Companies like Pepsi, DuPont, and Google might say that they support climate action, but in reality, they are funding lawmakers opposed to President Obama’s climate agenda, according to a Reuters report released Tuesday morning. Over the last year, more than 150 companies have signed on to the “American Business Act on Climate Pledge,” a commitment created by Obama to … [Read more...]
World leaders to sign Paris climate agreement on Earth Day
This year, over one billion people in 192 countries will take action to protect our shared environment. All across the globe, in big cities to small villages and everything in-between, people are organizing, demanding climate action, cleaning up their local communities, meeting with their elected officials, planting trees, and teaching their children to protect our … [Read more...]
The Paris paradox
Guerilla art group Brandalism's new project in Paris exposes some uncomfortable truths and a paradox that lies at the heart of the Paris talks: That businesses and governments are both the problem and the solution. Visitors and delegates descending on Paris over the past week for the United Nations climate change talks might have spotted some thought-provoking ads installed … [Read more...]
How will Africa adapt to green energy?
US President Barack Obama has unveiled a final set of rules to cut greenhouse gas emissions in a big initiative which would form a major plank of his legacy as he winds down his term in office. In what has been termed the strongest action ever taken in the United States to combat climate change, the rules will see the country’s hundreds of coal-fired—and polluting—power … [Read more...]
President Obama announces ambitious new climate target
President Obama has made a new commitment to curbing climate change: federal agencies must cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2025. Late last year, in an historic joint announcement with China, President Obama set an ambitious goal for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change – a clear sign that the United States’ commitment to leadership … [Read more...]
First ever climate summit in heart of the planet
This year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference in Peru marks the first time the talks have been held in an Amazon country. More than 70 percent of Peru’s national territory is within the Amazon Basin. The founder and executive director of Amazon Watch, Atossa Soltani, talks about the significance of the U.N. climate summit taking place in Peru amidst long-term threats to the … [Read more...]
US and China Shake Hands on Carbon Deal
The United States and China are the world’s two biggest economies, the largest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), and the largest historical emitters of GHGs. China’s population is well over 1 billion people, with a rapidly expanding middle class and an economy that has been accelerating at breakneck speed for the past two decades. If the climate crisis is to be … [Read more...]
World’s largest marine sanctuary on the cards?
U.S. President Barack Obama announced a plan for creating the world's largest marine sanctuary on Tuesday, covering hundreds of thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean, along with new pledges to fight illegal fishing and seafood fraud. Obama's proposal would expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in the central Pacific from around 87,000 square miles to … [Read more...]
UN climate chief backs Obama’s new US carbon cuts
New carbon cuts proposed by US President Obama could offer much-needed momentum to UN climate talks taking place in Bonn this week. That’s the view of the UN’s leading climate official, Christiana Figueres, who needs the world’s top economies on board for a global emissions reduction deal to work. “The decision by President Obama to launch plans to more tightly regulate … [Read more...]
Youth voices reject proposed crude oil pipeline
Thank you to each and every one of the hundreds of people who joined together for a march on Washington yesterday to ask the President to “Dec-line the Pipe-line”. And a special thanks to the 398 young people who put themselves on the line and were arrested in the XLDissent action. This exercise in peaceful dissent is what American leadership looks like. The marchers were … [Read more...]