Author: Inside Climate News

How Auditing Giant KPMG Became a Global Sustainability Leader While Serving Companies Accused of Forest Destruction

Just past mile 73 on the highway that connects Canada to Alaska, north of the small city of Fort St. John in British Columbia, a dense line of spruce and pine abruptly ends. It is replaced by a vast expanse of brush and stumps scarring the clear-cut forestland. Sherry Dominic and her family once fished, […]

Environmental Auditors Approve Green Labels for Products Linked to Deforestation and Authoritarian Regimes

Major environmental auditing firms ignore or fail to recognize glaring environmental damage caused by loggers and other clients whose practices they certify as sustainable, undercutting an elaborate global system meant to fight forest destruction and climate change. With alarming frequency, the auditors and so-called certification firms validate products linked to deforestation, logging in conflict zones […]
Categories
Global Warming.

Exxon Accurately Predicted Global Warming, Years Before Casting Doubt on Climate Science

For climate activists, the term “Exxon Knew” has settled deeply into the lexicon of climate accountability, shorthand for the contradiction between the oil giant’s long campaign to publicly question climate science and its internal understanding that the science was sound.  Now, new academic research lends statistical rigor to this concept by showing that the company’s […]
Categories
Global Warming.

Relentless Rise of Ocean Heat Content Drives Deadly Extremes

Ocean heat content reached a new record high for the fourth year in a row, scientists said Wednesday as they released their annual measurements of ocean heat accumulating down to a depth of more than a mile. The findings published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Science show that just in the past year, the […]
Categories
Global Warming. Renewable Energy.

Texas Project Will Use Wind to Make Fuel Out of Water

Oil made Texas an energy giant, but even this petroleum powerhouse is working hard to secure a footing beyond fossil fuels. It already generates more wind energy than any other U.S. state, and soon the mighty air that lashes its high plains will power a novel new process: the production of vehicle fuel from water.     […]
Categories
Climate Change Global Warming.

Scientists Report a Dramatic Drop in the Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice

The new year started with the familiar refrain of climate extremes, as scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Jan. 3 that the sea ice around Antarctica dropped to its lowest extent on record for early January. “The current low sea ice extent … is extreme, and frankly we are working to […]
Categories
Climate Change Global Warming.

NOAA Climate Scientists Cruise Washington and Baltimore for Hotspots—of Greenhouse Gases and Air Pollutants

On a clear and crisp morning, with the sun beating down, Xenron Ren and Phillip Stratton looked over plans for the day and fiddled with the gadgets installed in a black SUV parked outside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Maryland.   “Today we’re going to do […]
Categories
Climate Change Global Warming.

Proposed EU Nature Restoration Law Could be the First Big Step Toward Achieving COP15’s Ambitious Plan to Staunch Biodiversity Loss

In the race to reach the new COP15 goals to heal damaged ecosystems, the European Union could have a head start if it passes an ambitious nature restoration law pending in the European Parliament. The new EU law would set specific timetables for repairing degraded rivers, wetlands, fields and forests across 1.6 million square miles […]
Categories
Climate Change Global Warming.

Snapshots, Hotshots and Moonshots: Images of Climate Change in 2022

Climate change and an environment in peril were visible in many of 2022’s defining moments: record-smashing heat waves in Europe and South Asia, droughts pushing the fragile global food system to its limit and energy and food markets shaken by war in Ukraine.  Climate change also left its fingerprints on stories that didn’t make the […]
Categories
Climate Change Global Warming.

California Had a Watershed Climate Year, But Time Is Running Out

California made historic investments in climate measures this year, as state leaders warned of current and escalating climate risks.  “We’re dealing with such extremes that all our modeling, even updated modeling, needs to be thrown out,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom when he signed more than 40 bills to fight climate change in September. “The hots […]