Global Warming Should Be Called Global Heating, Says Key Scientist

The Guardian - Jonathan Watts

UK Met Office professor tells UN summit Earth’s ‘energy balance’ is changing

The heatwave that hit the UK this summer was made 30 times more likely by human-caused climate change, according to the Met Office. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images 

“Global heating” is a more accurate term than “global warming” to describe the changes taking place to the world’s climate, according to a key scientist at the UK Met Office.
Prof Richard Betts, who leads the climate research arm of Britain’s meteorological monitoring organisation, made the comments amid growing evidence that rising temperatures have passed the comfort zone and are now bringing increased threats to humanity.
“Global heating is technically more correct because we are talking about changes in the energy balance of the planet,” the scientist said at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland. “We should be talking about risk rather than uncertainty.”
Earlier this month, the Met Office produced a new report that showed the searing heatwave that hit the UK this summer – along with other parts of the northern hemisphere – was made 30 times more likely by human-caused climate change.
Betts said the shifting climate was pushing some natural processes – such as the blossoming of trees and laying of eggs – out of sync. “That’s already happening. We are also seeing higher temperatures of heatwaves. The kind of thing we saw this year will happen more often.

“The risks are compounding all the time. It stands to reason that the sooner we can take action, the quicker we can rein them in.”
His views were echoed by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a professor of theoretical physics and founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. He said his recent Hothouse Earth report , which was one of the most widely quoted and downloaded studies of this year, had helped to change the language used to describe the climate crisis.
“Global warming doesn’t capture the scale of destruction. Speaking of hothouse Earth is legitimate,” he said.
The scientists expressed frustration at the slow pace of action by political leaders. In signing the 2015 Paris agreement, governments around the world aimed to keep global warming to within 1.5C to 2C above pre-industrial levels. But current commitments are far off track.
The Met Office upgraded its forecasts this week to show the planet is on track to warm by between 2.5C and 4.5C. “We have broadened out the range of possibilities,” said Betts, who is conducting a risk assessment based on the new projections. In the UK, he said the trend was towards wetter winters with more floods, hotter summers with more droughts interspersed with increasingly intense rain.
At 3C of change, Schellnhuber said southern Spain would become part of the Sahara. Even 2C, he said, could not be guaranteed as safe.

Water lines on the step banks of Algeciras reservoir in Librilla, Spain. Photograph: David Ramos/Getty Images 

The Paris pact was a firewall, he said. “It’s not helping us to keep the world as it is now. We’ve lost this opportunity already. It’s a firewall against climate chaos.”Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said “cracks” were starting to appear in the climate system that were pushing nature from being a friend that absorbs carbon dioxide to an enemy that releases carbon dioxide. These concerns are fuelled by the growing intensity of forest fires, the effect of melting ice-sheets on the jet stream, and the rising risk of permafrost thaw, which would release trapped methane.
Although he stressed it might not yet have passed a tipping point, he said the warnings were getting louder. “This shift from friend to foe is no doubt a scientific nightmare. That is the biggest worry that we have,” he said. “It does terrify me. The only reason we sit here without being completely depressed is that we see we have policy measures and technology to move in the right direction.
“We need to have a diagnosis just like a patient who comes to a doctor and gets a really bad diagnosis. But if the science is right, the technology is right, and the policy is right you can cure that very dire situation. There is no scientific suggestion that the door is shut.”
This week’s climate talks have crept forward with only small progress towards a new global rulebook, but emissions continue to rise and the planet continues to heat.
“Things are obviously proceeding very slowly,” said Betts. “As a scientist, it’s frustrating to see we’re still at the point when temperatures are going up and emissions are going up. I’ve been in this for 25 years. I hoped we’d be beyond here by now.”
Schellnhuber concurred. “I’ve worked on this for 30 years and I’ve never been as worried as I am today.”

