Current conditions: More than 130,000 people on the East Coast are without power after a weekend storm • Freakishly strong winds killed at least 13 people in Argentina • China’s deep freeze continues to defy forecasters’ expectations. THE TOP FIVE1. Australia’s Queensland flooded … | Continue reading
Faulkner Architects have practiced from Truckee, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range for 35 years. The firm’s particular approach to design takes inspiration from founder Greg Faulkner’s former work in aircraft design. “Precision is one of the things we’re about,” Faul … | Continue reading
When I was in high school, I had to memorize the entire taxonomic hierarchy of the American moose. But I never learned about greenhouse gases. This never struck me as odd until I read a recent op-ed in The Boston Globe by Anita Soracco, a professor of physics and environmental sc … | Continue reading
The annual COP 28 gathering is over, and it’s about time. As Robinson Meyer writes here at Heatmap, many important things came out of the conference, despite the utter joke of holding it in a notorious oil dictatorship — the United Arab Emirates — with the head of that country’s … | Continue reading
As climate world fixated this week on the final wranglings at COP28, the researchers studying our changing planet delivered more bad news about the Arctic. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 18th annual Arctic Report Card was packed this year with words like “e … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A major storm will batter the U.S. Eastern Seaboard this weekend • Moscow is buried under record snowfall • It's 50 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy in Paris, which was recently named the world's top city destination. THE TOP FIVE1. IEA: Coal demand remains high, … | Continue reading
In the moments after Sultan Al Jaber, the president of this year’s COP, struck his gavel to finalize the text of the first-ever global stocktake, Anne Rasmussen, the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, took the floor. “We are a little confused about what just … | Continue reading
When the announcement came that COP29 will be held in Baku in 2024, the immediate reaction in the climate community was “again?!” It wasn’t that Azerbaijan — a nation of about 10 million people, situated on the Caspian Sea at the southern tail of the Caucasus mountains — had host … | Continue reading
Current conditions: More than 125 highways are closed in China due to a record-setting winter storm • Tropical Cyclone Jasper downed trees in parts of Queensland in Australia • The Geminids meteor shower will peak tonight. THE TOP FIVE1. Trump promises to revoke U.S. pledge to Gr … | Continue reading
Now it is over. Early on Wednesday morning, negotiators in Dubai reached an agreement at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the global meeting otherwise known as COP28. Their final text for the Global Stocktake — a kind of report … | Continue reading
More than 2 million Tesla vehicles are set to receive over-the-air updates to address failures in the Autopilot system, the carmaker’s much-hyped and oft-abused driver-assistance program. But the recall report published by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration … | Continue reading
This year may forever be remembered as the start of the American clean energy manufacturing boom. Since the beginning of 2023, companies have announced more than 150 separate investments in new and expanded factories to manufacture solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and othe … | Continue reading
As North America slept, delegates from around the world concluded the global climate conference in Dubai, when the chair — local oilman Sultan al-Jaber — quick-gaveled through an agreement that included a sentence calling for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy system … | Continue reading
The 2020s got off to a parched, smoky start in the West. But after three years of unrelenting drought, 2023 brought the region some relief. Thanks to a very snowy winter followed by a very rainy spring, the worst of the Western drought receded rapidly in the early months of this … | Continue reading
After two weeks of intense negotiations and apparent stalemate in Dubai, all 198 delegates swiftly approved a breakthrough climate agreement this morning at COP28. The deal — a culmination of a two-year process known as the global stocktake — isn’t perfect, and it was met with a … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Spain recorded its highest-ever December temperature • Flooding forced some London drivers to abandon their cars • It will be cold but clear tonight in New York City for Taylor Swift's blowout birthday bash. THE TOP FIVE1. Breakthrough COP28 deal calls for tra … | Continue reading
This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, has been broadly defined by two facts. The first is that the conference is headed by the CEO of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company. The second is that this is the year of the first global stocktake, a doc … | Continue reading
In the weeks leading up to Elon Musk’s latest round of controversies, 27% percent of Americans who reported wanting to buy an EV in the future said that the billionaire’s behavior made them less likely to pick a Tesla, down from 36% who said the same in February. On the other han … | Continue reading
Current conditions: It’s getting windy in Queensland as Tropical Cyclone Jasper approaches land. America’s chances of a white Christmas are looking increasingly slim. It’s cold but sunny in Washington, D.C., today, where Ukrainian President Zelensky will meet with President Biden … | Continue reading
It didn’t attract a lot of attention, but for a few months, it looked like the United Nations climate process might break down. There, process is substance: One of the most important acts every year is the selection of the next country to run the Conference of the Parties to the … | Continue reading
Political protests are a staple of COP summits. Thousands of climate activists descend on the event each year to call for stronger global commitments to building renewables and quitting fossil fuels.But at COP28, United Arab Emirates laws restricting speech and banning most forms … | Continue reading
New clean energy projects have a lot going for them. For one, building them has gotten extremely cheap. At the same time, because the wind blowing and the sun shining are unlimited free resources, operating costs for a clean energy power plant are also pretty low. That’s the beau … | Continue reading
One of the most exciting and contentious questions looming over the COP28 climate summit in Dubai this year has been whether countries will agree to an historic phase out of fossil fuels to stave off the worst effects of climate change. With one day left on the official conferenc … | Continue reading
Current conditions: At least six were killed in tornadoes that ripped through Tennessee over the weekend • Severe Tropical Cyclone Jasper is intensifying off of Australia’s Queensland coast • Dubai’s air quality is “moderate” today.THE TOP FIVE1. Saudi Arabia opposes any mention … | Continue reading
