• Energy

A Climate Battle Raging Across America, and in Your Kitchen

• building codes
• energy efficiency
• weatherization

by Amy Lupica, ODP Contributing Writer A climate battle is quietly raging in homes across America. Cities are increasingly adopting and implementing policies to reduce carbon emissions at every level, despite opposition from Washington’s biggest construction and fossil fuel trade associations. The International Code Council, which, despite its name, serves primarily the U.S., met this […]

• Energy

New IEA Report Crowns Renewables “New King” of World Electricity Markets

• coal
• IEA
• natural gas
• renewable energy
• World Outlook Report

Yesterday, the International Energy Agency published its 2020 World Energy Outlook, which focuses on the next decade in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and makes a bold forecast: oil demand will hit a plateau in 2030 and decline from there, while solar energy could become the “new king of the world’s electricity markets.” In […]

• Energy

Tribes Increasingly Looking to Renewables for Energy Independence

• coal
• conservation
• fossil fuels
• renewable energy
• reservation
• solar power
• tribes

Increasingly many tribal communities are working to develop renewables on tribal lands because it will save them money, provide good-paying jobs, and also fight the climate crisis. 

Why This Matters:  Native American tribes are infrastructure poor and have struggled with affordable electricity on reservations that are often isolated — far from the grid.

• Energy

Trump’s Losing Record On Coal

• clean power plan
• coal
• fossil fuels
• indigenous communities
• Navajo Generating Station
• renewable energy
• War on Coal

Trump promised to end the so-called “war on coal,” but now, three years and millions of dollars later, it is clearly a failure, Eric Lipton reports for The New York Times. The Trump administration sank an exorbitant amount of effort and funds to save coal mines and power plants, even intervening directly with some, but coal’s decline has continued to accelerate.

Why This Matters: As the 2020 election nears, Trump faces speculation that all the money and effort he put into coal, wasn’t invested in good faith.

• Energy

Only 20% of US Cities Are On Track to Meet Renewable Energy Goals

• cities
• climate change
• renewable energy
• resilient cities

In absence of federal action on climate change, 2019 became the year that cities and states stepped up to make sub-national pledges to fight climate change. As the World Resources Institute (WRI) explained, these initiatives ranged from state legislation mandating cleaner electricity sources to city policies encouraging all-electric buildings. More than 100 U.S. cities made […]

• Energy

ExxonMobil Plans to Emit 21 Million Additional Tons of Carbon Per Year

• climate change
• Exxon
• Exxon Mobil
• oil and gas

by Natasha Lasky, ODP Contributing Writer    Leaked internal documents from Exxon Mobil reveal that the corporation is planning for an increase in its annual carbon emissions by as much as the output of the entire nation of Greece. While plummeting oil prices in April drove Exxon to cut a third of its spending budget, […]