Links

• 'Window is narrowing': scientists urge action at UN climate talks
• Climate change talks lead to heightened pledge to cut emissions
• UK bids to host 2020 UN climate change summit
• London mayor unveils plan to tackle 'climate emergency'
• Icebergs ahead! Olafur Eliasson brings the frozen fjord to Britain
• US and Russia ally with Saudi Arabia to water down climate pledge
• US accused of obstructing talks at UN climate change summit
• East Antarctica glacial stronghold melting as seas warm

Pacific Nations Under Climate Threat Urge Australia To Abandon Coal Within 12 Years

The Guardian - Ben Doherty

Frustrated leaders appeal to ‘all OECD countries’ to phase out use as Australia signals support for new plants

Tuvalu, under acute threat from climate change, joins other Pacific nations to call on Australia to end coal-powered energy generation. Photograph: Warming Images/REX/Shutterstock 

Pacific countries vulnerable to climate change have urged Australia to abandon coal power generation within 12 years, and to prohibit new coal plants or expansion of existing plants.
The call from 15 small Pacific island states came one day after the Australian government called for expressions of interest in new power generation projects, indicating it would be prepared to use taxpayer money to underwrite new coal plants.
Leaders warned Australia’s relations in the Pacific were being eroded by a perceived intransigence in Canberra over coalmining.
As the COP24 UN climate talks in Poland remained stalled over an unwillingness from major emitters to commit to further carbon emissions cuts, frustrated Pacific states, traditional allies of Australia, said the world must abandon coal-powered energy generation.
The Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, the outgoing president of COP23, said: “We call on all OECD countries to quickly phase out their use of coal by 2030 and for all other countries to phase out their use of coal by 2040. There must be no expansion of existing coal mines or the creation of new mines.”
Australia and the US have both this week said publicly they have no plans to begin phasing out coal-generated power.
“The United States has an abundance of natural resources and is not going to keep them in the ground,” Donald Trump’s international energy and climate adviser, Wells Griffith, told a US-government-run panel discussion on fossil fuels at the UN climate talks.
Australia’s ambassador for the environment, Patrick Suckling, told the same panel: “Fossil fuels are projected to be a major source of energy for a significant time to come.”
Asked whether the Pacific declaration on abandoning coal was directed specifically at Australia and the US, Bainimarama was curt but diplomatic: “We request that everybody increases their ambition – that goes for everyone, all countries.”
The prime minister of the Cook Islands, Henry Puna, told the Guardian the phase-out of coal was critical to the survival of Pacific island states.
“We have made that call,” he said. “It is not directed at any one country, but it applies to all. We know that coal power plants are a significant cause of the climate change we see affecting the whole world.”
The Tuvalu prime minister, Enele Sopoaga, cited the Boe Declaration, which Australia signed in Nauru in September, stating that climate change was the single greatest threat to the security and wellbeing of Pacific peoples.
“It is unfortunate that we are hearing that Australia might continue to go on coalmining, opening up new mines, [such as] the Adani project [for the Carmichael mine in Queensland],” Sopoaga said.
“I was in Canberra last week. I spoke to PM Scott Morrison, and the understanding I got from him was that, yes, they are seriously looking into coal efficiency … and also relooking at the proposal for the Adani project. I said, ‘Prime minister, our partnership onwards, bilateral or regional, in this period of the Boe Declaration, will be centrally influenced by coalmining in Australia and I hope you set a pathway to move away from coalmining and focusing on renewable energy’.”
Sopoaga told the Guardian he proposed an annual high-level meeting between Australia and Pacific partners, specifically focused on countering climate change in the region.

Fijian PM Frank Bainimarama and Cooks Islands counterpart Henry Puna at Katowice. Photograph: Czarek Sokołowski/AP

