Articles on or after 5/15/2023: New York Times - Climate Section
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'Catastrophic’ Floods in Italy Leave 8 Dead and Thousands Homeless - New York Times - Climate Section (May 17) |
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May 17 · Intense downpours caused rivers to overflow in the northern region of Emilia-Romagna, swamping numerous cities in a catastrophe that experts described as “unprecedented.”
Reporting from Rome
Widespread flooding in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna killed at least eight people and forced another 5,000 to abandon their homes, officials said on Wednesday as rescue efforts continued to assist those stuck on the upper stories of buildings.
Some of the worst-hit areas received almost 20 inches of rain in 36 hours, about half the average annual amount, according to the Italian civil protection minister, Nello Musumeci.
Taking into account those figures, ... | By Elisabetta Povoledo Read more ...
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A 'Canadian Armageddon’ Sets Parts of Western Canada on Fire - New York Times - Climate Section (May 19) |
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May 19 · Wildfires raging in Alberta and British Columbia have created a sense of panic and fear, and forced thousands of residents to evacuate from their homes.
Dan Bilefsky traveled in northern Alberta to report on the wildfires devastating local communities.
As acrid smoke filled the air, turning the sky around her sleepy hometown, Fox Creek, Alberta, a garish blood orange, Nicole Clarke said she felt a sense of terror.
With no time to collect family photographs, she grabbed her two young children, hopped into her pickup truck, and sped away, praying she wouldn’t drive into the blaze’s menacing path.
“This feels like a Canadian Armageddon, like a bad horror film,” ... | By Dan Bilefsky Read more ...
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A Breakthrough Deal to Keep the Colorado River From Going Dry, for Now - New York Times - Climate Section (May 22) |
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May 22 · The agreement on cuts, aided by a wet winter and $1.2 billion in federal payments, expires at the end of 2026.
Reporting from Washington
Arizona, California and Nevada have agreed to take less water from the drought-strained Colorado River, a breakthrough agreement that, for now, keeps the river from falling so low that it would jeopardize water supplies for major Western cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles as well as for some of America’s most productive farmland.
The agreement, announced Monday, calls for the federal government to pay about $1.2 billion to irrigation districts, cities and Native American tribes in the three states if they temporarily use less ... | By Christopher Flavelle Read more ...
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A Powerful Climate Solution Just Below the Ocean’s Surface - New York Times - Climate Section (May 24) |
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May 24 · Restoring seagrass meadows is one tool that coastal communities can use to address climate change, both by capturing emissions and mitigating their effects.
They can bolster the coastlines, break the force of hurtling waves, provide housing for fish, shellfish, and migrating birds, clean the water, store as much as 5 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide, and pump oxygen into the ocean, in part making it possible for life on Earth as we know it.
These miracle machines are not the latest shiny tech invention. Rather, they are one of nature’s earliest floral creations: seagrasses. Anchored on the shorelines of every continent except Antarctica, these plants (and they are ... | By Tatiana Schlossberg Read more ...
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Alberta Is on Fire, but Climate Change Is an Election Taboo - New York Times - Climate Section (May 20) |
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May 20 · For politicians, discussing climate change in a province enriched by oil money is fraught.
When I arrived in Alberta recently to report an upcoming political story, there was no shortage of people wanting to talk about politics and the provincial election on May 29. But, even as wildfires flared earlier than usual and raged across an unusually wide swath of forest, discussions about climate change were largely absent.
The smoke that enveloped Calgary this week briefly gave the city one of the worst air-quality ratings in the world, as the fires to the north and west led to the evacuation of roughly 29,000 people across the province.
[Read: A 'Canadian Armageddon’ ... | By Ian Austen Read more ...
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Behind the Scenes, G7 Nations Wrangle Over Ambitious Climate Commitments - New York Times - Climate Section (May 20) |
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May 20 · The U.S. finds itself caught between defending President Biden’s climate change agenda and aiding allies intent on increasing their access to fossil fuels.
Motoko Rich and Jim Tankersley reported from Tokyo and Hiroshima, Japan, and Lisa Friedman from Washington.
In theory, the world’s largest industrialized democracies have agreed to stop using fossil fuels within a little over a quarter-century and to switch to new sources of power such as solar and wind as fast as they can.
