My Climate Change News

A look at the state of sustainable transportation in 2024 and beyond.

I joined GreenBiz in May 2022 - a decision that profoundly changed my perspective on transport decarbonization. In my role as the director of transportation, I sat at the intersection of many subsectors within transport, able to survey the industry across on-road vehicles and electrification, aviation, maritime shipping and freight rail.

From this vantage point, it has been a privilege to learn from those leading the efforts to decarbonize transportation and share my learnings with you. Sadly, all good things must end as I have already stepped into a new role in the EV industry. My final piece explores just a few of the trends I’ve seen develop over my two years tracking the sector.

During those two years, the electric vehicle subsector has made the most progress toward decarbonization compared with the rest of the transport industry.

The industry is aware of and is addressing the ...

The auto industry lags behind on both emissions reporting and net zero targets. Here’s what they can do to get on track.

More than 90 percent of automakers' GHG emissions come from Scope 3 -- i.e., buyers driving their cars. Source: Mykhailo Pavlenko via Shutterstock

With the advent of policies such as the European Union’s corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD), set to be phased in over a four-year period beginning in 2025, businesses across all industries are preparing to report on their emissions as never before. A crucial pillar of such policies is the normalization of reporting on Scope 3 emissions - those not directly linked to a company’s operations.

For auto manufacturers, the new requirements have highlighted an alarming amount of emissions previously unknown to much of the general public and investors alike.

"About 98 percent of the total emissions of a car manufacturer are only captured when Scope 3 emissions - primarily the use ...

Nineteen out of 34 countries surveyed failed to fully meet their 2020 climate commitments set 15 years ago in Copenhagen, according to a new study led by UCL researchers.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change, compared the actual net carbon emissions of more than 30 nations to their 2009 pledged emission reduction targets set during the Copenhagen Climate Summit.

The paper led by researchers at UCL and Tsinghua University is the first effort to comprehensively gauge how well countries were able to meet their Nationally Determined Contribution reduction pledges from COP15.

Of the 34 nations analyzed in the study, 15 successfully met their goals while 12 failed outright. The remaining seven countries fell into a category the study authors termed the "halfway group": nations that reduced the carbon emissions within their own borders but did so in part by using trade to shift emissions they would have made to other countries. Known as "carbon leakage" or ...

The cylindrical object that tore through the home in Naples on March 8 was subsequently taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis.

The space agency said it was a metal support used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal. The pallet was jettisoned from the space station in 2021, and the load was expected to eventually fully burn up on entry into Earth's atmosphere, but one piece survived.

The chunk of metal weighed 1.6 pounds (0.7 kilograms) and was 4 inches (10 centimeters) tall and roughly 1 1/2 inches (4 centimeters) wide.

Homeowner Alejandro Otero told television station WINK at the time that he was on vacation when his son told him what had happened. Otero came home early to check on the house, finding the object had ripped through his ceiling and torn up the flooring.

"I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage," ...

NASA's plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth is on hold until there's a faster, cheaper way, space agency officials said Monday.

Retrieving Mars soil and rocks has been on NASA's to-do list for decades, but the date kept moving forward, as costs ballooned. A recent independent review put the total cost at $8 billion to $11 billion, with an arrival date of 2040, about a decade later than advertised.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that's too much and too late. He's asking private industry and the space agency's centers to come up with other options to revamp the project. With NASA facing across-the-board budget cuts, he wants to avoid gutting other science projects to finance the Mars sample project.

"We want to get every new and fresh idea that we can," he said at a news conference.

NASA's rover Perseverance already has gathered 24 core samples in tubes since landing in 2021 at Mars' Jezero Crater, an ancient river delta. The goal is more ...

Nissan expects to mass produce electric vehicles powered by advanced next-generation batteries by early 2029, the company said Tuesday during a media tour of an unfinished pilot plant.

Japan's legacy automakers have fallen behind newer rivals like America's Tesla and China's BYD in the emerging all-electric auto sector.

But Nissan, like other companies, sees a chance to catch up and perhaps leap ahead with a new kind of battery that promises to be more powerful, cheaper, safer and faster to charge than the lithium-ion batteries in use today.

Solid-state batteries, which replace the corrosive liquids found in conventional batteries with solid metals, are widely seen as the next step for EVs, and leading automakers are racing to develop versions that can be mass produced.

Rivals like Volkswagen and Toyota have also announced efforts to produce solid-state EVs, with Toyota setting a date of 2027-28 to begin bringing them to market.

But substantial ...

Climate Home reveals that the World Bank Group has counted support for luxury hotels as climate finance, which experts say fails the most vulnerable

Fishers in Mbour, Senegal, just miles from the hotel resort of Saly, unload the day's catch. (Photo: Jack Thompson)

The spotless white-sand beach of Le Lamantin luxury resort in Saly, about 90 kilometres south of Senegal’s capital Dakar, is lined with neat rows of sun loungers and parasols. Here, holidaymakers enjoy jet-skiing, catamaran-sailing and spa therapy, unaware that their hotel is benefiting from international climate finance channelled through the World Bank Group.

