Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States fell by 1.9 percent in 2023 — the lowest level since 1969 — mostly due to less coal power generation, according to preliminary estimates released by independent research firm the Rhodium Group.

Following two years of increasing emissions, and with the country’s economy expanding by 2.4 percent, emissions fell to 17.2 percent lower than those in 2005. But they need to fall much faster to meet Paris Agreement goals of 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

“To meet the 2030 goal, we need to see more than triple that every year,” said Ben King, associate director of energy and climate practice with the Rhodium Group, as reported by NPR. “We need to see 6.9% decreases starting in 2024 through 2030.”

An eight percent reduction in emissions from the power sector, coupled with a four percent decline from commercial and residential buildings, drove the overall drop, according to the Rhodium Group. Transportation — the sector with the highest emissions — went up by 1.6 percent from 2022 levels last year, while the second highest-emitting sector, industry, gained one percent.

“It can be tricky to disaggregate structural decarbonization from weather and economic drivers without substantial additional data, but longer-term trends can be revealing. US GHG emissions reached their peak after the 2009 recession in 2010, after which emissions declined on average 0.7% annually from 2011 through 2019, before the pandemic and its associated economic impacts yielded a steep drop in GHG emissions,” the Rhodium Group said.

The firm added that more power came from nuclear than coal for the second time ever last year.

A mild winter with less fuel demand meant lower emissions overall in the buildings sector.

Natural gas continued to expand, growing at more than two times the rate of renewables.

“In the coming years, we’d expect to start seeing surges in renewable energy deployment and surges in the number of electric vehicles on the road,” King said, as The New York Times reported. “The big question is how fast emissions will fall as a result.”

The firm said the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act, will be behind big greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the coming years.

“The science is clear that additional policies are needed — including policies to sharply curtail the expansion of fossil fuels — for the U.S. to meet its climate goals for 2030 and beyond,” said Rachel Cleetus, Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program policy director, as reported by NPR.

Most emissions increases in the industrial sector last year were driven by carbon released during production and transportation, as well as the flaring, leaking and venting of methane. Newly finalized rules for oil and gas methane by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will reduce emissions from the sector by almost 40 percent by the late 2020s. However, for significant progress to be made toward industrial decarbonization, chemical production, iron and steelmaking and cement manufacturing will also need to curb their emissions.

“For now, a decline in emissions in 2023 is a step in the right direction,” the Rhodium Group said. “But the deadline for the US 2030 climate target under the Paris Agreement of a 50-52% reduction in GHG emissions below 2005 levels is rapidly approaching, and achievement of that goal looks ever more challenging absent a major new policy push… We’ll be watching to see if the US can sustain and accelerate its 2023 emissions decline in 2024 and beyond.”

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In the past 40 years, snowpack has sharply declined and is expected to continue this trend, according to a new study by researchers from Dartmouth College.

With winter storms currently hitting across the U.S., snow can be a confusing element when it comes to better understanding and tracking climate change and global warming. Some areas in recent years are observing clear declines in snowfall, with fewer snow days for schools in the Northeast, while other places, like California in early 2023, have seen heavy snowfall after extended snow droughts.

The new study, published in the journal Nature, provides evidence that the Northern Hemisphere is seeing a trend in rising snow loss, particularly for March from 1981 to 2020. The authors noted that human-caused climate change is at least in part to blame. 

Researchers Alexander Gottlieb, a Ph.D. candidate at Dartmouth College, and Justin Mankin, associate professor at Dartmouth College’s Department of Geography, used snowpack reconstructions for the Northern Hemisphere and extensive climate modeling to track trends over the past 40 years. 

Out of 169 major river basins in the Northern Hemisphere, Gottlieb and Mankin identified “robust snow trends” in 82 of them, and 31 of these they were able to confidently attribute to human-caused climate change, the study said. Seventy of the major river basins showed significant declines in snowpack over the 40 years, while 12 showed an increase in snowpack, The Associated Press reported. Parts of Alaska, Canada and Central Asia have experienced increased snowpacks.

