Today's Climate

Carbon markets have long been seen as part of the climate solution, believed to give polluters more flexibility to meet carbon reduction goals while lowering the cost of transition. But under those systems, poor communities bear the brunt of pollution, environmental justice and indigenous groups argue.

This weekend, the World Climate Research Programme celebrates its 40th anniversary and four decades of connecting researchers across the globe for projects targeting the most pressing climate science challenges. At the same time, AGU is celebrating its 100th year. The meetings take place at a critical juncture in the history of climate science and climate computer modeling.

States eliminated more than 4,400 positions at agencies responsible for protecting the environment over the past decade, a new report from Environmental Integrity Project shows. Illinois led the list. In Pennsylvania, the cuts came during an energy boom with the rise of fracking in the Marcellus Shale. 

The rate of listing new endangered and threatened species has slowed under the Trump administration. Read more from ICN on how Trump made it harder to take climate into account when listing species under the ESA.

The Trump administration rushed to exempt a type of super-polluting cargo truck from clean air rules without conducting a federally mandated study on how it would impact public health, the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general said Thursday.

California's wildfires have grown so costly and damaging that insurance companies—a homeowner's last hope when disaster strikes—have increasingly been canceling people's policies in fire-prone parts of the state, The New York Times reports.

A coal town in southwestern Virginia has been trying for years to reinvent itself for the future while fighting off flooding. Hope is running thin.

In a bold legal move, environmental lawyers are challenging oil giant BP's latest ad campaign, accusing the company of "greenwashing" its role in the transition to cleaner energy by misleading consumers about its low-carbon credentials while still investing heavily in fossil fuels.

Giant rivers of moist air that curl off from the tropics are responsible for most of the flooding in the Western United States, and scientists say these atmospheric rivers will become more intense as the planet warms. A new study is providing some insight into what that could look like in the future.

Officials in the Florida Keys announced on Wednesday what many coastal governments nationwide have long feared but few have been willing to admit: As seas rise and flooding gets worse, some areas aren't worth the cost to save.

Climate models have accurately predicted global warming for the past 50 years, a study has found, confirming that since as early as 1970, climate scientists have had a solid understanding of the Earth's climate system and the ability to project its reactions to rising greenhouse gases.

As the rainy season clears away the dark clouds that for months hovered over the Amazon rainforest, the damage that's incurred during President Jair Bolsonaro's first year is becoming clearer. Brazil's space agency reported that in one year, more than 3,700 square miles of the Amazon had been razed.

Spending cuts at state environmental protection agencies have led to the elimination of 4,400 jobs as the federal government works to roll back regulations, a new study from the advocacy group Environmental Integrity Project found.

Arizona's Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a top House Democrat, warned the Trump administration Wednesday that a decision to relocate Bureau of Land Management staffers from D.C. to western states would decrease diversity and likely open the agency to discrimination lawsuits.

Climate change is making birds smaller, an analysis for the Field Museum of Natural History shows. The study looked at migratory birds that died after colliding into buildings in Chicago and were collected as specimens, finding that, on average, the bird's bodies are shrinking in size.

A surge in natural gas has helped drive down coal burning across the United States and Europe, but it isn't displacing other fossil fuels on a global scale. Instead, booming gas use is fueling the global growth in greenhouse gas emissions for the third straight year, a new analysis shows.

Acting Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said this week he has received a directive from President Trump to find ways to boost the struggling coal industry, The Hill reports.

The Chester County district attorney alleged Tuesday that Energy Transfer — parent company of Mariner East 2 pipeline builder Sunoco Logistics — hired armed Pennsylvania constables to illegally provide security for the pipeline, then hid how the constables were paid. Those charged include employees from the controversial international security firm TigerSwan.

The Clean Air Act already doesn't apply to spaces where the public is denied access, prompting polluting industries to surround their properties with fencing. Now under new EPA guidance, other "non-physical barriers" can be used to the same end, which critics say will ease environmental responsibilities for polluters. 

The Environmental Protection Agency is hoping to "streamline" permit disputes that can occur between industries seeking pollution permits and communities or individuals that are brought before EPA's Environmental Appeals Board, according to a proposed rule posted Tuesday in the Federal Register.

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared inclined to shield a unit of British oil giant BP from claims seeking a more extensive cleanup of a Superfund hazardous waste site in Montana than what federal environmental officials had ordered, Reuters reports.

A damning report about the cause of the deadliest wildfire in California history poses a huge setback to Pacific Gas & Electric as it tries to resolve a complex bankruptcy. The report shows that the utility repeatedly failed to properly maintain a power line that cuts through a heavily wooded area that experiences strong winds.

Wally Sipher lost his sister to California's deadly Camp Fire. He had tried to reach her home, but couldn't get through. Tan Smiley lost businesses he had spent a lifetime building when Hurricane Michael struck Florida. In videos and essays from three disasters, ICN's American Climate project tells survivors' stories and explores the common language of loss.

The past decade is almost certain to be the hottest on record, the World Meteorological Organization warned on Tuesday, painting a bleak picture of vanishing sea ice, devastating heat waves and encroaching seas.

The Senate on Monday confirmed Dan Brouillette, a former lobbyist for Ford Motor Company, to be President Trump's second secretary of energy, replacing Rick Perry, who has become embroiled in the impeachment proceedings over his actions involving Ukraine.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to assure nations at the UN conference in Madrid today that the U.S. would join its efforts to fight climate change despite President Donald Trump's move to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement.

Hot weather increases the risk of early childbirth, which in turn is linked to worse health and developmental outcomes for children, a new study found. In the U.S., about 25,000 babies were born up to two weeks early each year as a result of heat waves between 1969 and 1988.

Climate change is harming human health as more people suffer from heat stress, extreme weather and mosquito-borne diseases including malaria, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday. Yet less than 1 percent of international financing for climate action goes to the health sector.

A National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners survey last month shows that many state regulators expect an accelerated growth in large-scale solar over the next five years. Despite that trend, the agency's members still see fossil-fuel generation continuing to play a key role in the nation's energy portfolio over the next decade.

A data visualization of the damaging, tiny particles known as PM 2.5 that wreak havoc on human health shows the difference between breathing the air in the Bay Area during a wildfire season, in New Delhi or Beijing on a smoggy day and elsewhere. Read more from ICN about the health risks of PM 2.5.