Bill Hare, director of climate analytics and former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report lead author, said the Pacific states were right to be concerned about coal.
“Their call for an end to coal by 2030 – including new mines – is highly relevant to Australia – their regional neighbour,” Hare said. “The timing is important, just as the government announces plans to underwrite a new coal-fired power station. I hope Australians will listen, even if their government won’t.”
The Pacific island states also called for the establishment of an international protection regime to protect people displaced by climate change.
While Australia has publicly positioned itself with the United States, representatives from several countries say it has played a constructive role inside the negotiating rooms at the climate talks, where the “rule book” for the implementation of the 2015 Paris agreement is being hammered out.
The environment minister, Melissa Price, met the UN secretary general, António Guterres, after the secretary general flew back to Poland, concerned the talks had reached an impasse.
A spokesman for the minister said, as a courtesy, she would not be discussing details of her meetings at the COP.
Price told the Guardian: “Australia takes a technology-neutral approach to our electricity generation. We are focused on reducing emissions through a range of technologies while maintaining the stability and reliability of our grid and keeping electricity prices down.”
But Australia’s schism with the Pacific islands over climate change is a diplomatic discomfort. As China has rapidly increased its involvement and influence across the Pacific through massive infrastructure projects and loans, Australia has sought to buttress its position as the regional hegemon, with a new commitment of $2bn for infrastructure.
But its perceived political intransigence on climate, particular its commitment to maintaining, and even expanding, coal power generation, is alienating it from Pacific neighbours – historic allies, many of which are low-lying atoll nations experiencing the effects of climate change most acutely.

Links

• Australia’s carbon emissions highest on record, data shows
• Australia turns back on allies as it refuses to cut emissions above Paris pledge
• China demands developed countries 'pay their debts' on climate change
• Coal, coal, coal and soaring emissions – as a Liberal, I have had enough
• Adani coal port faces possible 'stop order' after traditional owners object
• Australian ministers write to China to confirm approval of Carmichael mine
• Coal in decline: Adani in question and Australia out of step
• Adani gives 'green light' to $16bn Carmichael coal mine
• Adani offered $320m deferment of Carmichael coal export royalties
• Get a job with Adani and infiltrate coal project, activists urge supporters
• Australia dubbed 'fossil of the day' after lobbying for coal mine at climate talks
• Cutting emissions proves a sticking point at Poland climate talks
• Reforesting the world: the Australian farmer with 240m trees to his name
• Global warming should be called global heating, says key scientist

15-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Speaks Truth To Power In Katowice

CleanTechnica - Steve Hanley

15-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden took the stage at the COP 24 climate conference in Katowice, Poland this week to castigate world leaders for their lack of concerted action to prevent an existential crisis as the world gets hotter.
Much like the apocryphal tale of the small child who dared point out the king was wearing no clothes, Thumberg stripped away all the artifice and pretense that lies at the heart of the climate denial meme and challenged her elders to act rather than extemporize.

Fifteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the U.N. plenary last night in Katowice, Poland, condemning global inaction in the face of catastrophic climate change.

Her remarks may have been prompted in part by the disgraceful actions of the United States delegation, which had the effrontery to conduct a seminar about why burning more coal and fossil fuels is actually a smart thing to do.
That tawdry stunt perfectly illustrated the monumental ignorance and self interest that underlies the Trump maladministration from the Oval Office — which might be better described as the Offal Office — on down to every member of the government installed since this alleged president took office.
Thunberg told her audience, “Our civilization is being sacrificed to the opportunity for a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money.” It doesn’t get any clearer than that. It’s so obvious even a child can see it! “You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children.” Ouch.
So who is this impudent upstart? Thunberg attracted international attention earlier this year when she elected to skip school and protest in front of the Swedish parliament for a month after her country experienced unprecedented heat waves and wildfires over the course of the summer.
In her vigil, she demanded her government implement the promises it made at the Paris climate summit in 2015.
Her example has led many other school children around the world to create their own protests on Fridays to demand their governments do the same.

“You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. What I hope we achieve at this conference is that we realize that we are facing an existential threat. This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced. First we have to realize this and then as fast as possible do something to stop the emissions and try to save what we can save.”
Greta Thunberg

Watch the video. Share it with your friends. Invite people to watch it with you — again and again.
This is the message that has to be internalized by every living person.
Time is short. We can’t wait for new elections, new technology, new attitudes. We have to act. Now. We are not parts of discrete clans with scores to settle. We are one people and we are destroying our home.
If we can’t agree on that one simple concept, there truly is no hope for humanity.