For areas with decreasing snowpack, the researchers found that river basins in the southwestern U.S. and western, central and northern Europe were experiencing the greatest declines since the 1980s, with a 10% to 20% decline per decade.

“The train has left the station for regions such as the Southwestern and Northeastern United States,” Gottlieb said in a statement. “By the end of the 21st century, we expect these places to be close to snow-free by the end of March. We’re on that path and not particularly well adapted when it comes to water scarcity.”

The researchers are concerned about how significant snowpack loss could affect watersheds and water scarcity. Snow loss can increase when it hits what Gottlieb and Mankin described as the “snow-loss cliff,” when temperatures rise about 17 degrees Fahrenheit. After this point, snow loss rapidly increases even with minor rises in temperature, CNN reported.

Many communities rely on snow pack to provide more water in the watershed, for which these communities get their water supply. These losses are expected to increase moving forward, and Mankin warned that it’s time to start preparing for permanent changes to adapt to this decline source of water now.

“Once a basin has fallen off that cliff, it’s no longer about managing a short-term emergency until the next big snow,” Mankin said, as reported by Dartmouth College. “Instead, they will be adapting to permanent changes to water availability.”

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Going green has long been more than just a trend in North America, and the…

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Every day, more than 20 million kids ride to school on the 450,000 or so buses that trundle through cities and towns across the country. More than 90 percent of those vehicles run on diesel fuel, which emits harmful pollutants like fine particulates, ozone-forming substances like nitrogen oxide, and cancer-causing chemicals like benzene. They also spew a whole lot of greenhouse gases.

The Biden administration wants to do something about that. On Monday, it announced the latest tranche of funding to make America’s yellow buses more green. The Environmental Protection Agency awarded nearly $1 billion in grants to 280 school districts to help them go electric.

The allocations mark the third round of funding for clean school buses released under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The money will purchase more than 2,700 vehicles to shuttle 7 million students in 37 states. Notably, 86 percent of the cash will go to low-income, rural, or tribal communities. School officials and public health advocates say it’s an important step toward reducing the impacts of diesel pollution — a burden disproportionately experienced by children of color and those in low-income areas.

“Clean air is not just an environmental issue. It’s a matter of public health and educational equity,” Devon Horton, superintendent of the DeKalb County School District in Georgia, told a cheering crowd at Stone Mountain Middle School on Monday. 

Diesel pollutants burrow into the lungs, causing inflammation, asthma, and a host of other respiratory illnesses. Children are especially impacted because their respiratory systems are still developing, said Anne Kelsey Lamb, director of the Regional Asthma Management and Prevention Program at the Public Health Institute. Kids also have faster breathing rates than adults, Lamb added, which means they inhale even more toxic fumes. 

Researchers have long documented the effects of diesel exhaust from school buses. More than 20 years ago, a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the University of California, Berkeley found that the level of exhaust inside the vehicles reached 23 to 46 times the amount the Environmental Protection Agency said would pose a significant risk of cancer. Another study, by researchers at the University of Connecticut, found a level of fine particulate matter inside school buses five to 15 times higher than those found outside. Such risks are compounded by the amount of time students spend on buses: A 30-minute ride to and from school every day amounts to 180 hours each year. 

The effects on children of color and low-income students are especially profound. Sixty percent of low-income students ride the bus to school, compared to 45 percent of students from higher income households. Rates of asthma, which is exacerbated by diesel pollution, also are significantly higher among people of color.

Such exposure compounds the pollution burdens society has long placed on frontline communities. As a result of racist housing, investment, and energy-siting practices, people of color disproportionately live near major sources of pollution like highways, bus depots, power plants, and refineries. A study from the University of Washington found that regardless of income, people of color are exposed to higher levels of air pollution from nearly all emission sources. Researchers at Harvard University reported that people of color and low-income populations are also disproportionately exposed to fine particulate matter. 

