Can Pulling Carbon from Air <br />Make a Difference on Climate?

Report

Can Pulling Carbon from Air
Make a Difference on Climate?

by nicola jones
Numerous technologies exist to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and new companies are entering the field. But can CO2 ‘air capture’ scale up from a niche business to an industry that will lower atmospheric concentrations of CO2?
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Canada’s Indigenous Bands Rise <br />Up Against a Tar Sands Pipeline

Report

Canada’s Indigenous Bands Rise
Up Against a Tar Sands Pipeline

by jim robbins
TransCanada, the company behind the now-defunct Keystone XL, is proposing another pipeline that would ship Alberta tar sands oil to Canada’s Atlantic coast. But fierce opposition from First Nation communities could derail this controversial project.
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For Storing Electricity, Utilities <br />Are Turning to Pumped Hydro

Report

For Storing Electricity, Utilities
Are Turning to Pumped Hydro

by john roach
High-tech batteries may be garnering the headlines. But utilities from Spain to China are increasingly relying on pumped storage hydroelectricity – first used in the 1890s – to overcome the intermittent nature of wind and solar power.
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e360 Video

Not on This Land: A Western Tribe <br />Takes a Stand and Says No to Big Coal

Not on This Land: A Western Tribe
Takes a Stand and Says No to Big Coal

The Northern Cheyenne are opposing a proposed railroad that would cut through their ancestral lands to haul Montana coal to the Pacific coast for export. An e360 video reports on the Cheyenne’s fight against the railroad and the extraordinary coalition of tribal people and ranchers who have joined together to stop the project. | WATCH THE VIDEO

 


Will Paris Conference Finally <br />Achieve Real Action on Climate?

Analysis

Will Paris Conference Finally
Achieve Real Action on Climate?

by fred pearce
The emission pledges from the world’s nations still fall short of the goal for limiting global warming. But as negotiators convene in Paris this week, there is cautious optimism that a significant international agreement on climate can be reached.
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On Thin Ice: Big Northern Lakes <br />Are Being Rapidly Transformed

Report

On Thin Ice: Big Northern Lakes
Are Being Rapidly Transformed

by cheryl katz
As temperatures rise, the world’s iconic northern lakes are undergoing major changes that include swiftly warming waters, diminished ice cover, and outbreaks of harmful algae. Now, a global consortium of scientists is trying to assess the toll.
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Beyond Keystone: Why Climate <br />Movement Must Keep Heat On

Opinion

Beyond Keystone: Why Climate
Movement Must Keep Heat On

by bill mckibben
It took a committed coalition and the increasingly harsh reality of climate change to push President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. But sustained public pressure will now be needed to force politicians to take the next critical actions on climate.
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E360 Report and Photo Essay

A Tale of Two Northern European Cities: <br />Meeting the Challenges of Sea Level Rise

A Tale of Two Northern European Cities:
Meeting the Challenges of Sea Level Rise

by daniel grossman and alex maclean
For centuries, Rotterdam and Hamburg have had to contend with the threat of storm surges and floods. Now, as sea levels rise, planners are looking at innovative ways to make these cities more resilient, with new approaches that could hold lessons for vulnerable urban areas around the world.
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The Haunting Legacy of <br />South Africa’s Gold Mines

Report

The Haunting Legacy of
South Africa’s Gold Mines

by mark olalde
Thousands of abandoned gold mines are scattered across South Africa, polluting the water with toxics and filling the air with noxious dust. For the millions of people who live around these derelict sites, the health impacts can be severe.
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The Sushi Project: Farming Fish <br />And Rice in California

Report

The Sushi Project: Farming Fish
And Rice in California's Fields

by jacques leslie
Innovative projects in California are using flooded rice fields to rear threatened species of Pacific salmon, mimicking the rich floodplains where juvenile salmon once thrived. This technique also shows promise for growing forage fish, which are increasingly threatened in the wild.
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e360 digest

Landmark Agreement on Climate
Is Reached in Paris to Cap Warming

Climate negotiators meeting in Paris have achieved a deal that could change the world. The Paris Agreement commits the

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other leaders
international community to capping global warming to "well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C." To achieve that, the agreement requires the world to "reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible" and "to undertake rapid reductions thereafter, in accordance with best available science." The intention is to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero in the second half of this century. "This agreement is a turning point," said Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Center.
Read more.