But as leaders of the Group of 7 gathered in Hiroshima, Japan, this weekend for their annual meeting, some countries were wrangling over whether to loosen commitments to phase out the use of ... | By Motoko Rich, Lisa Friedman and Jim Tankersley Read more ...
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Biden Administration Approves Key Permit for West Virginia Gas Pipeline - New York Times - Climate Section (May 16) |
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May 16 · The Biden administration has granted a crucial permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project championed by Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, despite opposition from climate experts and environmental groups.
The decision by the United States Forest Service, issued late Monday, would allow the pipeline to run through 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest, which straddles West Virginia and Virginia.
The move injects momentum into the $6.6 billion project, intended to carry gas about 300 miles from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia across nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands before ending in Virginia.
It also delivers a significant victory to Mr. ... | By Lisa Friedman Read more ...
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Can the World Make an Electric Car Battery Without China? - New York Times - Climate Section (May 16) |
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May 16 · It is one of the defining competitions of our age: The countries that can make batteries for electric cars will reap decades of economic and geopolitical advantages.
The only winner so far is China.
Despite billions in Western investment, China is so far ahead - mining rare minerals, training engineers and building huge factories - that the rest of the world may take decades to catch up.
Even by 2030, China will make more than twice as many batteries as every other country combined, according to estimates from Benchmark Minerals, a consulting group.
Here’s how China controls each step of lithium-ion battery production, from getting the raw materials out of ... Read more ...
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Canada’s Wildfires Have Been Disrupting Lives. Now, Oil and Gas Take a Hit. - New York Times - Climate Section (May 17) |
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May 17 · Wildfires sweeping across western Canada that have driven thousands of people from their homes are also striking the heart of Canadian oil and gas country, forcing companies to curb production.
As flames bore down on wells and pipelines, major drillers like Chevron and Paramount Resources together shut down the equivalent of at least 240,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the energy consulting firm Rystad Energy.
The damage to oil and gas production was likely to significantly surpass current tallies, Thomas Liles, vice president of Rystad’s upstream research, said in a note. A large part of Alberta’s shale gas producing regions remained under “extreme” or “very ... | By Hiroko Tabuchi Read more ...
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Climate Change Brings Warmer, Wetter Weather to Trinidad - New York Times - Climate Section (May 15) |
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May 15 · Even as the leaders of Trinidad and Tobago double down on fossil fuels, climate change is bringing more extreme weather to the island nation.
Clifford Krauss, who has covered energy for more than a decade, recently spent 10 days reporting in Trinidad and Tobago.
Imtiaz Khan remembers the rains of his childhood as being light and providing welcome relief from the summer heat. A heavy shower, he said, would arrive only about once a month during the rainy season.
Now 48, and president of the Carli Bay Fishing Association, Mr. Khan said the rains were something to dread. Storms are so regular, he said, there is serious flooding every year. The heavy downpours carry ... | By Clifford Krauss Read more ...
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E.P.A. Announces Crackdown on Toxic Coal Ash From Landfills - New York Times - Climate Section (May 17) |
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May 17 · The Biden administration is moving to close a loophole that had exempted hundreds of inactive coal ash landfills from rules designed to prevent heavy metals like mercury and arsenic from seeping into groundwater, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.
Coal ash, a byproduct from burning coal in power plants, contains lead, lithium and mercury. Those metals can pollute waterways and drinking water supplies and have been linked to health effects, including cancer, birth defects and developmental delays in children. They are also toxic to fish.
The proposed regulation, part of a settlement between the E.P.A. and environmental groups, would require those ... | By Lisa Friedman Read more ...
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Electric Vans, Delayed by Production Problems, Find Eager Buyers - New York Times - Climate Section (May 16) |
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May 16 · Passenger cars dominate the electric vehicle market, but light delivery trucks could benefit from the cost savings and range E.V.s offer.
Not long after buying a Ford E-Transit van for his plumbing business last November, Mitch Smedley sat down with some receipts and a calculator to figure out how much the electric vehicle was saving him on fuel expenses.
A few minutes of number crunching showed he was spending about $110 to $140 a week on fuel for each of the four older, diesel Transits in his fleet. Then he worked out how much electricity he was using to charge the electric model to drive the same distance - about 300 miles a week. The cost: about $9 a week.