“Air pollution has a cumulative effect, where the more sources of air pollution that children are exposed to, the greater the health impacts are going to be,” said Lamb. 

Beyond producing no tailpipe emissions, electric buses are more efficient and have fewer moving parts, which could save school districts money on maintenance costs. But they do cost three to four times more than diesels, with an average price of $350,000 to $450,000. While 1,285 school buses across the country are now electric — with many more on the way due to recent federal and state efforts — zero-emission models remain out of reach for many districts. 

In Nevada, this week’s funding is helping school districts make the switch. The state received nearly $8 million to purchase 25 electric buses in a partnership with the Nevada Clean Energy Fund, a nonprofit that applied for the EPA grant on behalf of five school districts. 

Kirsten Stasio, the nonprofit’s CEO, said the money will not only let students experience commutes free of diesel exhaust, but “the people who live along the bus routes will experience reduced exposure to harmful air pollutants as well.” 

Greg Zegas, director of investments at the fund, told Grist that with the new federal grant, local utility incentives, and support from the state’s Division of Environmental Protection, schools could see the upfront costs of electric buses covered.

“We’re able to stack different pieces of funding together that allow the school districts to get the buses at no cost to them,” Zegas said. “When the school districts hear that, they’re definitely interested.” The group is also helping schools access federal clean vehicle tax credits available under the Inflation Reduction Act.

As an added bonus, electric school buses could also help improve reliability of the power grid. Nevada Clean Energy Fund is working closely with schools and the utility NV Energy to join a bus-to-grid trial. Under the program, the utility would pay for and install bus charging infrastructure that allows school buses to send electricity to the grid when they’re not in use. 

“It’s a really unique statewide approach of knitting together all these different funding sources,” Zegas said. The group is currently reaching out to schools to start ordering buses, and plans to get the vehicles on the road within three years as required under the grant. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Electric school buses are a breath of fresh air for children on Jan 11, 2024.

Climate change is complicated. But even if we don’t fully understand climate science, we know…

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A severe winter storm brought blizzards, tornadoes and flooding to the Eastern United States on Tuesday, killing at least five people and leaving hundreds of thousands without power.

More than 100,000 people were still without power in New York on Wednesday, and electricity had not been restored for more than 50,000 residences and businesses in Pennsylvania and Maine, according to PowerOutage.us.

“The winter storm drove up the east coast, though not for the whole duration as predicted. The storm raged till about 11 p.m. when the winds and rains decreased, but prior to that, we heard two loud noises among the 59 mph winds,” writer Scott Rossi, a long-time resident of Sewell, New Jersey, told EcoWatch. “The first was a loud boom which turned out to be our tall wooden street light post which came crashing down horizontally and made our street impassable till morning. The second was our large metal BBQ grill, which was dragged by the sheer force of strong winds across our outdoor deck. Nearby towns had power outages, but in that regard we were lucky.”

Millions were still under flood alerts on Wednesday, reported The New York Times.

“Heavy to excessive rainfall, gusty winds and snowmelt have led to significant river and coastal flooding concerns across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Flooding concerns will remain possible through this weekend,” the National Weather Service said Wednesday. “Heavy snow and strong winds continue to impact the Northwest with blizzard conditions in higher elevations. Blizzard conditions are also expected today along the western coast in Alaska.”

The storms claimed at least five lives in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin on Tuesday, authorities said, as USA Today reported.

The storm brought high winds with gusts likely higher than 55 miles per hour ahead of what financial firm LSEG said would probably be the country’s coldest weather in two years, reported Reuters.

“If you live in the western mountains of North Carolina you know it was cold last night. It was already in the teens when we started having gusts of 40 to 50 mph. The rain from earlier in the day froze and soon we had 4 inches of snow building up. So you might hear quotes from the locals about how cold it was: ‘Cold enough to freeze the deer to their shadows,’” writer and artist Hilary Hemingway told EcoWatch.

