Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Climate

The World Has on Ambition Gap on Emissions, UN Says

On Nationally Determined Contributions, hurricane damage, and PFAS pollution.

The World Has on Ambition Gap on Emissions, UN Says
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions:Tropical Storm Dana touched down in India with 70 mile-per-hour winds, causing 600,000 people to be evacuated • Parts of the Northwestern U.S. and Canada’s British Columbia may see snow this weekend • Dallas is on track for its second-hottest October on record.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Global emissions policies have an ambition gap, UN finds

Only dramatic action on emissions over and above existing policy and pledges will keep warming below the targets set in the Paris Agreement, according to this year’s United Nations Emissions Gap Report released on Thursday.

“Unless global emissions in 2030 are brought below the levels implied by existing policies and current [Nationally Determined Contributions], it will become impossible to reach a pathway that would limit global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot,” the report said. Policy goals “must deliver a quantum leap in ambition in tandem with accelerated mitigation action in this decade.”

Greenhouse gas emissions rose by 1.2% in 2023, which is faster than the annual average rate of change in the 2010s. Current policies would likely deliver 2.9 degrees of warming by 2100, while warming might be limited to around 2.5 degrees if countries meet the policy commitments they’ve already made.

2. Burned by politics

President Donald Trump withheld disaster aid following devastating wildfires in Washington State in 2020 due to his disagreements with Governor Jay Inslee over climate and Covid-19 policy, E&E News reported. Trump “refused to act on Gov. Jay Inslee’s request for $37 million in federal disaster aid because of a bitter personal dispute with the Democratic governor,” reporters Thomas Frank and Scott Waldman wrote. President Biden approved the request for aid in early February, 2021. The reporters wrote earlier this month that Trump had similarly waffled on disaster aid for California in 2018, only changing his mind after aides showed him how many votes he got in Orange County.

3. The shale boom is getting quieter

Natural gas production from shale, the “tight” rocks that nearly always require hydraulic fracturing for gas production, has declined in the United States over the first nine months of the year, and may show its first annual decline since the Energy Information Administration started tracking shale production in 2000.

Shale production fell over 1% through September, according to EIA data, to just over 81 billion cubic feet per day. The production declines are specific to geological formations in Texas and Louisiana, as well as the Appalachian Basin. They are likely driven by declining natural gas prices, which fell to record lows earlier this year.

4. New research shows PFAS pervades U.S. groundwater

As many as 95 million people in the United States may rely on groundwater contaminated with PFAS, the perfluoroalkyls and polyfluoroalkyls otherwise known as “forever chemicals.”

The United States Geological Survey study published in Science looked at the lower 48 states and used a predictive model to estimate how many people may have exposure to PFAS in their drinking water. The researchers first collected samples from “principal aquifers” — the large geologic formations that contain much of the nation’s groundwater — and then used those samples to predict PFAS concentrations throughout the drinking water system. The highest observed PFAS concentration was found in southern Florida.

PFAS can cause a range of negative health effects, including “kidney and testicular cancer, decreased fertility, elevated cholesterol, weight gain, thyroid disease, the pregnancy complication pre-eclampsia, increased risk of preterm birth and low birth weight, hormone interference, and reduced vaccine response in children,” as my colleague Jeva Lange wrote earlier this year. The model “indicate[s] widespread occurrence of PFAS in groundwater at depths of public and domestic drinking-water supplies,” the USGS researchers write.

5. Record-breaking damages from Hurricane Helene

Damages from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina alone have added up to $53 billion, the state’s governor Roy Cooper said. The costs are the hurricane-prone state’s largest ever from a storm, and about three times the repairs from Hurricane Florence in 2018. Nearly 100 people were killed by the storm in North Carolina, with some still missing. Cooper requested almost $4 billion from the state legislature “to begin rebuilding critical infrastructure, homes, businesses, schools, and farms damaged during the storm.”

The aftermath of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. The aftermath of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

THE KICKER

“It is also essential that we continue to cooperate on climate, technology, debt, trade. Climate change and technology are unleashing transformations to the global economy that require global response. Only by working together can we seize the opportunities and mitigate the risks of these great changes.”International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva presenting the organization’s latest Global Policy Agenda on Thursday.

Yellow

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Climate

What the NOAA Layoffs Are Doing to Climate Science

And how ordinary Americans will pay the price.

A hand in the NOAA logo.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

No one seems to know exactly how many employees have been laid off from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — or, for that matter, what offices those employees worked at, what jobs they held, or what regions of the country will be impacted by their absence. We do know that it was a lot of people; about 10% of the roughly 13,000 people who worked at the agency have left since Donald Trump took office, either because they were among the 800 or so probationary employees to be fired late last month or because they resigned.

“I don’t have the specifics as to which offices, or how many people from specific geographic areas, but I will reiterate that every one of the six [NOAA] line offices and 11 of the staff offices — think of the General Counsel’s Office or the Legislative Affairs Office — all 11 of those staff offices have suffered terminations,” Rick Spinrad, who served as the NOAA administrator under President Joe Biden, told reporters in a late February press call. (At least a few of the NOAA employees who were laid off have since been brought back.)

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Podcast

How Trump Has All But Halted Offshore Wind

Rob and Jesse talk with Heatmap senior reporter Jael Holzman.

Offshore wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s second term has now entered its second month. His administration is doing much to slow down renewables, and everything it can to slow down offshore wind. Jael Holzman is a senior reporter at Heatmap and the author of our newsletter, “The Fight,” about local battles over renewable permitting around the country.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse talk to Jael about the bleak outlook for offshore wind, the use of presidential authority to impede energy development, and why solar has been spared — so far. Shift Key is hosted by Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University, and Robinson Meyer, Heatmap’s executive editor.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Electric Vehicles

Tesla Is Now a Culture War Totem (Plus Some AI)

The EV-maker is now a culture war totem, plus some AI.

A Tesla taking an exit.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Tesla

During Alan Greenspan’s decade-plus run leading the Federal Reserve, investors and the financial media were convinced that there was a “Greenspan put” underlying the stock market. The basic idea was that if the markets fell too much or too sharply, the Fed would intervene and put a floor on prices analogous to a “put” option on a stock, which allows an investor to sell a stock at a specific price, even if it’s currently selling for less. The existence of this put — which was, to be clear, never a stated policy — was thought to push stock prices up, as it gave investors more confidence that their assets could only fall so far.

While current Fed Chair Jerome Powell would be loath to comment on a specific volatile security, we may be seeing the emergence of a kind of sociopolitical put for Tesla, one coming from the White House and conservative media instead of the Federal Reserve.

Keep reading...Show less
Green