You don’t need us to say it: The 2024 election will have enormous stakes for America’s climate policy and the planet’s climate. But how well can we quantify those stakes? What would a Trump presidency — or a Harris presidency, for that matter — really mean for the country’s emiss … | Continue reading
The United States Senate sits on a knife-edge. Democrats currently control the chamber by a 51-49 margin, but they are defending more seats than Republicans are in this election. In fact, with the retirement of Joe Manchin and the nearly inevitable passing of that West Virginia s … | Continue reading
Is summer really over? Meteorologists would say one thing, astronomers another, and Americans will just decide to start making things pumpkin-flavored whenever they please. So who’s to say? And after all the record-breaking this summer, does it really matter? So far, 2024 has pro … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Japan recorded its hottest summer ever • Tropical Storm Yagi killed at least 14 people in the Philippines and is forecast to strengthen as it heads toward China • Cooling centers are open in L.A. as another powerful heat wave bakes California. THE TOP FIVE 1. … | Continue reading
Climate has not exactly been the focus in this election cycle that it was in 2024 — but the political climate could still be polarizing public opinion on clean energy. For the latest Heatmap News poll, Embold Research surveyed more than 5,000 registered voters over two weeks in e … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Conditions in the central Atlantic appear “conducive” to the possible formation of Tropical Storm Francine over Labor Day weekend • A cold front is relieving the more than 20 million Americans who were under a heat alert this week • An “exceptionally rare delu … | Continue reading
In a warming world where winter snow is melting earlier and rain is arriving later, “wildfire season” has become somewhat of a misnomer. Some parts of the country now see blazes popping up practically year round. This, combined with decades of fire management policy that promoted … | Continue reading
Most Americans support the idea of a bipartisan law that would make it easier to build new clean energy projects while benefiting some oil and gas development, according to a Heatmap News poll conducted earlier this month. Some 52% of Americans said they backed the general idea o … | Continue reading
The new way to buy an electric car is not to buy one at all. Just three years ago, four out of five EV drivers had financed their car or paid in cash, while only 21% had leased the EV, according to data from TransUnion. But by the second quarter of this year, leasing had become t … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Thousands of dead fish are stinking up the port of Volos in Greece • At least 24 people are missing after flash floods hit Yemen • More than 4 million people are under evacuation orders in Japan because of Typhoon Shanshan. THE TOP FIVE 1. New research shows j … | Continue reading
Nuclear energy is making a comeback, conceptually at least. While we’re yet to see a whole lot of new steel in the ground, money is flowing into fusion, there’s a push to build more standard fission reactors, and the dream of small modular reactors lives on, even in the wake of t … | Continue reading
It shows up when you are most vulnerable. Maybe it’s under a reel of Fleabag’s season 2, episode 5 confession scene, in which Phoebe Waller-Bridge finally gets together with Andrew Scott’s “hot priest.” Or maybe it’s slapped on a TikTok of an industrial hydraulic press squashing … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Torrential rain caused a dam to burst in eastern Sudan, killing at least 30 people • Brazil’s environment minister said the country is “at war” with wildfires • The scorching heat that has blanketed the Midwest this week is shifting east. THE TOP FIVE 1. 3 tak … | Continue reading
The Biden administration has struggled to convince Americans that it has done much of anything to improve the economy. Despite a strong labor market, low unemployment, and steady GDP growth, a recent Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans believe the economy is “getting worse.” … | Continue reading
It’s time to start talking about a big year for climate politics and policy: 2025. No matter who wins this fall’s elections, next year’s executive and legislative climate policy will be huge for America’s decarbonization strategy. Congress is all but guaranteed to negotiate over … | Continue reading
The American EV market has seen its fair share of tumult this year — Ford canceled its three-row SUV, Tesla canceled its $25,000 mass-market EV, and EV sales growth dropped sharply in the first quarter. But from all this darkness, a glimmer of hope has emerged: The market for hyb … | Continue reading