Experts told CNN that human-caused climate change led to the intensification of the massive winter storm.

One of the reasons is that warmer air has the capacity to hold more water.

“One of the most direct signals of warming of the atmosphere is the higher capacity of the atmosphere to hold water,” Andrew J. Kruczkiewicz, a Columbia Climate School senior researcher, told CNN. “And when we see that capacity to hold water, we see an increased risk of intense rainfall events — and we are seeing this is an intense rainfall event.”

The storm brought one to two inches of snow an hour to the Midwest, with the snow then moving into the Great Lakes, the National Weather Service said.

The Northwest’s Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges saw their first blizzard warnings in more than a decade, The New York Times reported.

Those traveling by air were affected by the extreme weather, with more than 8,600 delays and more than 1,300 canceled flights, FlightAware.com said, as reported by AFP.

Mona Hemmati, a Columbia Climate School postdoctoral research scientist, said warmer temperatures and rain in the Northeast will likely speed up snowmelt.

“As the Earth’s climate warms, both the oceans and the atmosphere heat up, enhancing the atmosphere’s capacity to hold moisture,” Hemmati told CNN. “This increased moisture leads to more precipitation, primarily in the form of rainfall, which can significantly impact snowpack volumes.”

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Norway’s parliament voted Tuesday for a bill to allow deep-sea mining in the Arctic waters of the Norwegian Sea. The government has said it plans to move forward with mining of the seabed for minerals sustainably, requiring environmental studies before approving licenses. However, environmentalists have said this practice cannot be done without harming marine life.

The bill could allow deep-sea mining in about 280,000 square kilometers (108,000 square miles) of Norwegian waters, the BBC reported. Companies would then apply for leases to mine the seabed within this area, and applications will require environmental assessments. The Arctic seabed contains minerals like lithium and cobalt, which are currently in demand for use in green technology, such as batteries.

According to Reuters, Norway wants seabed mining to reach commercial scale, which would make it the first country to do so. But environmentalists around the world have been calling for an end to deep-sea mining because of its impacts on the marine environment.

The bill that Norway’s parliament voted to approve only concerns Norway’s national waters and was reduced from an original proposal to allow mining in a 329,000-square-kilometer (127,000-square-mile) area, Mongabay reported.

The country has moved to allow seabed mining in order for a “green transition,” Minister of Petroleum and Energy Terje Aasland said in a statement in June 2023. 

“We need to cut 55% of our emissions by 2030, and we also need to cut the rest of our emissions after 2030,” Astrid Bergmål, the state secretary for the energy minister, told Mongabay. “So, the reason for us to look into seabed minerals is the large amount of critical minerals that will be needed for many years.”

But scientists and environmentalists have long raised concerns over these mining practices. The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition explained that seabed mining destroys the seabed, including sponge, coral and hydrothermal vent ecosystems. This type of mining also creates plumes in the water that can have wide-reaching consequences, potentially smothering some species up to hundreds of kilometers away from the mining site. The plumes could pollute the marine environment, the coalition reported. Further, deep-sea mining can create noise pollution that negatively impacts whale species.

In November 2023, 120 members of the European parliament wrote a letter to the Norwegian parliament, asking it to reject the plans to open the country’s waters for deep-sea mining.

“The green transition cannot be used as a justification for harming biodiversity and the world’s largest natural carbon sink, especially since alternatives exist,” the authors wrote. “The demand for minerals can be reduced by 58% through innovation in renewable technology and circular economy measures. Instead of plunging into high-risk deep-sea activities before having full understanding of their consequences, we must reduce our dependence on these materials.”

Deep-sea mining could expand globally in the near future as well. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is expected to determine whether seabed mining will be allowed in international waters by 2025, and if so, how that will work, the World Resources Institute reported. The organization has already approved some exploration permits, but has not yet approved any mining projects.

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Smart homes are commonplace today. Now, the intelligent yard is poised to join the mix….

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