ReportWire

Tag: APP Climate

  • Christmas trees need good weather to ‘stand in splendid beauty’

    [ad_1]

    O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches… as long as the weather stays off the naughty list.

    What You Need To Know

    • Christmas trees do well in moderate weather

    • Trees are more susceptible to drought early on

    • Harmful fungi grow in very wet conditions

    • Tree farmers may have to adjust their practices as climate changes

    Farmers grow Christmas trees in all 50 states. Unlike most crops, they’re not planted and harvested all in one season. It takes years for a tree to become ready, which can help fend off the problems of damaging weather.

    Growing trees

    Christmas trees are often spruces, pines or firs. Not surprisingly, farmers grow them in places where the climate allows them to have their best chance at becoming mature.

    The details vary from place to place, but trees generally do best with moderate temperatures, plentiful (but not excessive) rainfall and no extreme cold or heat.

    Damaging weather

    Like most crops, Christmas trees don’t like drought. Farmers who grow seedlings typically have to do quite a bit of irrigation, according to Doug Hundley from the National Christmas Tree Association.

    Irrigation isn’t as necessary once they’re about 12 inches tall and transplanted into fields, he adds, although they’re still vulnerable for the first year or two and will need some help during dry spells.

    In this photo taken Nov. 8, 2011, David Barfield checks one of his saplings at his Christmas tree farm in New Caney, Texas. Only a handful of the 500 saplings planted survived the drought. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

    Because these trees are a crop that can take ten years or longer to become ready for harvest, losses from drought usually don’t take as much of a toll as they would for single-season crops like corn or soybeans. Instead of losing 20% of an entire crop, farmers could confine their losses to just 20% of the younger trees, while the established trees survive.

    Excessive rainfall can harm any tree, though. “We always think that drought is the great enemy. But in all agriculture, rain and flooding and oversaturation of the soil does just as much damage as droughts do,” says Hundley.

    Wet conditions are good for fungi–which are bad for trees. They can kill the roots of a tree or cause needle cast, which is a disease that makes the older inner needles turn brown and fall off.

    Needle cast on a spruce tree. (Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)

    These trees can face damage from out-of-season frosts and freezes. Those can damage or kill new growth, sometimes putting those trees back a year, even when farmers can prune the problem spots.

    Extreme heat can ruin new growth, too. Hundley says the Pacific Northwest lost 5% to 10% of marketable trees after its heat wave in June 2021.

    Climate change

    Farming practices are adapting as conditions change over the years. To deal with the increase in precipitation in the eastern U.S., Hundley says some farmers are planting trees farther apart or pruning them differently to allow better airflow.

    He also gives a specific example. “We grow a fir that’s native to only about a dozen mountain tops in the southern Appalachians. They grow naturally at about 6,000 feet. We can grow them on production farms, but only down to about 3,000 feet elevation. If you go lower than that, it becomes too warm, and the soil does not drain as well in flat land and they’re very susceptible to root rot.

    “So, as the planet warms, we’re going to have to move up the hill, possibly, or we’re going to have to use alternative conifers that are used to warmer climates.”

    Be green

    Hundley says that farmers replace the trees as they come out and make an effort to disturb the soil as little as possible. Integrated pest management also lets them avoid using pesticides.

    He also encourages people who buy real Christmas trees to recycle them if their community offers such a service. Often, the trees are chipped into mulch.

    This Jan. 14, 2013 photo shows free mulch strewn in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., available for residents to take home and use in urban backyards. The mulch comes from Christmas trees that are collected and recycled in a program run by the New York City Department of Sanitation and the New York City Parks Department. The city collects about 150,000 trees each year and uses the mulch in parks, playing fields and community gardens in addition to making some of it available for personal use. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz)

    Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.

    [ad_2]

    Meteorologist Justin Gehrts

    Source link

  • California governor signs law banning plastic shopping bags at grocery stores

    California governor signs law banning plastic shopping bags at grocery stores

    [ad_1]

    “Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic shopping bags.

    What You Need To Know

    • “Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom

    • California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers can purchase bags made with thicker plastic that purportedly makes them reusable and recyclable

    • The new measure was approved by state legislators last month and signed Sunday by the governor. It bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026

    • Consumers will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag


    California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.

    The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don’t bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.

    State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill’s supporters, said people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) per year in 2004 to 11 pounds (5 kilograms) per year in 2021.

    Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago didn’t reduce the overall use of plastic.

    “We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.

