Recent Interviews
Five Decades in the Making: Why It Took Congress So Long to Act on Climate
The Senate bill avoided the political pitfalls of past legislative attempts by offering only incentives to cut climate pollution, not taxes. In 1969, President Richard Nixon’s adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a memo describing a startling…
A closer look at Manchin’s asks on permitting
Manchin’s asks: The legislative agreement between Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls for Congress to take up “comprehensive” permitting reform in a bill separate from their reconciliation deal…
Biden’s climate agenda faces yet another obstacle: Kyrsten Sinema
The most ambitious attempt yet to pass climate legislation in the US may have surprisingly won the crucial backing of a senator who owns a coal company. Now it faces a further, deeply ironic, obstacle – a lawmaker who was once a member of…
Climate Change: Congress Needs to Act Now
Federal regulations have been a crucial part of U.S. efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions over the last 30 years. But such regulations are increasingly subject to reversal by Republican presidents…
Holy Shit, Democrats Might Actually Pass a Climate Change Bill
So maybe we’re not just going to hurtle headlong into a fiery climate doom without the U.S. government lifting a finger to save us, after all. Senate Democrats shocked Washington D.C. and climate activists by unveiling plans for the largest…
Fears over US energy security help unlock historic $369bn climate bill
Environment experts welcome emissions reductions promised as ‘significant and unprecedented’ President Joe Biden’s original Build Back Better plan had originally earmarked $555bn but at $369bn the new bill will still be the largest…
Climate activists’ plot to make liberal politicians squirm
Jennifer Falcon, a climate and Indigenous rights organizer in San Antonio, Texas, worries constantly about the impacts of climate change on her community, such as water restrictions and a possible collapse of the electric grid…
Democrats: Don’t just declare a climate emergency — make clean energy a winning campaign issue
The decision by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to walk away from more than a year of negotiations over a landmark clean energy legislation is a bitter pill for President Biden and other Democrats who made passing effective…
Dems stare into climate abyss
Democrats have had a week to digest the demise of their climate bill. They’re facing the prospect of yet another decade of congressional inaction at a time when consequences of global warming are growing more…
RADIO: BBC Climate Change Legislation
Starting at minute 31:23 Paul Bledsoe discusses what it will take to cut emissions in the US…
Why Biden’s climate agenda has faltered
President Joe Biden ran for office on a pledge to tackle the global climate crisis. Instead, he has seen his legislative ambitions defeated by Congress, the Supreme Court has delivered a hammer blow to the federal government’s ability to regulate greenhouse…
Here’s what could happen if Biden declares a climate emergency
Climate change, as many activists and politicians say, is an emergency. President Biden may soon make that official. Biden is weighing declaring a national climate emergency, an extraordinary move that would allow the president to tap…
Gridlock in Washington imperils the US Paris climate targets
Commitments to reduce emissions in jeopardy after senator Joe Manchin scuppers crucial legislation West Virginia senator Joe Manchin refused to back nearly $300bn in tax incentives for clean energy as part of a flagship bill this summer…
‘A modern-day villain’: Joe Manchin condemned for killing US climate action
Joe Manchin’s decision to kill off sweeping US climate legislation has been called “nothing short of a death sentence” for younger people and a livable climate on Earth, amid an outpouring of anger and despair from activists, scientists and even…
How One Senator Doomed the Democrats’ Climate Plan
First, he killed a plan that would have forced power plants to clean up their climate-warming pollution. Then, he shattered an effort to help consumers pay for electric vehicles. And, finally, he said he could not support government incentives for solar and…
As UK conservatives dump Johnson, most in GOP still embrace Trump’s far graver threat
Winston Churchill, the figure embattled UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson claims as his role model, once defined a politician as someone who “is asked to stand, wants to sit, and is expected to lie.” Yet in the end, Johnson’s…
The climate clock is ticking for Dems
Last week’s Supreme Court defeat for the Biden administration has progressives pushing for Congress to take back the initiative on climate change — and pass laws that would stand the test of time…
Democrats in Congress, not courts or GOP, must address climate — a good bill is waiting
The Supreme Court decision this week to restrict federal regulatory authority over carbon dioxide emissions from power plants should provide Democrats in Congress the last impetus they need to finally act on comprehensive climate change legislation. And…
How millions of lives can be saved if the US acts now on climate
The rapidly shrinking window of opportunity for the US to pass significant climate legislation will have mortal, as well as political, stakes. Millions of lives around the world will be saved, or lost, depending on whether America manages to propel itself…
Methane leak at Russian mine could be largest ever discovered
Possibly the world’s biggest leak of methane has been discovered coming from a coal mine in Russia, which has been pouring out the carbon dioxide equivalent of five coal-fired power stations. About 90 tones an hour of methane were being…
3 climate takeaways from the GOP speaker meltdown
The Republican brawl over whom to elect House speaker hasn’t changed anything about climate policy — yet. But the chaos this week has underscored concerns that the new Congress is ill-equipped to address…
Cutting Chinese emissions requires US and EU to work together
Thank goodness that Adam Tooze has questioned the recent EU and UK furore over America’s Inflation Reduction Act, a law that could be a turning point in global climate protection, but is hardly a protectionist disaster for western trade…
How to Hand Out Billions in Climate Subsidies? Very Carefully.
ohn Podesta, President Biden’s clean energy adviser, said the administration was working to ensure that a record $370 billion in new federal subsidies for electric vehicles, wind farms, batteries and other clean energy technologies is spent…
New E.U. carbon tariff draws interest on Capitol Hill
The European Union’s climate import tax could galvanize a congressional conversation about enacting a similar policy in the United States. The E.U. parliament struck a deal Tuesday on its long-awaited carbon border adjustment mechanism…
E.U. seeks to pressure China on climate by taxing steel and cement
European Union policymakers struck a deal on Tuesday to impose a border tax on highly polluting products such as steel and aluminum — an unparalleled move to safeguard Europe’s own climate ambitions while pushing China and others to be greener…
As History Shows, Incumbents Have the Edge
A key reason that Democrats should support President Biden for re-election is that history shows that a sitting president has the best chance of winning. Several recent Democrats have run again…
New Cumbrian coalmine would prove UK hypocrisy, say experts around world
For the UK to open a new coalmine would be “hypocritical”, would “send the wrong message”, and makes “a mockery” of climate action, developing country activists and experts involved in global climate negotiations have said…
DOE girds for House Republican oversight
The Department of Energy, critical to deploying President Joe Biden’s clean energy and climate goals, will likely be facing a two-year onslaught of subpoenas, hourslong hearings and letters demanding information now that Republicans have…
While suffering countries plead for action on climate change, China stokes its coal furnaces
The recently ended COP27 climate change conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, resulted in a mixed bag of tepid pledges to address climate change. The conference made no progress on upping global ambition to…
Fears over oil producers’ influence with UAE as next host of Cop climate talks
Fears are growing among climate experts and campaigners over the influence of fossil fuel producers on global climate talks, as a key Gulf petro-state gears up to take control of the negotiations.The United Arab Emirates, one of the…
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