Just a few kilometres further south, however, local fishermen in Mbour, the country’s second-largest fishing port, are struggling. The beaches where they keep their boats are being progressively eaten away by rising seas that also threaten their homes.

The stark contrast between the neighbouring coastal areas highlights how global ...

Sponsored: Empowering employees to champion sustainability initiatives requires a culture where sustainability is ingrained in everyday operations.

A warm embrace between two Sodexo colleagues. Image courtesy of Sodexo.

This article is sponsored by Sodexo.

Employees form the backbone of most organizations - and what they do or don’t do affects progress toward sustainability milestones. Engaging employees on sustainability is an opportunity that organizations must embrace if they hope to succeed with sustainability goals and climate-conscious initiatives.

Organizations of all sizes can bridge the gap between corporate goals and individual actions by recognizing the power employees hold and providing them with the tools and motivation to drive sustainability initiatives forward.

At Sodexo, we have seen this firsthand - that the everyday actions of our frontline employees have accelerated our success and ability to meet sustainability targets. From ...

Mr. Gore spoke at a climate leadership conference hosted by his nonprofit organization.

Former Vice President Al Gore was in New York City over the weekend for a leadership training convened by the Climate Reality Project, his nonprofit organization.

On Saturday, before thousands of attendees, Mr. Gore highlighted mounting climate perils but also spoke of progress. He slammed fossil fuel companies for ramping up plastics production and promoting technology to suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which he called “utterly preposterous.”

Afterward, Mr. Gore explained in an interview why he was not surprised that major oil and gas companies have walked back their pledges to decarbonize. And he said he believed that former President Donald J. Trump would lose his campaign to return to the White House. Here are excerpts from that conversation, edited and condensed for clarity.

Oil and gas companies recently gathered in Houston for the industry’s annual ...

In a study published in Science Advances, scientists have used new lithium isotope (δ7Li) data to show that continental clay export promoted organic carbon burial and thus atmospheric oxygenation during the Cambrian period.

Animals depend on oxygen for respiration. Thus, the emergence and proliferation of early animals from the late Neoproterozoic to the early Paleozoic era (~600–500 million years ago or mya) has traditionally been attributed to a significant increase in marine oxygen levels. However, geochemical tracers and numerical models suggest that both atmospheric and marine oxygen levels during the Late Neoproterozoic–Early Paleozoic were significantly lower than today, with highly variable marine redox states.

During this period, marine oxygenation occurred under conditions of low atmospheric oxygen, attributed to an enhanced marine biological pump. However, the role of other factors, such as the mineral carbon pump promotion of organic matter burial ...

Over the past decade, power grids have played roles in wildfires in multiple states, including California, Hawaii, Oregon and Minnesota. When wind speeds are high and humidity is low, electrical infrastructure such as aboveground power lines can blow into vegetation or spark against other components, starting a fire that high winds then spread.

Under extreme conditions, utilities may opt to shut off power to parts of the grid in their service areas to reduce wildfire risk. These outages, known as public safety power shutoffs, have occurred mainly in California, where wildfires have become larger and more destructive in recent decades.

On April 5-6, 2024, Colorado utility Xcel Energy carried out that state's first public safety power shutoff, cutting power to thousands of customers ahead of an intense windstorm. Public officials and Xcel customers complained that they had not received enough warning or explanation. Gov. Jared Polis has directed state regulators to ...

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who was recently a staunch critic of Donald Trump, changed his tune on the former president as he backed his 2024 campaign in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.

“No other president in American history has contributed to an insurrection so please explain, given the fact that you believe he contributed to an insurrection, how you can say we should have him back in the Oval Office,” Stephanopoulos asked on ABC News’ “This Week.”

“Because for me it’s not about him as much as it is having a Republican administration ...,” said Sununu, who predicted that Trump wouldn’t be the 2024 GOP presidential nominee but didn’t rule out voting for him.

The GOP governor, who described himself as a “Trump guy through and through” in 2019, has repeatedly bashed the former president following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack.

He’s referred to Trump as “crazy,” “not a real Republican,” “worried about jail time,” called on GOP ...

Plans by SpaceX and other companies to boost the number of rocket launches sometimes seen streaking across San Diego County's skies have prompted the California Coastal Commission to question the environmental effects.

Residents near Vandenberg Space Force Base, on the state's Central Coast, say the launches shake their homes and rattle their nerves. People don't know when to expect them because the lift-off time varies and can be delayed by weather conditions.

"I find it difficult to believe that there are no impacts on (wildlife) species due to SpaceX launches," said Carpinteria resident Rebecca Stebbins in an April 5 letter to the Coastal Commission.