Links

• The Fifteen-Year-Old Climate Activist Who Is Demanding A New Kind Of Politics
• The Swedish 15-Year-Old Who's Cutting Class To Fight The Climate Crisis
• Australian Students Plan School Strikes To Protest Against Climate Inaction  
• Yes, Prime Minister, I'm Striking From School: Consider It A Climate Lesson 
• 'We'll Be Voting Soon': Students Take On PM Over Climate Change  
• Why Aren't They Doing Anything?: Students Strike To Give Climate Lesson 
• Children Demand Climate Change Action Through Protests And Lawsuits 
• Climate Change: 'World At Crossroads' Warning As Key Talks Begin 
• How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking The Planet

Coalition Signals It Will Provide Taxpayer Support For New And Existing Coal Plants

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Morrison government specifies generation projects will need to be coal, gas, batteries or pumped hydro to be eligible for underwriting

Labor and the Greens are opposed to any taxpayer support for coal projects and will continue to try and frustrate the Coalition’s power generation underwriting program. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

The Morrison government has sent a clear signal that it is prepared to provide taxpayer support for both new and existing coal plants, opening registrations of interest in its controversial new power generation underwriting program.

With the government accelerating to cover off major announcements before the Christmas break, the energy minister, Angus Taylor, will on Thursday use an event at a hydro power station in Tasmania to outline the terms of the new program and urge proponents to get their bids in over the summer break – before 23 January.
As well as finalising the criteria for the underwriting program, and calling for expressions of interest, the government is also expected to outline its response to the Ruddock review into religious freedom, and unveil its decision on Australian diplomatic facilities in Israel, before the end of the week.

Angus Taylor, left, will confirm the underwriting program will potentially fund generation projects including new builds and brownfield projects. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Taylor will confirm on Thursday that the underwriting program – which has been criticised by business groups and energy stakeholders – will potentially fund generation projects including new builds and brownfield projects, like upgrades or life extensions of existing coal generators.

Taxpayer support will be made available to projects through a range of financing options such as underwriting floor prices, underwriting cap prices, grants and loans – although the finalised program guidelines makes it clear that the amount of support available under each phase of the program, and the extent of taxpayer liability, will be capped.
The government has not published an upper limit on the size of eligible projects but the minimum eligible project size will be 30MW.
The criteria makes it clear that the program is technology neutral but it also specifies that generation projects will need to be coal, gas, batteries or pumped hydro to be eligible for the government underwriting.
The document calling for expressions of interest does not supply any specific guidance on the emissions intensity of the projects. It says only that projects delivering an electricity product at a lower emissions intensity “will be deemed higher merit.”
It also makes clear the program will also be open to foreign investors in the event the proposal can clear Foreign Investment Review Board processes.
As to timing, the document suggests phase one is anticipated to commence in the first quarter of 2019 – which puts some of the decision making pre-election in the event the government goes to the polls in April.
Labor and the Greens are opposed to any taxpayer support for coal projects, and will continue efforts once parliament resumes next year to try and frustrate the Coalition’s program, potentially by attempting to amend the government’s “big stick” divestiture bill, which stalled in the final sitting week, to include a prohibition on power companies receiving commonwealth support.
As well as the underwriting, Taylor has also flagged the possible indemnification of projects from the future risk of a carbon price.
There is speculation around the energy sector that the government underwriting proposal could facilitate an extension of the Vales Point power station near Lake Macquarie in New South Wales. It is owned by Trevor St Baker, who was vocal during a stakeholder session last month convened to discuss the underwriting program.
Ahead of Thursday’s announcement, Taylor said: “This program will drive down electricity prices for householders by increasing competition and increasing supply in the market.”
He said the objective was to produce a pipeline of projects “that will allow us to bring targeted generation into the system in the right place at the right time”.

