• Climate Change

A Climate New Year’s Resolution for 2021: Greening Construction and Building Operations

• buildings
• climate change
• CO2
• conservation
• construction
• emissions
• energy efficiency
• warming

A U.N. report suggests that a major impediment to carbon reductions and meeting the Paris Climate targets is the construction and building industry. Carbon dioxide emissions from building construction hit an all-time high in 2019, and the annual rate of decarbonizing buildings has been slowing.

Why this Matters: Building maintenance and construction create nearly 40% of global energy-related CO2 emissions, according to GlobalABC.

• Air

Carbon Dioxide Not Expected to Exceed 2019 Levels Again Until 2027

• carbon dioxide
• CO2
• coal
• greenhouse gas emissions
• IEA
• methane
• natural gas
• oil
• Vulcan

The International Energy Agency (IEA) Annual Report projects that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a 7 percent drop in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 due to associated reductions in fossil fuel use, and that emissions of CO2 pollution will remain below 2019 levels until 2027. 

Why This Matters:  This is good news for air pollution in general as well as for climate change.  We needed to put the breaks on continual increases in CO2 emissions — and this was a hard way to do it.

• Politics

Climate Becoming a Major Issue for Suburban Women Due To Floods, Fires, Smoke

• climate change
• CO2
• CO2 emissions
• election
• Fire
• smoke
• suburban women
• suburbs
• wildfire

The smoke from the California wildfires is now marring the skies from coast to coast, with satellite pictures showing the reach of the plume of ash and contaminated air spreading across the country, according to The Washington Post.

Why This Matters:  We have been writing for months about the growing political importance of climate change and environment — both of which are noticeably worse, much to the dismay of the key voting block — suburban women.

• Climate Change

After 40 Years, Scientists Have a Clearer Idea of How Much Our Planet Will Warm

• climate change
• CO2
• global warming
• greenhouse gas emissions

As John Schwartz reported for the New York Times, for more than 40 years, scientists have had an idea of how much greenhouse gases will warm our planet. They’ve expressed the answer as a range of possible temperature increases, between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius, that will result from carbon dioxide levels doubling from preindustrial […]

• Air

Climate TRACE Project Aims to Identify Carbon Emissions Everywhere In Real Time

• #climatecrisis
• CO2
• environment
• flaring
• fracking
• Google
• premature births
• science

To comply with the Paris Climate Agreement it is crucial to actually track the emissions of greenhouse gases from places like power plants and factories. One newly announced project, Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) Coalition, a coalition of nonprofits and tech companies backed by Al Gore, is working to identify emissions from every single specific source, Adele Peters reported in Fast Company yesterday.

Why This Matters: Currently, emissions data is often self-reported, and, according to Fast Company, it “can sometimes take years for the data to be gathered.”

• Sustainability

New Science on Carbon Capture Highlights Its Potential

• Antarctica
• carbon capture
• CO2
• conservation
• electrification
• green snow
• recycle
• science

New technology developed in Japan provides a much-needed breakthrough for capturing carbon released from a concentrated source like a thermal power plant and “recycling” it to create other gas fuels like methane, methanol, and gasoline.  And scientists from the U.K. have discovered that green algae known as “green snow” on the Antarctic Peninsula are a significant carbon sink for the continent, absorbing approximately 479 tons of carbon a year through photosynthesis.

Why This Matters: Carbon recycling will help reduce global warming by re-using the CO2, which would otherwise be let go into the atmosphere.