“I ... | By Neal E. Boudette Read more ...
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Finding Climate Solutions in a Spanish Village - New York Times - Climate Section (May 24) |
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May 24 · Behind its rural facade, La Almunia de Doña Godina is doing its part to use technology to address climate change.
Victor Manuel Martínez, a 53-year-old fruit farmer, installed solar panels on his 62-acre farm.Credit...Emilio Parra Doiztua for The New York Times
LA ALMUNIA DE DOÑA GODINA, Spain - Crisscrossed by irrigation canals - one of which was built by the Moors in the Middle Ages - and surrounded by fields filled with peach, apple and cherry orchards, this place, at first glance, is a traditional fruit-farming village in northeast Spain.
But in June last year, La Almunia received an unlikely distinction for a village with a population of around 8,000: The ... | By Rachel Chaundler Read more ...
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Flood-Battered Italian Region May See More Violent and Frequent Storms - New York Times - Climate Section (May 27) |
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May 27 · Experts have linked recent deadly rains in the north of the country to climate change, but decades of urbanization and neglect helped lay the groundwork for a calamity.
Reporting from Rome
The floods that submerged the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna this month, killing 15 people, leaving thousands homeless and grinding transportation and businesses to a halt, were not one-off events, warn experts, who predict that there are more similar, frequent and violent storms to come.
“The question to ask,” the country’s civil protection minister, Nello Musumeci, told an Italian newspaper, “is not whether a disastrous event” like the deadly flooding will happen ... | By Elisabetta Povoledo Read more ...
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Heat Wave and Blackout Would Send Half of Phoenix to E.R., Study Says - New York Times - Climate Section (May 23) |
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May 23 · If a multiday blackout in Phoenix coincided with a heat wave, nearly half the population would require emergency department care for heat stroke or other heat-related illnesses, a new study suggests.
While Phoenix was the most extreme example, the study warned that other cities are also at risk. Since 2015, the number of major blackouts nationwide has more than doubled. At the same time, climate change is helping make heat waves worse and increasing instances of extreme weather around the world.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that the risk to cities would be compounded if a hurricane, cyberattack or wind storm ... | By Michael Levenson Read more ...
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Heat Will Likely Soar to Record Levels in Next 5 Years, New Analysis Says - New York Times - Climate Section (May 17) |
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May 17 · Global temperatures are likely to soar to record highs over the next five years, driven by human-caused warming and a climate pattern known as El Niño, forecasters at the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday.
The record for Earth’s hottest year was set in 2016. There is a 98 percent chance that at least one of the next five years will exceed that, the forecasters said, while the average from 2023 to ’27 will almost certainly be the warmest for a five-year period ever recorded.
“This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment,” said Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the meteorological ... | By Brad Plumer Read more ...
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How Extreme Heat Causes Cascading Crises - New York Times - Climate Section (May 26) |
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May 26 · Subscriber-only Newsletter
Climate Forward
Power grids and hospitals can be overwhelmed, but there are fixes.
Extreme heat can bring on some extremely dangerous feedback loops for American hospitals and clinics.
The good news is that there are some practical fixes.
The time to prepare is now. Because the heat is likely to get worse. Much worse. Quite soon.
First, the heat news.
You know all about how rising fossil fuel emissions are raising global average temperatures, making heat waves more frequent and intense.
The global average is already around 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than it was 150 years ago. Imagine ... | By Somini Sengupta Read more ...
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Hurricane Season Could Bring 12 to 17 Named Storms, Forecasters Say - New York Times - Climate Section (May 25) |
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May 25 · Weather experts predicted a “near-normal” season, expecting a similar number of named tropical systems as in 2022, but there was uncertainty in the forecast.
Judson Jones is a meteorologist and a reporter for The Times.
There could be from 12 to 17 named tropical cyclones this hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, similar to the number of named storms last year and a “near-normal” amount, forecasters said.
There is, however, uncertainty in the outlook unveiled on Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, because of the unknown effect of competing weather patterns. Storms are given names when their winds reach or exceed 39 miles per ... | By Judson Jones Read more ...
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In Flood-Stricken Area of Italy, Residents Fear This Won’t Be the Last of It - New York Times - Climate Section (May 20) |
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May 20 · Flooding upended tens of thousands of lives this week in Emilia-Romagna, a region that has also experienced drought in recent years.
