Green New Deal

Decline of Coal shows Gov’t Policy, Renewables crucial to Reducing Carbon Emissions: The Market isn’t Enough

By David Drake and Jeffrey York | – The big idea People often point to plunging natural gas prices as the reason U.S. coal-fired power plants have been shutting down at a faster pace in recent years. However, new research shows two other forces had a much larger effect: federal regulation and a well-funded activist […]

Germany

German President envisions Electric Cars as zero carbon ‘Smartphone on Wheels’

Clean Energy Wire

By Charlotte Nijhuis | – Clean Energy Wire / Süddeutsche Zeitung ) – To reach Germany’s climate goals the car industry needs to undergo a significant transformation, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier said during a summit titled “Industry and climate action using the example of the automotive industry” that he organised in Berlin. On last Thursday […]

China

With Trump Gone, Can the U.S. and China Cooperate on a Failing Planet?

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – For just a moment, let me try to look on the bright side of the storming of the Capitol last week by a mob incited and dispatched by President Trump. When George W. Bush, the president who launched the Global War on Terror and then invaded Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, referred to what […]

Climate Crisis

COVID-19, the US Election and our Desperate Need for Clean Air, Green Energy

Middle East Monitor

By Elif Selin Calik | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – One of the enduring images of 2020, the year of the pandemic, has been the sight of people connected to ventilators in hospitals. It is an image that helped us realise the importance of being able to breathe. Many have died because they […]

Batteries

Greening America: Can Biden’s new Team of Buttigieg and Granholm save us from the Climate Crisis?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Washington Post is reporting that Joe Biden will make Pete Buttigieg his secretary of transportation and Jennifer Granholm his secretary of energy. This is very good news for climate policy. Energy is perhaps the most important portfolio in the Biden cabinet, since it is key to greening America and […]

Climate Crisis

A Tipping Point for the Defeat of Fossil Fuels? How to Stop Big Energy in Its Tracks (Quite Literally)

Tomdispatch

By Richard Lachmann, Michael Schwartz and Kevin A. Young | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – As Donald Trump gave in to the demand that the transition process to the Biden years officially begin, the administration and its fossil-fuel allies doubled down on their efforts to implement destructive environmental policies that President Biden might try to […]

Climate Crisis

How Biden and Kerry could rebuild America’s global climate leadership

The Conversation

By Dolf Gielen and Morgan Bazilian | – John Kerry helped bring the world into the Paris climate agreement and expanded America’s reputation as a climate leader. That reputation is now in tatters, and President-elect Joe Biden is asking Kerry to rebuild it again – this time as U.S. climate envoy. It won’t be easy, […]

Climate Crisis

One last Time, Trump lies to the International Community about the Climate Emergency and Green Energy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – DW gives a clip of Trump’s unhinged video rant to the G20 summit against the Paris Climate Accord on Sunday, which is being held virtually this year. Trump said, according to Kevin Liptak at CNN, “The Paris accord was not designed to save the environment, it was designed to kill […]

Climate Crisis

We only need $1.5 Trillion to meet Paris climate goals, a fraction of what Gov’ts are spending on Pandemic Relief

The Conversation

By David L. McCollum | – As of late summer, governments around the world had pledged US$12.2 trillion of relief in response to the coronavirus pandemic. That’s around 15% of global GDP, three times larger than government spending put forward during and after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and enough for every adult in the […]