"The production of steel, cement and ammonia emit about one-fifth of all human-caused CO2. Technologies are emerging to decarbonize these industries, but big challenges remain."
While climate change is certainly a global phenomenon, conflicts over addressing it often turn on local concerns. Case in point: Community bans on the use of the fossil fuel methane (aka natural gas), which has in turn prompted some states to ban the bans themselves. The latest TipSheet explains the bans and how they play into the climate change debate, plus story ideas and resources.
"The Department of Energy on Friday announced a target of the equivalent of five million homes powered by community solar energy by 2025."
"Planning continues for a $30 billion grid expansion across a wide swath of the central United States to help states and utilities accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy over the next 30 years. But before the region’s grid operator, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), can even approve an initial set of projects, the process is mired in a thorny debate over who will pay for them."
"The Canadian government has invoked a decades-old treaty with the United States in its latest bid to save a pipeline that critics warn could be environmentally catastrophic if it were to fail."
"The White House Council on Environmental Quality has proposed reversing a number of Trump-era changes to the nation’s bedrock environmental permitting law."
"Ever since a pipeline failure caused at least 126,000 gallons of oil to spill into the Pacific Ocean, threatening a fragile coastal ecosystem and forcing some of Southern California’s most popular beaches to close, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been scrutinizing satellite imagery to track the oil’s spread."
"Reuters traveled the bayous of hard-hit Terrebonne, Lafourche, Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes in recent days, speaking with more than 40 residents. All said they felt abandoned by state and federal officials. A few said they had not received any type of support from any level of government."
"The governors of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin are joining forces to build a new network for charging electric vehicles. The bipartisan plan aims to improve the region's economy while also reducing toxic emissions from cars and trucks."
It sometimes feels like journalists lurch from one catastrophe (or hurricane, flood, wildfire, heat wave) to the next. But that can mean missing the bigger story: Disasters, increasingly linked to climate extremes, are often interlocking events, in which one system failure causes the next and the next. The latest Backgrounder explores three case studies, and how news media can focus attention on steps toward resilience.
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