The United States produces more natural gas and crude oil than any other country ― it isn’t even a contest. But these “molecules of U.S. freedom” aren’t free: They’re extracted and transported through a network of rigs, drills, pumps, and pipes that are, increasingly, controlled … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Typhoon Shanshan is headed toward southwestern Japan with the power of a Category 3 hurricane • Flooding in Bangladesh has killed 23 people and stranded 1.24 million families • Australia just experienced its hottest winter temperature ever recorded. THE TOP FI … | Continue reading
Attending a public hearing is the most important civic duty that nobody actually does. (Well, not nobody — we’ll get into that.) But despite attendance at public hearings being one of the most effective ways to directly shape one’s community, the average American probably isn’t g … | Continue reading
This week’s weather forecast is like the Uno reverse card: Texas might finally get a break from triple-digit temperatures, but the summer heat is making its way back into the Northeast. After some taste of fall, summer returns to the north Those west of the Appalachians might hav … | Continue reading
Current conditions: The Midwest is bracing for a brutal heat wave • California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range received a dusting of snow over the weekend • It will be 85 degrees and cloudy today in Flushing Meadows for the start of the U.S. Open tennis championship. THE TOP FIVE … | Continue reading
Are clean energy developers finally free from high interest rates? Not yet, but this might be the beginning of the end. At the Federal Reserve’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Fed chair Jerome Powell told attendees, “The time has come for policy to adjust.” Analysts and marke … | Continue reading
Two years ago this month, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which both his allies and adversaries agree is the most significant climate legislation in the country’s history. Yet despite this accomplishment, the urgency of the crisis, and the consensus within the … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Storm Lilian left thousands without power in England • A large fire on the Portuguese island of Madeira threatens the UNESCO-listed Laurissilva forest • Tropical Storm Hone will bring high winds, rain, and strong surf to Hawaii this weekend. THE TOP FIVE 1. Ka … | Continue reading
I may have met the future of conservative climate politics on Tuesday, and he was standing next to piles of dead fish. Larry Hogan, a Republican former governor of Maryland, is campaigning for an open Senate seat in one of the bluest states in the country. He faces an uphill run … | Continue reading
First it was the reservoirs in China’s massive network of hydroelectric dams filling up, then it was the approval of 11 new nuclear reactors — and it’s all happening as China appears to be slowing down its approval of new coal plants, according to a research group that closely fo … | Continue reading
South of the border, Tesla quietly made its electric vehicles a little simpler. The independent Tesla-tracking website Not A Tesla App recently shared news of a subtle change to the Tesla Model 3 that’s offered in Mexico compared to those for sale in the U.S. In place of the vega … | Continue reading
Current conditions: The remnants of Hurricane Ernesto are headed toward Scotland • Unusually warm winter weather is raising wildfire risks in Australia • An August cold snap could bring snow to California’s Sierra Nevada this weekend. THE TOP FIVE 1. Texas heat dome breaks multip … | Continue reading
Well, that’s not good. Ford Motor Company is canceling one of its most anticipated electric vehicles and delaying another EV project. The changes will cost at least $400 million — and as much as $1.9 billion — the company said Wednesday, and they signal that one of the biggest pl … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Extreme storm warnings are in place across Europe • Large hail could terrorize the High Plains today and tomorrow • It will feel like 113 degrees Fahrenheit in Houston, Texas. THE TOP FIVE 1. A quick climate roundup from the DNC It’s Day 3 of the Democratic Na … | Continue reading
Democrats are gathering in Chicago this week for their quadrennial convention and to celebrate Kamala Harris’s nomination for president. This year’s convention will look different from 2020’s for many reasons — but one of them is that we’re likely to hear far less about climate c … | Continue reading
To fully decarbonize the electricity system will require more than just the rapid deployment of non-carbon-emitting generation capacity, plus the transmission necessary to get that electricity to where it needs to go. It will also require that our existing stock of electricity ge … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Typhoon Jongdari is expected to bring flooding to South Korea when it makes landfall tomorrow • Wildfire smoke from North America turned the moon red for stargazers in the U.K. • California’s Park Fire, which started on July 24, is still burning. THE TOP FIVE … | Continue reading
If Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president in November — as is looking increasingly likely — her term will last until the beginning of 2029. At that point, we’ll have a much better idea whether the planet is on track to hit the 1.5 degrees Celsius climate threshold that … | Continue reading
The heat is chilling out this week, meaning today’s update is a short one. If you’re in the Northeast, start dreaming of pumpkins and hot cocoa. If you live farther south … keep running that AC a little longer. Fall is in sight — for some Those in the Northeast can start airing o … | Continue reading
For my entire life, I’ve heard politicians talk about bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. Now it is finally happening. “We’re not going back!” has become Kamala Harris’s rallying cry, and it’s apt here too, because those jobs and industries of the future are what’s at st … | Continue reading
For my entire life, I’ve heard politicians talk about bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. Now it is finally happening. “We’re not going back!” has become Kamala Harris’s rallying cry, and it’s apt here too, because those jobs and industries of the future are what’s at st … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Record rainfall swamped Vienna, Austria, over the weekend • Russia evacuated school children from summer camps in parts of Siberia as wildfires rage • It will be a pleasant 72 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny in Chicago today for the start of the Democratic Nation … | Continue reading
There’s a reason they call a seemingly impossible technological reach a “moonshot.” Over the years, the term has been used to refer to virtual reality, self-driving cars, and biometric identification such as DNA fingerprinting. Now, it’s fusion’s turn. “Where we are on fusion is … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A large wildfire is burning out of control in Izmir, Turkey • Typhoon Ampil has prompted thousands of evacuation orders in Japan • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that last month was the hottest July ever recorded. THE TOP FIVE 1. … | Continue reading
When Donald Trump speaks at length — at a rally, at a press conference, or in an interview — subsequent news reports often clean up his remarks through well-placed ellipses and generous paraphrases, imposing a coherence nowhere to be found in the original. So it was with his rece … | Continue reading
There’s a lot of money in carbon management. Like, a lot. Investment in the full suite of technologies designed to capture, store, and transport carbon has skyrocketed this year, according to data from Rhodium Group and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Clean Investment Mon … | Continue reading
Yet another methane satellite is launching into orbit Friday, as early as 11:19 a.m. Pacific time, on a SpaceX rocket. Developed by a coalition of public and private partners and led by the nonprofit Carbon Mapper, its precision imaging helps fill a gap in the methane detection u … | Continue reading
I resent my go-to charging depot. Don’t get me wrong: I was psyched when Tesla opened a Supercharger in the parking lot of a nearby In-N-Out burger. The other local Supercharger is located in a garage that charges for parking by the hour. Plus, it’s fun to grab a neapolitan shake … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Hurricane Ernesto could strengthen into a category 3 storm by Friday • Several days of heavy rain in Majorca, Spain, flooded streets and grounded flights • The heat index is hovering around 115 degrees Fahrenheit for parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississip … | Continue reading
The Inflation Reduction Act is by far the most important climate law ever passed in the U.S. But it also may go down as one of the most important labor laws of recent history. Overnight, jobs installing solar farms that were largely performed by an itinerant, low-wage workforce h … | Continue reading
Later this week, Vice President Kamala Harris will give the first major policy speech of her campaign focused on tackling the “rising cost of living,” according to early press reports. That includes the skyrocketing cost of housing — but of course, you don’t need me to tell you t … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical Storm Ernesto has left hundreds of thousands of people without power in Puerto Rico • Drought from El Niño created a 3 million ton corn deficit in southern Africa • Greece remains on high alert for fires through tomorrow as temperatures top 100 degree … | Continue reading