Gaia Pianigiani reported from the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.
When the floods hit in the northern Italian town of Lugo this past week, overflowing a local watercourse and sending water gushing into streets and the surrounding fields, Irinel Lungu, 45, retreated with his wife and toddler to the second floor of their home.
As rescue workers navigated submerged streets in dinghies to deliver baby formula and rescue older people from their homes, the couple watched in the cold as the water rose ... | By Gaia Pianigiani and Elisabetta Povoledo Read more ...
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In the Bahamas, a Constant Race to Adapt to Climate Change - New York Times - Climate Section (May 24) |
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May 24 · Rising seas and the ongoing threat of hurricanes and storm surges have forced the Caribbean nation to become a laboratory for climate adaptation.
At the United Nations climate summit in Egypt last year, Prime Minister Philip Davis of the Bahamas emerged as one of the most impassioned speakers among the more than 100 heads of state in attendance.
“We have to believe that a safer, better future is possible,” he told the gathering. “We believe that action - real, concerted action - can save the planet and save our human race.”
Yet even as Mr. Davis spoke, the Bahamas was preparing to take a direct hit from Tropical Storm Nicole, the 14th named storm of the 2022 ... | By David Gelles Read more ...
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Just Between Us Squirrels, There Might Be Trouble in the Arctic Dating Scene - New York Times - Climate Section (May 25) |
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May 25 · Climate change appears to be disrupting the hibernation of females in the Far North, scientists say, and that could affect mating season.
Male Arctic ground squirrels go through puberty every year. As if that wasn’t hard enough, now the females have a problem, too.
According to a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science, climate change appears to be making them emerge from hibernation earlier. That matters, because it could throw off the timing of the animals’ mating cycle.
Typically, males come out of hibernation before females to prepare for the spring mating season. They need time to reach sexual maturity again, every year, because their testosterone ... | By Mélissa Godin Read more ...
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New York’s a Lot Like Venice. It’s Sinking. - New York Times - Climate Section (May 23) |
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May 23 · The city is subsiding between two millimeters and four millimeters a year under the weight of all its buildings, a scientist has found.
Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll hear from a scientist who figured out that New York City is sinking, in part because all the buildings weigh 1.68 trillion pounds. We’ll also look at why the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is proposing raising the base fare to $2.90.
Maybe you have had that sinking feeling lately. A recently published scientific paper suggested that all of New York has and will continue to.
The paper said that New York sinks between two millimeters and four millimeters a year under the weight of all the ... | By James Barron Read more ...
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Reimagining Rice, From the Mekong to the Mississippi - New York Times - Climate Section (May 23) |
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May 23 · Subscriber-only Newsletter
Climate Forward
People around the world are exploring new ways to grow one of the world’s most important staple crops.
Look inside my pantry any given week, and you’ll see rice paper for summer rolls, rice noodles for my slapdash version of pad Thai, a few packets of rice ramen, sake, rice wine vinegar, and rice cakes that the teenager likes to smear with peanut butter. There’s a bag of arborio for an occasional herby risotto, brown rice for rainy day khichdi, a basmati from Bryce Lundberg’s farm in Northern California, and a red rice that Anna McClung, a plant breeder, developed from a variety considered a weed.
In the freezer now, ... | By Somini Sengupta Read more ...
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Rice. Half of Humanity Eats It. And Climate Change Is Wrecking It. - New York Times - Climate Section (May 20) |
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May 20 · Half of humanity eats it.
Climate change is wrecking it.
And around the world, people are finding creative new ways to grow it.
Rice Gets Reimagined, From the Mississippi to the Mekong
Rice is in trouble as the Earth heats up, threatening the food and livelihood of billions of people. Sometimes there’s not enough rain when seedlings need water, or too much when the plants need to keep their heads above water. As the sea intrudes, salt ruins the crop. As nights warm, yields go down.
These hazards are forcing the world to find new ways to grow one of its most important crops. Rice farmers are shifting their planting calendars. Plant breeders are working ... | By Somini Sengupta, reporting from Arkansas and Bangladesh, and Tran Le Thuy, from Vietnam. Thanh Nguyen photographed in Vietnam and Rory Doyle in Arkansas. Read more ...
