Climate

A warming Arctic can stretch the polar vortex, a high-altitude air ribbon, one says. The “wobble” can disrupt the jet stream, causing extreme cold in the East.

As corporate net-zero pledges multiply, concerns about their credibility and potential for greenwashing are rising. This study is the first to develop a framework specifically tailored to assessing greenwashing in climate and net-zero pledges, combining disclosures, implementation plans, performance data, and lobbying activity, and to apply it at scale to more than 4000 companies. Using data from CDP, InfluenceMap, and the Net Zero Tracker, this analysis offers the largest empirical assessment of its kind. We identify greenwashing risk across seven dimensions, including missing interim targets, Scope 3 exclusion, offset reliance, and misaligned lobbying. We find 96% of pledging companies exhibit at least one risk indicator, with Scope 3 gaps, poor planning, and offsets most common. Greenwashing risk indicators are only weakly correlated, although higher target ambition is modestly associated with fewer red flags on some dimensions, such as Scope 3 coverage and lobbying. Sectoral and regional patterns also emerge, with lobbying-related risks less prevalent among European firms than elsewhere. Our approach advances the evidence base and supports stronger standards and oversight for corporate climate accountability.

The expansion could add millions of tons of carbon pollution annually while polluting the air near vulnerable communities and ecosystems.

The steady downward march of lithium-ion battery prices is one of the key stories of the energy transition. The trend continued last year.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42767150

As the Trump administration seeks to roll back pollution reporting rules, some lawmakers see a low carbon footprint as a competitive edge for US exports.

Nearly a year after the Environmental Defense Fund lost contact with an $88 million satellite, data from the spacecraft reveal higher-than-expected methane emissions from the oil and gas industry.

Archived copies of the article: * archive.today * web.archive.org * ghostarchive.org

Ashland Sen. Jeff Golden is trying again to get the Legislature to create a fund to pay for natural disasters with damages collected from big oil

With plans to sell off over a million acres of natural habitat for oil and gas development, the Trump administration is ignoring the dire impact on its fragile ecosystem

The court ruled that it was unconstitutional to bar state agencies from investing with firms that the state had accused of boycotting the oil industry.

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced several measures Thursday aimed at making Canada a global leader in electric vehicles and rescuing an industry ravaged by U.S. trade policy.

A rising number of American homeowners are ready relocate this year due to extreme weather events and other climate-related concerns.

In first-of-its-kind complaint, state accused four fossil fuel majors and US oil lobbying group of climate disinformation

States and financial bodies using modelling that ignores shocks from extreme weather and climate tipping points

Science journalist Adam Becker speaks with DeSmog about how Silicon Valley tech billionaires have invented new forms of greenwashing and climate denial in their quest for ever-more fantastic technology.

Industry bigger than all but seven world economies, and accounts for more than third of China’s economic growth

Federal agencies are delaying approvals for renewable energy projects on both federal land and private property at a time when electricity demand is going up.

The developer of one project, in Pecos County, calls it the largest power project in the U.S. Data centers are sparking a surge of gas power plant construction in Texas.

As Amitav Ghosh documents in The Nutmeg’s Curse, environmental destruction has long been used as a more palatable way to achieve the same ends as overt killing, by destroying the conditions people need to survive, and then calling the outcome inevitable or natural.

A new global life-cycle analysis finds that if not properly disposed of, biodegradable plastics could increase methane emissions and plastic accumulation.

Tri-State and Platte River become the first utilities to challenge Trump’s emergency stay-open orders for coal plants, citing the cost to customers.

Companies are replacing HFCs with new gases that trap much less heat. If you buy a new fridge or AC unit in the United States today, it’ll probably use one of these new refrigerants — and you’re unlikely to notice the difference, according to Francis Dietz, a spokesperson for the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, a trade group representing U.S. HVAC manufacturers.

Archived

Scientists lost their instruments within Antarctica’s most dangerously unstable glacier, though not before getting a glimpse at the warming waters underneath.

The court ruled that construction can restart on a wind farm off the coast of New York State. The Trump administration had ordered work to stop in December.

Of note:

Archived copy of the article

The co-op and one of its partners formally object, saying being forced to keep Craig 1 running upsets the ability to deliver clean power from a new, nearby solar farm

A wave of affordable Chinese-made EVs is accelerating the shift away from petrol cars, challenging long‑held assumptions about how transport decarbonisation unfolds

Note: Some may be alarmed because this site is called Skeptical Science, but if you notice its subtitle it says Getting skeptical about global warming skeptisism

This is an editorial at the Washington Post, which means even Bezos sees how awful things are.

People will propose pretty much anything because they don't want to see a rapid phase-out of fossil fuel use. The worse things are, the more out-there the things they propose get to be.

Environmental and Indigenous groups accuse the American grain-trading company and other agribusiness giants of advocating for projects they believe will destroy Amazonian rivers and the rainforest.

Complete freezes have been rarer in the past century. On Feb. 5, 1918, during one of the coldest New York winters on record, the Hudson froze solid as far south as Harlem. In 1947, an icebreaker recently returned from capturing a German weather station in the Arctic cut a channel up the Hudson to Albany, allowing emergency fuel and food to reach the capital.

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The paper is here

Political tensions are hampering work on the island, which is key to understanding the effects of global warming.

cross-posted from: https://futurology.today/post/8442900