• Climate Change

EU Climate Law Makes Climate Goals Legally Binding

• #GlobalClimateSummit
• binding
• carbon neutral
• climate change
• emissions reductions
• European Union

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.” 

• Climate Change

The United States and China Will Work Together on Climate Change

• carbon
• carbon neutral
• China
• climate action
• climate crisis
• Climate Summit
• fossil fuels

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.

• Climate Change

NATO Shifts Strategy to Address Climate Change — It’s a “Crisis Multiplier”

• carbon neutral
• climate change
• defense
• military
• NATO

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 […]

• Climate Change

China’s Surprise Commitment to Be Carbon Neutral by 2060

• carbon neutral
• China
• climate change
• COP26
• Paris Agreement
• Xi Jinping

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 […]

• Sustainability

Ford Takes Comprehensive Approach To Sustainability, Will Be Carbon Neutral by 2050

• #cleancars
• carbon neutral
• climate change
• conservation
• electric vehicles
• environment
• EVs
• Ford
• recycling
• sustainability

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.

• Sustainability

Stewart Udall: Excerpts of “A Letter to My Grandchildren”

• carbon
• carbon neutral
• climate change
• energy
• Two Americas

My generation’s mistakes, your generation’s epic challenge To My Grandchildren— This is the most important letter I will ever write. It concerns your future—and the tomorrows of the innumerable human beings who share this vulnerable, fragile planet with you. It involves changes that must be made if environmental disasters are to be avoided. The response […]