Environment

Energy ministers at last week’s G20 meeting in China failed to agree to set a date to end fossil fuel subsidies.  Previously, the G7 had agreed to end subsidies by 2025.  However, this was something of a fudge as it failed to define what was meant by a subsidy. The …

The Paris climate agreement has been widely hailed as a success.  This is largely because for the first time the world’s biggest polluter – the USA – is actually a signatory to the agreement.  This said, the reason it is an “agreement” rather than a treaty is precisely because the …

One of the few pieces of apparently good climate news in recent years was that the growth of new vegetation in the Arctic has helped remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the crucial Polar Regions.  However, a new NASA-led study has cast doubt on the effect that new plant …

The human population is expected to climb toward 10bn by mid-century; far outstripping already strained global food supplies.  One proposed means of accommodating these extra people without causing huge famines and mass migrations is to turn to the one lifeform that we have so far been too grossed out to …

The greenhouse effect is not the only thing causing our planet to warm.  Larry O’Hanlon at the American Geophysical Union also points to our own energy use as a cause of excess heating in developed regions: “There is also the waste heat released when we generate and use energy – …

Ninety-four million years ago, Earth experienced warming similar – but much slower – than today.  So changes that occurred then hold clues to the fate that awaits humanity in the (relatively) near future. In a new study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Assistant Professor of Geology Jeremy Owens …

US company TestAmerica, a member of the industry group Marcellus Shale Coalition, is being sued by landowners who claim that the company faked the result of water testing to produce favourable results for the fracking industry. Susan Phillips at State Impact explains that the lawsuit against the company over its …

The process of hydraulically fracturing shale rock in order to recover oil and gas depends upon access to vast quantities of water.  Fracturing a single well can involve pumping as much as six million gallons of water – together with toxic fracking fluids (the exact content of which is considered …

A new survey of its membership by the Energy Institute has cast doubt on the likelihood of governments meeting climate targets in the Paris Agreement that was signed earlier this year. The Energy Institute (EI) is the leading chartered professional membership body for the energy industry, supporting over 23,000 individuals …

For the best part of four decades, economists have assured us that “the market” will find the best solution to climate change.  As our environment shifted, humans would simply tailor their activities accordingly.  If southern Europe becomes afflicted by drought, that is not a problem – we will simply locate …