Author: Ranveer Kumar

(Bloomberg) –The White House is considering a pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 50% or more by the end of the decade, according to people familiar with the deliberations, a target that would nearly double the country’s previous commitment and require dramatic changes in the power, transportation and other sectors. The emissions-reduction goal, which is still being developed and subject to change, is part of a White House push to encourage worldwide action to keep average global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, according to the people. The administration of President…

Ángel León made his name serving innovative seafood. But then he discovered something in the seagrass that could transform our understanding of the sea itself – as a vast garden Growing up in southern Spain, Ángel León paid little attention to the meadows of seagrass that fringed the turquoise waters near his home, their slender blades grazing him as he swam in the Bay of Cádiz. It was only decades later – as he was fast becoming known as one of the country’s most innovative chefs – that he noticed something he had missed in previous encounters with Zostera marina: a clutch…

Globally, only one in 50 new cars were fully electric in 2020, and one in 14 in the UK. Sounds impressive, but even if all new cars were electric now, it would still take 15-20 years to replace the world’s fossil fuel car fleet. The emission savings from replacing all those internal combustion engines with zero-carbon alternatives will not feed in fast enough to make the necessary difference in the time we can spare: the next five years. Tackling the climate and air pollution crises requires curbing all motorised transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible. Focusing solely on electric vehicles is slowing down the race to zero emissions.…

‘Unimaginable amounts’ of water will flow into oceans if that temperature rise occurs and ice buffers vanish, warn UK scientists More than a third of the vast floating platforms of ice surrounding Antarctica could be at risk of collapsing and releasing “unimaginable amounts” of water into the sea if global temperatures reach 4C above pre-industrial levels, UK scientists say. Researchers from the University of Reading said that limiting the temperature rise to 2C could halve the area at risk and avoid a drastic rise in sea levels. The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggest that 4C warming could leave…

The film gets some things wrong, but it exposes the grim ecological destruction of the Earth’s oceans When the BBC made a film about the crisis in our oceans, it somehow managed to avoid naming the greatest cause of their ecological destruction: the fishing industry. The only significant sequence on fishing in 2017’s Blue Planet II was a heartwarming story about how kind Norwegian herring boats are to orcas. It presented industrial fishing not as the greatest threat to sealife, but as its saviour. It’s as if you were to make a film about climate breakdown without revealing the role of fossil fuel…

The vaccine stimulated a set of one-in-a-million immune cells. A new vaccine for HIV is raising excitement after its first in-human trials showed 97% success at stimulating a rare set of immune cells that play a key role in fighting the virus. The vaccine approach is a new attempt to head off the fast-mutating human immunodeficiency virus, which has eluded vaccines in the past because it attacks part of the immune system directly and is good at evading other immune defenses. Developed by scientists at Scripps Research in San Diego and the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the vaccine is in Phase I…

It’s become so common, perhaps you’ve stopped noticing how often your local weather forecast is “above normal.” It’s noted during extreme heat in the summer, when mild temperatures persist through the winter, or when nights don’t cool down like they used to. But on May 4, the hotter Earth will officially become the new normal. That’s when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) releases its once-a-decade update to “climate normals.” They are the 30-year averages for temperature and precipitation that local meteorologists rely on as the baseline for their forecasts. To be sure, some updates will be minuscule. But the…

Today, President Joe Biden will unveil a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that promises to overhaul the nation’s highways, airports, electrical grid, and more. It will be partly paid for by repealing subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. Currently, the United States gives the $180 billion fossil fuel industry between $5 billion to $62 billion per year in direct subsidies, depending on the estimate. When accounting for indirect subsidies, including public health impacts and climate change, the handout could be as high as $649 billion. The Biden administration hasn’t specified which tax credits or subsidies it would eliminate, and certain subsidies probably will…

Study suggests it is already too warm in tropics for some species to survive Global heating has made the ocean around the equator less rich in wildlife, with conditions likely already too hot for some species to survive, according to a new study. Analysis of the changing locations of almost 50,000 marine species between 1955 and 2015 found a predicted impact of global heating – species moving away from the equator – can now be observed at a global scale. It said further global heating, which is now unavoidable, would cut the richness of species in the ocean in tropical…

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane levels in the atmosphere continued to rise in 2020, with CO2 level reaching their highest point in 3.6 million years, according to calculations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The barrier was broken despite a reduction in expected emissions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. NOAA reported that the global average of atmospheric CO2 hit 412.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2020, a rise of 2.6 ppm from 2019, the fifth-largest increase since they began measuring atmospheric CO2 levels 63 years ago. The rise happened despite an estimated 7% reduction in global emissions due to the pandemic. Pieter Tans,…