Links

• Energy impasse is Australia's 'largest failure in public policy', Business Council says
• Coal in decline: an energy industry on life support
• Turnbull rejects efforts to ‘dumb down’ energy debate into renewables v coaln
• Coalition could indemnify new coal projects against potential carbon price
• Angus Taylor signals further taxpayer investment in existing coal and gas
• Neg: Labor warns it will not back taxpayer support for new coal-fired power
• Alinta Energy says it wants to buy AGL’s Liddell coal-fired power station 
• Majority of Australians support phasing out coal power by 2030, survey finds 
• Barnaby Joyce says Coalition won't help Clive Palmer build new coal-fired power plant

'New Energy Future': Minister Touts Australia At Climate Summit

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Australia is moving "towards a new energy future", powered by unprecedented investments in renewable energy, Environment Minister Melissa Price has told a summit in Poland even as the country earned a "fossil of the day" award for its poor climate policies.
In a speech on Wednesday at the COP24 climate talks in Katowice, Ms Price said Australia was "committed to the Paris Agreement" and the development of a "robust rulebook" to implement the global pact agreed in 2015.

Melissa Price, the environment minister, spoke overnight at the COP24 climate talks in Poland. (Seen here in Canberra earlier this month.) Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

"The clear message from the dialogue is that we must act, and act together, because climate change affects us all, and Australia must play its part," Ms Price said.
"Our clean energy finance corporation, the world’s largest green bank, has leveraged nearly $20 billion in low-emissions technology investment," she said, adding that Australia would also help "fuel the battery storage revolution" with its large reserves of lithium.
Australia was also implementing its $1 billion commitment in climate finance to 2020, focused on "building resilience in the Pacific, one of the most vulnerable regions in the world," she said.
Richie Merzian, a climate researcher with The Australia Institute, said Minister Price's speech "relied almost entirely on policies her government tried to kill-off or water down".
He also criticised the climate finance pledge, saying Prime Minister Scott Morrison "had trashed and cut support for UN’s key climate finance body, the Green Climate Fund".

'Fossil of the Day'
Australia's policies also copped flak from The Climate Action Network, an alliance of 1300 environmental groups, which declared the country "fossil of the day" for its four years of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

No cop out: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, right, talks to UN climate conference president, Poland's Deputy Environment Minister Michal Kurtyka, after flying back to the event to urge more effort from the negotiators. Credit: AP

The network also raised the issue, first reported by the Herald, that Australia had "remained silent" about whether it planned to use any surplus from the Kyoto Protocol period - possibly 400 million tonnes worth - to count against its Paris target.
Ms Price's Labor counterpart, Mark Butler, has also continued to not rule out the use of any Kyoto credits for its post-2020 targets.
"It's not clear whether the so-called rulebook for the Paris Agreement will allow a carryover," Mr Butler told Radio National on Thursday.
"If it does, we would have to consider any conditions about that," he said, adding, "my bias is to steer very clear of cop-outs and accounting tricks when it comes to climate change policies."

Former US vice president and climate activist Al Gore makes a speech on acting for climate to participants at the Katowice summit. Credit: AP

Greens climate spokesman Adam Bandt said: “It is disappointing that Mark Butler has left the door open to cooking the books to meet their Paris commitment. The analysis is clear that up to a quarter of Labor’s target could be met by fake Kyoto credits if they follow the Coalition and pull the same dodgy accounting tricks.”

Links

• They're back and still bad -- it's Australia!
• Arctic is in even worse shape than realised
• New Zealand rules out using 'Kyoto credits' for Paris, Australia shtum
• Trump's climate adviser sparked protests, but he found a receptive audience in Australia
• 'Fake action': Australia's secret path to hitting Paris climate goals
• Protesters march as UN climate talks hit fossil fuel snag
• Colossal Fossil and a Special Ray of the COP

2018 | The Year In Climate Change

New York Times

How The World Is Heating Up

How Much Hotter Is Your Hometown Than When You Were Born?

Aug. 30, 2018

See how days at or above 90 degrees Fahrenheit have changed in your lifetime and how much hotter it could get.

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Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040

Oct. 7, 2018

A landmark United Nations report paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding damage requires quickly transforming the world economy.