The future of climate-friendly air travel might lie in a 20-foot shipping container that was dropped off on the campus of the University of Sheffield in England in late September. Inside the box is a system developed by Mission Zero Technologies, a London-based company, that extr … | Continue reading
When four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel retired last year, he said the sport’s contribution to climate change played a part in his decision. At the time, his concern was mostly around F1’s contribution to carbon emissions — all that globetrotting required a lot o … | Continue reading
Americans remain immensely concerned about climate change, with 70% calling it a serious problem and over one in three saying they are extremely concerned about the issue, Heatmap’s second Climate Poll has found, echoing results from its first survey last winter. Conducted in mid … | Continue reading
The biggest debates during the annual United Nations climate conference, underway this week in Dubai, always center around language. The Paris Agreement, the 2015 treaty significant for uniting almost every country in the world in supporting a common strategy to address climate c … | Continue reading
The Americanization of electric cars is in full swing, with every U.S. automaker doing what it does best: building ever larger, heavier, and more spacious vehicles. So it's refreshing to see Stellantis, the parent company of Fiat, bringing its first new EV to the States in the fo … | Continue reading
Four years ago I drove my beloved brown dog home from the high desert beagle rescue in our little red EV. She sat silently in my wife’s lap, wondering what this new life might entail, and spent the ensuing months shedding stabby hairs on the seat cover and slobbering on the back … | Continue reading
In Shawn Fain’s victory speech after the United Autoworkers won significant raises and benefits from the Big Three automakers earlier this fall, the union president promised to go on to accomplish what no other UAW president had managed to do. “We’re going to organize non-union a … | Continue reading
The “green” puns pretty much write themselves. On Wednesday, Ireland set an all-time high for wind output on the Irish grid at 4,629 megawatts, Green Collective reports. By midnight Thursday, wind had accounted for a smidgen over 70% of Ireland’s total electricity demands for the … | Continue reading
The European Union launched the first stage of its carbon border tax this fall, and the world’s biggest emerging economies aren’t happy. As of October 1, the EU regulation officially known as the “carbon border adjustment mechanism” requires importers to report the emissions asso … | Continue reading
It’s a “rest day” at COP28, which means there probably won’t be a ton of news coming out of Dubai as delegates take a breather before the climate talks shift into high gear tomorrow. That makes now a good time to reflect on what’s happened so far and what to expect as the confere … | Continue reading
Eight years ago, at the Paris climate convention, Bill Gates committed $2 billion to fighting climate change.You have to admire his ROI. Since then, Breakthrough Energy, the set of Gates-linked climate groups, has become ubiquitous on the topic. It invested in dozens of climate-t … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Parts of the Great Plains and Upper Midwest could see record high temperatures today • Australia is in the grips of a ferocious heatwave • The Greek village of Metamorfosi has voted to relocate its residents to the nearby town of Palamas following devastating … | Continue reading
Who, or what, was the biggest villain of the fourth Republican debate? Vivik “The Most Obnoxious Blowhard in America” Ramaswamy would, of course, be an easy pick. So too would “the three previous Republican debates,” which were all so painfully boring that most Americans probably … | Continue reading
Coral reefs are a thing of wonder, both organism and underwater infrastructure that houses thousands of species of fish. They are also, as you might already know, in grave danger. Climate change is contributing to massive waves of coral bleaching around the world, from the Great … | Continue reading
Al Gore is done mincing words. In a TED Talk this past July titled “What the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want you to know,” the former U.S. Vice President and long-time climate champion took aim at the major oil and gas producers. “They have used fraud on a massive scale,” he sa … | Continue reading
Out in the Atlantic Ocean, 35 miles off the eastern tip of Long Island, sits a single, mammoth wind turbine. On Wednesday, its oscillating blades started sending power into the New York grid. The South Fork Wind Farm is officially the first utility-scale offshore wind project o … | Continue reading
Bob Inglis was snorkeling in Australia’s Great Barrier reef in 2008 when he had what he called “an epiphany.’’ The then-Republican congressman from a very conservative district in South Carolina had scoffed at climate change throughout his two terms in the House, but his certaint … | Continue reading
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres opened his welcome speech at COP28 in Dubai on Friday with a present-day image of a warming planet. Just days before, he told world leaders, he was standing on the melting ice of Antarctica.“This is just one symptom of the sicknes … | Continue reading
It’s day seven of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, and while today’s official talks and panels will focus on green solutions for cities, a debate about the future of fossil fuels is raging on the sidelines. Delegates argued well into the night Tuesday over the wording that will … | Continue reading
Current conditions: An atmospheric river brought life-threatening rain and flooding to Washington State • The U.S. Coast Guard is responding to another oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico • It is -52 degrees Fahrenheit in Yakutsk, Russia, one of the coldest cities in the world.THE TO … | Continue reading
The biggest annual event in climate diplomacy is the Conference of the Parties. This year is the 28th conference — hence COP28. As I’ll explain below, such a conference is vital for many reasons. Heatmap’s own Robinson Meyer is reporting there on the ground.But that importance ma … | Continue reading
By the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, you’d think we’d have done it all before — but if you did, you’d be wrong. This year, for the first time, negotiators at the conference will produce what’s called a global stocktak … | Continue reading
The remaining rules governing virtually all of President Joe Biden’s climate law — including some of its most important and generous provisions — will come out in the next several weeks, signaling a new era in the law’s implementation, a senior White House advisor told Heatmap in … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Cyclone Michaung drenches Chennai, India, with 20 inches of rain in two days • Death toll from northern Tanzania floods rises to 63 • The high is 90 degrees in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, which voted this weekend to annex two-thirds of neighboring oil s … | Continue reading