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Supreme Court Limits E.P.A.’s Power to Address Water Pollution - New York Times - Climate Section (May 25) |
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May 25 · Experts said the decision would sharply undercut the agency’s authority to protect millions of acres of wetlands under the Clean Water Act, leaving them subject to pollution without penalty.
Reporting from Washington
The Supreme Court on Thursday curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to police millions of acres of wetlands, delivering another setback to the agency’s ability to combat pollution.
Writing for five justices, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that the Clean Water Act does not allow the agency to regulate discharges into wetlands near bodies of water unless they have “a continuous surface connection” to those waters.
The decision ... | By Adam Liptak Read more ...
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The 'Skeletons’ in Big Oil’s Closet - New York Times - Climate Section (May 16) |
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May 16 · Subscriber-only Newsletter
Climate Forward
There’s growing evidence that fossil fuel companies knew their product would harm the climate, and that’s driving lawsuits around the world.
The legal headaches for Big Oil are spreading. The latest company to land in court is Eni, the Italian giant.
Today, I want to talk about lawsuits against oil companies and how the sheer volume and complexity of cases around the world may lead to change.
Last week, Greenpeace and other groups, along with 12 private citizens of Italy, sued Eni in Rome, saying the company was well aware of the climate damage caused by its product but chose to ignore the harm and keep pumping ... | By Manuela Andreoni Read more ...
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To Counter China, G7 Countries Borrow Its Economic Playbook - New York Times - Climate Section (May 19) |
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May 19 · Wealthy democracies rev up an effort to spend trillions on a new climate-friendly energy economy, while stealing away some of China’s manufacturing power.
Jim Tankersley reported from Hiroshima, Japan, and Ana Swanson from Washington.
Midway through his face-to-face meeting with President Biden in Indonesia last fall, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, offered an unsolicited warning.
Mr. Biden had in the preceding months signed a series of laws aimed at supercharging America’s industrial capacity and imposed new limits on the export of technology to China, in hopes of dominating the race for advanced energy technologies that could help fight climate change. For ... | By Jim Tankersley and Ana Swanson Read more ...
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Why Some Countries Find It Hard to Move Away From Fossil Fuels - New York Times - Climate Section (May 15) |
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May 15 · Trinidad and Tobago is the No. 2 exporter of liquefied natural gas in the Americas. Its output has been falling, but it remains committed to fossil fuels.
Yara Trinidad, which makes ammonia and other chemicals in Trinidad and Tobago, is exploring alternatives to natural gas.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Clifford Krauss, who has covered the energy industry for more than a decade, spent 10 days reporting in Trinidad and Tobago.
Ribboned shovel in hand, Prime Minister Keith Rowley joined a ceremonial groundbreaking last month to celebrate Trinidad and Tobago’s first large solar farm project expected to generate power for 42,000 homes.
But if anyone ... | By Clifford Krauss Read more ...
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You’ve Never Heard of Him, but He’s Remaking the Pollution Fight - New York Times - Climate Section (May 28) |
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May 28 · Richard Revesz is changing the way the government calculates the cost and benefits of regulation, with far-reaching implications for climate change.
Coral Davenport has been reporting from Washington on environmental regulations since the George W. Bush administration.
This spring the Biden administration proposed or implemented eight major environmental regulations, including the nation’s toughest climate rule, rolling out what experts say are the most ambitious limits on polluting industries by the government in a single season.
Piloting all of that is a man most Americans have never heard of, running an agency that is even less well known.
But Richard ... | By Coral Davenport Read more ...
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Your Thursday Briefing: The G7 - New York Times - Climate Section (May 17) |
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May 17 · Also, hot years ahead as global temperatures rise.
The annual Group of 7 summit opens tomorrow in Hiroshima, Japan, where the leaders of the seven major industrial democracies will discuss how to keep the global economy stable. They will also focus on shoring up diplomatic relations at a time of great global uncertainty.
“There will be two major issues on the agenda,” my colleague David Sanger said. “How to bring the Ukraine war to an end and how to deal with China.”
But the most pressing potential threat, at least to the global economy, may be turmoil in the U.S. The country is two weeks away from running out of money to pay its bills, and a default would jolt its ... | By Amelia Nierenberg Read more ...
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