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U.S. Climate Report Warns of Damaged Environment and Shrinking Economy
Nov. 23, 2018

Without major action to rein in global warming, the American economy could lose 10 percent of G.D.P. by 2100, according to a report from 13 federal agencies.

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Why Half a Degree of Global Warming Is a Big Deal
Oct. 7, 2018

It may sound small, but a half-degree of temperature change could lead to more dire consequences in a warming world, according to a sweeping new scientific assessment.

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Nights Are Warming Faster Than Days. Here’s Why That’s Dangerous.
July 11, 2018

Nationwide, summer evening temperatures have risen at nearly twice the rate of daytime temperatures, putting older people, the sick, and young children at greater risk during heatwaves.

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Where Are America’s Winters Warming the Most? In Cold Places.
March 16, 2018

In recent decades, wintertime has warmed up particularly quickly in the region stretching from Montana to Michigan.

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Of 21 Winter Olympic Cities, Many May Soon Be Too Warm to Host the Games
Jan. 11, 2018

Because of climate change, by midcentury many prior Winter Games locations may be too warm to ever host the Olympics again.

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Vanishing Heritage

Easter Island Is Eroding
March 14, 2018

Rising ocean levels are causing waves to break on the statues and platforms built a thousand years ago. The island risks losing its cultural heritage. Again.

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Your Children’s Yellowstone Will Be Radically Different
Nov. 15, 2018

Climate change is altering America’s first national park so quickly that plants and animals may not be able to adapt.

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Saving Scotland’s Heritage From the Rising Seas
Sept. 25, 2018

Citizens and scientists on the Orkney Islands are racing to protect thousands of ancient structures threatened by climate change.

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Climate Change Is Killing the Cedars of Lebanon

July 18, 2018

Global warming could wipe out most of the country’s remaining cedar forests by the end of the century.

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The Perils Of Inaction

California’s Underwater Forests Are Being Eaten by the ‘Cockroaches of the Ocean’
Oct. 22, 2018

Climate change is ravaging California’s underwater kelp forests. That’s caused what one scientist called a “perfect storm” in the ecosystem.

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Left to Louisiana’s Tides, a Village Fights for Time
Feb. 24, 2018

For the community of Jean Lafitte, the question is less whether it will succumb to the sea than when — and how much the public should invest in artificially extending its life.

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Why Are Puffins Vanishing? The Hunt for Clues Goes Deep (Into Their Burrows)
Aug. 29, 2018

Overfishing, hunting and pollution are putting pressure on the birds, but climate change may prove to be the biggest challenge.

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In India, Summer Heat May Soon Be Literally Unbearable
July 17, 2018

In cities that are already scorching hot, temperatures and humidity levels are rising to levels that the human body simply can’t tolerate, researchers warn.

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Floods Are Getting Worse, and 2,500 Chemical Sites Lie in the Water’s Path
Feb. 6, 2018

Extreme weather linked to climate change has increased the frequency and severity of flooding, amplifying the risk of toxic spills at chemical sites.

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Why Does California Have So Many Wildfires?
Nov. 9, 2018

There are four key ingredients that make the state such a tinderbox.

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Hotter, Drier, Hungrier: How Global Warming Punishes the World’s Poorest
March 12, 2018

A series of droughts with little recovery time in the intervals has pushed millions to the edge of survival in the Horn of Africa.

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Many Major Airports Are Near Sea Level. A Disaster in Japan Shows What Can Go Wrong.
Sept. 7, 2018

Airports in Shanghai, Rome, New York and other major cities, often designed before global warming was fully understood, face a threat from rising seas and extreme weather.

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Canada’s Outdoor Rinks Are Melting. So Is a Way of Life.
March 20, 2018

Canada loves its ice, and outdoor hockey is part of the nation's cultural identity. So what happens when winters get too warm for backyard rinks?

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As Winter Warms, Bears Can’t Sleep. And They’re Getting Into Trouble.
May 4, 2018

American black bears are not always hibernating when they should be. Sometimes, they go in search of humans’ food, and that’s an even bigger problem.

