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By Josh Freed, Senior Vice President for the Climate and Energy Program, Third Way We’ve reached a critical juncture in America’s nuclear energy future. Put differently, we’re in make-or-break territory for reaching net-zero by 2050. That’s because nuclear still accounts for more than 50% of our carbon-free power, and we need all the clean energy […]
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This week, European Union policymakers agreed to enshrine the bloc’s short- and long-term climate commitments. The European Climate Law takes the EU’s goals of reducing net emissions by 55% by 2030 and hitting climate neutrality by 2050 and makes them “legally binding and irreversible,” as German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze put it in Politico EU.
Why This Matters: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made clear at the Global Climate Summit yesterday that Europe wants to be “the first climate-neutral continent in the world,” and said that they had written it “into stone… to make Europe climate-neutral by 2050.”
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The United States and China, the world’s biggest carbon polluters, have agreed to cooperate to keep climate change in check. John Kerry, the U.S. special envoy for climate, and the Chinese envoy, Xie Zenhua, made this agreement over the course of two days in Shanghai over the weekend.
Why this Matters: China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter, with the United States closely following. Together, they emit almost half the world’s fossil fuel pollution.
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Military leaders around the globe increasingly find one of the most challenging “forces” when it comes to upsetting global peace and prosperity is not a military one — it’s climate change. The Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, led the Alliance’s defense ministers earlier this week to make climate change a major focus of strategy and […]
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Yesterday at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to achieve “carbon neutrality before 2060” with the aim of hitting peak emissions before 2030. China had choice words for the Trump administration and its complete lack of international leadership on climate change action. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang […]
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In its annual Sustainability Report, Ford Motors made several key pledges in addition to the promise to be carbon neutral as a company by 2050. In addition, they will use 100 percent locally sourced renewable energy for all manufacturing plants globally by 2035, aspire to achieve zero air emissions from our facilities, only use recycled and renewable plastics in our vehicles globally and eliminate single-use plastics from our operations by 2030, and achieve true zero waste to landfill across our operations, among other social responsibility commitments.
Why This Matters: Other car companies have focused on products — Daimler Chrysler, VW, and Tesla come to mind.
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