ED: Letting Nature Take Its Course?

Is sustainability still possible? Yes. Is it still probable? No. With bold action today, tomorrow, and in years to come, we could succeed in creating a sustainable and prosperous society. But what does bold action actually mean?

International Carbon Markets Expanding but Still Contentious

Nascent carbon emissions-trading exchanges in several countries are increasingly looking at options to interlink with one another, which advocates say would offer investors long-term stability, increase revenues for the development of renewable energy and strengthen corporate support for climate policy.

Winter Athletes Call for Action on Climate Change

After another winter of erratic and disappointing snowfall, 75 of the U.S.’s top professional winter athletes are calling on President Barack Obama to take stronger measures to curb climate change.

U.N. Chief Singles Out Monaco for Raising Climate Awareness

When Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Kiribati in 2011, he had "an unexpected insight" into the fear that stalks the Pacific Island nation.

For Climate Action, 2013 “Good as It’ll Get”: Nicholas Stern

A confluence of factors could make 2013 the most fruitful opportunity in years – and for years – for potentially major action on climate change, according to a leading voice on climate change policy, the British economist Nicholas Stern.

U.S. Unveils Major New Proposal to Cut Vehicle Emissions

Environmentalists and public health advocates are lauding a key, long-awaited proposal put forward by President Barack Obama’s administration that would require cleaner gasoline and more effective technologies on vehicles, cutting various harmful emissions by 40 to 80 percent.