"I, along with thousands of other residents of the South Coast, am significantly impacted with each launch, including being woken up from a deep sleep on occasion, while my dogs are terrified, my house shakes, and the sonic booms are felt physically, with a deep shock."

Conservationists say the noise ...

To protect Australia’s iconic animals, scientists are experimenting with vaccine implants, probiotics, tree-planting drones and solar-powered tracking tags.

A veterinary nurse treats a koala infected with chlamydia at Currumbin Wildlife Hospital in Currumbin, Australia.Credit...

Photographs and Video by Chang W. Lee

It was spring in Queensland, Australia, a season when many wild animals find themselves in trouble, and the Currumbin Wildlife Hospital was a blur of fur and feathers.

A groggy black swan emerged from the X-ray room, head swaying on its long neck. A flying fox wore a tiny anesthetic mask. An injured rainbow lorikeet squawked in its cage. (“Very angry,” a sign warned.)

“We see everything,” Dr. Michael Pyne, the hospital’s senior veterinarian. Also on the schedule for the day: three eagles, two carpet pythons, a blue-faced honeyeater, a short-eared brushtail possum and, Dr. Pyne said, “a whole heap of koalas.”

More than a dozen ...

A rogue wave is a single swell that is much higher than nearby waves, which can damage ships or coastal infrastructure. Ocean waves are among the most powerful natural forces on Earth, and as global trends suggest ocean winds will blow harder because of climate change, ocean waves could become more powerful.

In a study published in Physical Review Letters, the research team led by Professor Alessandro Toffoli found that rogue waves emerge from strong wind forces and unpredictable waveform patterns, confirming an idea previously only demonstrated in laboratory experiments.

Professor Toffoli said, "Rogue waves are colossal—twice as high as neighboring waves—that appear seemingly out of nowhere."

Using state-of-the-art technology and embarking on an expedition to one of Earth's most volatile oceanic realms, the research team deployed a novel technique for three-dimensional imaging of ocean waves. Operating stereo cameras aboard the South African ...

Global North countries use their advantages in capital and technology to grab a large amount of energy through outsourcing—creating a 'false decoupling' of energy consumption from economic growth.

However, backward production technologies in the Global South tend to result in more energy consumption per unit of output—leading to greater carbon emissions and environmental damage.

An international group of researchers from the UK, Netherlands, and China published their findings in Energy Economics—calling on countries across both Global North and Global South to work together on resolving the problem.

Concerns about the energy associated with the manufacturing of a product or service or so-called embodied energy in international trade have been increasing due to global energy shortages and environmental degradation.

Co-author Yuli Shan, from the University of Birmingham, commented, "As negotiations unfold on global trade agreements, the ...

Kazenel completed her Ph.D. in Biology at UNM in 2022 and is currently a visiting assistant professor of Biology at Earlham College in Indiana.

"I study how native bees are responding to climate change," Kazenel said. "Bees are the most important pollinators of many wild plants and agricultural crops, meaning that they are crucial to sustaining natural ecosystems and the human food supply. But there is increasing evidence that bees are threatened globally.

"Factors known to threaten bees include habitat loss, pesticides, disease, and climate change. However, climate change has been less-studied relative to other factors that threaten bees.

"This region is home to extraordinarily high bee diversity. We have recorded about 340 species of wild, native bees at the SNWR alone," Kazenel said.

"Each month from March through October, when bees are active, we open traps in the field at the SNWR to collect bees, which we then identify to species. This gives us an ...

Above the Arctic Circle in Finland's municipality of Inari, the largest and most sparsely populated region of Finnish Lapland, leading sources of income are tourism and the cold-climate testing of cars, tires and components.

The country's north-south "European Route," the E75, brings in year-round visitors seeking the beauty and serenity of an uncrowded natural environment almost 300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. In 2019, an estimated half a million people visited the region, which has only twilight in winter and 24 hours of daylight in summer.

Culture clash

Inari is also Finland's capital of Sámi culture, a cornerstone of which is the herding of reindeer by the indigenous community. That means the region faces a challenge in balancing respect for traditional customs and openness to 21st century jobs and revenue.

"Indigenous peoples have been reindeer herding for hundreds of years," said Pasi Rautio, a research professor at the Natural ...

In a webinar on April 19, we'll explore how climate organizations are currently using storytelling in their work, the impacts of these stories, and lessons learned from other movements.

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Yale Climate Connections

Expectant parents may spend months preparing to give birth - developing a relationship with a doctor or midwife, arranging a babysitter for other children when it’s time, and mapping the best route to the hospital.

But during an extreme weather disaster, things may not go as planned.

Smith-Johnson: “So I would suggest for people to start now doing their due diligence of knowing what-if situations.”

Tanya Smith-Johnson works with the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii, a maternal care nonprofit. And she’s a certified professional midwife.

She suggests that pregnant people identify friends and family who can serve as backup ...