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Inside The White House

In the Trump Administration, Science Is Unwelcome. So Is Advice.
June 9, 2018

As the president prepares for nuclear talks, he lacks a close adviser with nuclear expertise. It’s one example of a marginalization of science in shaping federal policy.

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76 Environmental Rules on the Way Out Under Trump
Oct. 5, 2018

The list shows dozens of environmental policies that the Trump administration has targeted, often in an effort to ease burdens on the fossil fuel industry.

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E.P.A. Prepares to Roll Back Rules Requiring Cars to Be Cleaner and More Efficient
March 29, 2018

The Trump administration, handing automakers a victory, is preparing to announce an effort to weaken strict Obama-era pollution standards.

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Scott Pruitt Before the E.P.A.: Fancy Homes, a Shell Company and Friends With Money
April. 21, 2018

The E.P.A. chief is under scrutiny for high spending and interactions with lobbyists. Many of the pitfalls he has encountered in Washington have echoes in his past.

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A Courtside View of Scott Pruitt’s Cozy Ties With a Billionaire Coal Baron
June 2, 2018

The E.P.A. chief, who has reversed Obama-era rules on coal mining, enjoyed a superfan experience at a University of Kentucky basketball game — courtesy of an industry executive.

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E.P.A. Chief Scott Pruitt Resigns Under a Cloud of Ethics Scandals
July 5, 2018

Mr. Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general, had been hailed by conservatives for his zealous deregulation, but could not overcome a spate of ethics questions.

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Trump Wants to Bail Out Coal and Nuclear Power. Here’s Why That Will Be Hard.
June 13, 2018

Over the past decade, coal has been pushed off the power grid by competition from cheap natural gas, state efforts to boost renewable energy and stricter pollution rules.

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Trump Would Open Nearly All U.S. Waters to Drilling. But Will They Drill?
Jan. 23, 2018

President Trump’s offshore oil drilling plan upends a decades-long effort to balance the nation’s energy needs with protecting ocean ecosystems, and it is meeting stiff resistance from governors up and down the coasts.

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How a Coal Baron’s Wish List Became President Trump’s To-Do List
Jan. 9, 2018

Robert E. Murray, the chief executive of Murray Energy, wrote a lengthy “action plan” last year for President Trump. There’s not much left undone.

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Industry Influence

How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country
June 19, 2018

In communities across the country, the billionaire conservatives are waging a sophisticated fight against new rail projects and bus routes.

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The World Needs to Quit Coal. Why Is It So Hard?
Nov. 24, 2018

Coal, the most polluting of energy sources, shows no sign of disappearing three years after the Paris agreement, when world leaders promised decisive action against global warming.

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In the Blink of an Eye, a Hunt for Oil Threatens Pristine Alaska
Dec. 3, 2018

For decades, opposition to drilling has left the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits. Now the Trump administration is hurriedly clearing the way for oil exploration.

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See the Scars That Oil Exploration Cut Across Alaska’s Wilderness
Aug. 3, 2018

A huge grid covers the landscape just outside the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, from seismic testing for oil and gas. Parts of the refuge itself could soon look the same way.

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Seeking Solutions

How Oman’s Rocks Could Help Save the Planet
April. 26, 2018

The rocks in this part of the world have a special ability: They can turn carbon dioxide into stone.

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Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not
May 29, 2018

Plastics and papers from dozens of American cities and towns are being dumped in landfills after China stopped recycling most “foreign garbage.”

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6 Things You’re Recycling Wrong
May 29, 2018

Can you recycle coffee cups or greasy pizza boxes? If you’re tossing things in the recycling bin out of sheer hope, you might be an “aspirational recycler.”

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How Six Americans Changed Their Minds About Global Warming
Feb. 21, 2018

More Americans than ever say that climate change is caused mainly by human activity. We talked to six people about what changed their minds.

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California Is Preparing for Extreme Weather. It’s Time to Plant Some Trees.

July 15, 2018

The state expects drier dry years and wetter wet ones in the decades ahead. That means projects to restore river habitats now serve another purpose: battling the coming floods.