Employees at a coal mine in Ukraine begin their shifts. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted international provides of fossil fuels and led to extra reliance on coal for electrical energy in some nations.
Claire Harbage/NPR
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Claire Harbage/NPR
Employees at a coal mine in Ukraine begin their shifts. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted international provides of fossil fuels and led to extra reliance on coal for electrical energy in some nations.
Claire Harbage/NPR
The battle in Ukraine is driving a brand new push for fossil fuels, placing local weather objectives in danger
With the battle in Ukraine disrupting pure provides to Europe, many nations have been scrambling to switch fuel exports coming from Russia, typically from nations a lot farther away. These fuel provides are super-cooled right into a liquid that may be loaded onto tanker ships. The tankers dock within the importing nations at big services that flip their cargo into fuel once more to ship by way of pipelines.
Because the invasion of Ukraine, 26 of those large services have been introduced within the European Union, in line with a brand new report from Local weather Motion Tracker, a local weather assume tank,.
Extracting extra pure fuel to offset the losses from Russia may lock in fossil gas use for many years. If the proposed terminals and others underneath development now all over the world come on-line, they may greater than double the emissions from pure fuel by 2030, in line with the report. That might jeopardize any commitments that governments make within the COP27 negotiations to rein within the air pollution driving international warming.
To maintain the world’s purpose of limiting warming to 1.5 levels Celsius inside attain, there needs to be no funding in new fossil gas provides, the Worldwide Power Company mentioned.
Members of Congress begin to arrive
Nancy Pelosi arrived in Egypt with a delegation of 13 different Home Democrats, together with the present chairs of a number of committees that work on local weather coverage.
A delegation of Congressional Republicans are enroute to the talks as nicely.
Congress handed an enormous spending invoice that places greater than $1.2 trillion towards infrastructure, together with rebuilding roads and bridges to be extra resilient to local weather change, placing extra electrical autos on the highway, upgrading public transit and increasing clear sources of electrical energy.
However management of Congress continues to be up within the air after Tuesday’s election, and the way forward for U.S. spending on local weather change additionally hangs within the steadiness. Amongst different insurance policies, Republican lawmakers have argued in opposition to authorities funding of renewable power, and in favor of investments in pure fuel and different fossil fuels.
Scientists say reliance on fossil fuels must plummet instantly with the intention to keep away from catastrophic international warming later this century.
Speaker of the Home Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., walks by way of the COP27 U.N. Local weather Summit.
Peter Dejong/AP
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Peter Dejong/AP
White Home requires federal contractors to reveal local weather info
The Biden administration needs huge federal contractors to publicly disclose details about their greenhouse fuel emissions and the monetary dangers they face from local weather change, and to set targets for chopping emissions.
The U.S. authorities is the world’s largest purchaser of products and providers, the White Home mentioned, and the proposed rule would make federal provide chains extra environment friendly and resilient to the impacts of world warming.
“Suppliers perceive that you simply can not handle what you do not measure — monitoring emissions and setting and assembly targets can improve resilience and scale back prices,” the White Home mentioned in a press release.
The administration made the announcement a day earlier than President Joe Biden is scheduled to talk on the United Nations’ annual local weather convention in Egypt.
Below the proposed rule, the biggest federal contractors — these with annual contracts of greater than $50 million — must disclose emissions from their very own operations and from the power they purchase, in addition to sure emissions from their prospects and suppliers. They might even have to offer details about their climate-related monetary dangers, and set science-based targets for chopping emissions.
Firms with annual contracts of $7.5 million to $50 million would solely have to offer details about the emissions from their very own operations and from their power purchases. Firms with smaller contracts could be exempt.
“With this proposed rule, the Administration is offering a useful mannequin for different stakeholders because it turns into more and more necessary for governments and firms to offer visibility into their local weather dangers and resilience throughout their provide chains,” Pankaj Bhatia, international director of the Greenhouse Gasoline Protocol, mentioned in a press release.
Nonetheless, the proposal is more likely to face pushback, says Arthur Wheaton, director of labor research at Cornell College’s Faculty of Industrial and Labor Relations.
“The large query is how the administration will monitor and implement these restrictions,” Wheaton mentioned in a press release.
The U.S. Securities and Change Fee has proposed its personal rule to require corporations to reveal details about climate-related dangers and greenhouse fuel emissions. That proposal has confronted fierce company opposition.
Local weather information from the actor previously often known as Rainn Wilson
Actor Rainn Wilson, who’s most well-known for his position as Dwight Schrute within the U.S. model of the tv present The Workplace, says he has modified his identify.
He says he now goes by Rainnfall Warmth Wave Excessive Winter Wilson.
In a video, Wilson says his purpose is to attract consideration to the consequences of local weather change within the Arctic. Certainly, extra variable and excessive rain and warmth waves are wreaking havoc within the Arctic, the place temperatures are rising about 4 occasions quicker than the worldwide common.
Wilson additionally steered new climate-related names for different celebrities, corresponding to:
- Cardi the Arctic B. Melting
- Jack Black Carbon Is Killing Us
- Ty-phoons Are Growing Burrell
- Amy Poehler Bears Are Endangered
- Harrison Why Not Drive an Electrical Ford