11 Dec 2015: NASA Detects Carbon Monoxide
Plume as Indonesian Forest Fires Burn

This fall tens of thousands of fires in Indonesia released clouds of particulate matter and toxic gases over the region — a

Enlarge

Carbon monoxide plumes detected over Indonesia
process that repeats itself year after year as property owners clear their land of debris for farming. This year, however, saw significantly more fires than usual, and many of those fires escaped their handlers and burned uncontrollably for weeks or months. The fires produced a massive plume of carbon monoxide (CO) — a toxic gas that affects both human health and the climate — that could be detected by NASA satellites. “The 2015 Indonesian fires produced some of the highest concentrations of carbon monoxide that we have ever seen with MOPITT,” the satellite technology that detected the gas, said Helen Worden, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Typically, CO concentrations in that region are roughly 100 parts per billion. Some parts of Borneo, however, saw CO levels of nearly 1,300 parts per billion in September and October.

 

Paris COP21: An Unexpected Move
Toward Global Target of 1.5 Degrees

It is the big surprise of the Paris talks: the growing acceptance of a call from small nations most vulnerable to climate change

Johan Rockström
for the conference to declare warming should be halted at 1.5 degrees Celsius. Even a few months ago, this seemed unimaginable. Two degrees was the only target on the table. But here it has gained momentum with more than 100 nations, including the U.S. and the EU, agreeing it should be in the final agreement. With more than a day of talks remaining, inclusion is far from a done deal. But it has strong support. A 1.5-degree target “looks much more scientifically justifiable,” said Johan Rockström, director of the Stockholm Resilience Institute.
Read more.

07 Dec 2015: Paris COP21 — How ‘Landscape
Carbon’ Can Be Part of a Solution on Climate

A group led by the World Resources Institute has unveiled plans in Paris for a grand restoration of Africa's landscapes that includes

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Nigerian finance minister
replanting forests and reviving soils. The group, which includes the World Bank and the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development are seeking $2 billion a year to restore 100 million hectares of Africa by 2030 — an area three times the size of Germany. The plans were announced to some 3,000 delegates attending a Global Landscapes Forum in Paris on Sunday. "We need landscape restoration for development and for climate," said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance minister. Some African countries said they are already at work. Ethiopian ministers told the forum they had restored a million hectares of farm soils in the drought-hit Tigray region and elsewhere in the past 20 years, through terracing, irrigation and other activities.
Read more

 

Paris COP21: U.N. Climate Talks
Could Hasten the Demise of Coal

Is Paris the beginning of the end for coal? Coal burning is declining fast in both of the world's two largest carbon dioxide emitters,

China’s air pollution is pushing it away from coal.
China and the U.S., with resulting declines in emissions for both countries. The fuel looks incompatible with a world that warms by no more than two degrees C, bringing calls for its rapid phaseout as the global economy is "decarbonized." But, with or without a deal in Paris later this week, will the calls be heeded? Has the demise of King Coal been greatly exaggerated? The smart money in Paris is betting that, despite the embrace of coal by some developing countries such as India and Turkey, the dirty fossil fuel’s days are numbered. "The inevitable conclusion we can draw on the future of global thermal coal is that it has none," an energy analyst said in Paris.
Read more.

07 Dec 2015: Soaring Global CO2
Emissions May Have Peaked, Data Show

CO2 emissions in 2015, at 35.7 billion tons, are likely to be exactly where they were two years ago, according to a new study

Global CO2 emissions are projected to fall in 2015.
published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The flat-lining emissions trajectory is the result of China's recent sharp decline in coal burning and the global surge in renewables like wind and solar power, said Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, who led the analysis. The study estimates China's emissions have fallen by 3.9 percent this year. Le Quéré said she does not believe the world has yet hit "peak emissions." Continued rapid industrial expansion by countries such as India that still rely on coal for energy means further rises probably lie ahead, she said. But the evidence is growing that peak emissions may be closer than previously imagined.
Read more.

 
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