    The environmental nonprofit Oceana applauded Newsom for signing the bill and “safeguarding California’s coastline, marine life, and communities from single-use plastic grocery bags.”

    Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, said Sunday that the new ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery store checkouts “solidifies California as a leader in tackling the global plastic pollution crisis.”

    Twelve states, including California, already have some type of statewide plastic bag ban in place, according to the environmental advocacy group Environment America Research & Policy Center. Hundreds of cities across 28 states also have their own plastic bag bans in place.

    The California Legislature passed its statewide ban on plastic bags in 2014. The law was later affirmed by voters in a 2016 referendum.

    The California Public Interest Research Group said Sunday that the new law finally meets the intent of the original bag ban.

    “Plastic bags create pollution in our environment and break into microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten our health,” said the group’s director Jenn Engstrom. “Californians voted to ban plastic grocery bags in our state almost a decade ago, but the law clearly needed a redo. With the Governor’s signature, California has finally banned plastic bags in grocery checkout lanes once and for all.”

    As San Francisco’s mayor in 2007, Newsom signed the nation’s first plastic bag ban.

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Analysis finds 2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths

    Analysis finds 2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths

    [ad_1]

    David Hom suffered from diabetes and felt nauseated before he went out to hang his laundry in 108-degree weather, another day in Arizona’s record-smashing, unrelenting July heat wave.

    His family found the 73-year-old lying on the ground, his lower body burned. Hom died at the hospital, his core body temperature at 107 degrees.

    What You Need To Know

    • An Associated Press analysis of federal data shows that about 2,300 people in the United States died in the summer of 2023 with their death certificates mentioning the effects of excessive heat

    • That’s the highest in 45 years of records. More than two dozen doctors, public health experts, meteorologists and other experts tell The AP the real death toll was higher

    • Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show that last summer amped up America’s heat and health problem to a new level

    • The relentless warmth unusually killed more people in the South, which had been less prone to mass deaths

    The death certificates of more than 2,300 people who died in the United States last summer mention the effects of excessive heat, the highest number in 45 years of records, according to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. With May already breaking heat records, 2024 could be even deadlier.

    And more than two dozen doctors, public health experts, and meteorologists told the AP that last year’s figure was only a fraction of the real death toll. Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show America’s heat and health problem at an entirely new level.

    “We can be confident saying that 2023 was the worst year we’ve had from since … we’ve started having reliable reporting on that,” said Dr. John Balbus, director of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Last year, ambulances were dispatched tens of thousands of times after people dropped from the heat. It was relentless and didn’t give people a break, especially at night. The heat of 2023 kept coming, and people kept dying.

    “It’s people that live the hot life. These are the ones who are dying. People who work outside, people that can’t air-condition their house,” said Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who was in hard-hit southern Texas. “It’s really quite, quite grim.”

    Dallas postal worker Eugene Gates Jr., loved working outdoors and at 7:30 a.m. June 20, the 66-year-old texted his wife that it was close to 90 degrees. He kept working in the heat that felt like 119 degrees with the humidity factored in and finally passed out in somebody’s yard. He ran a fever of 104.6 degrees and died, with the medical examiner saying heat contributed to his death.

    “The way that my husband died, it could have been prevented,” said Carla Gates.

    “There’s just very low awareness that heat kills. It’s the silent killer,” said University of Washington public health scientist Kristie Ebi, who helped write a United Nations special report on extreme weather. That 2012 report warned of future dangerous heat waves.

    Ebi said in the last few years, the heat “seems like it’s coming faster. It seems like it’s more severe than we expected.”

    Deaths down south

    Last summer’s heat wave killed differently than past ones that triggered mass deaths in northern cities where people weren’t used to the high temperatures and air conditioning wasn’t common. Several hundreds died in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, in Philadelphia in 1998 and in Chicago in 1995.

    Nearly three-quarters of the heat deaths last summer were in five southern states that were supposed to be used to the heat and planned for it. Except this time they couldn’t handle it, and it killed 874 people in Arizona, 450 in Texas, 226 in Nevada, 84 in Florida and 83 in Louisiana.

    Those five states accounted for 61% of the nation’s heat deaths in the last five years, skyrocketing past their 18% share of U.S. deaths from 1979 to 1999.

    At least 645 people were killed by the heat in Maricopa County, Arizona, alone, according to the medical examiner’s office. People were dying in their cars and especially on the streets, where homelessness, drug abuse and mental illness made matters worse.

    Three months after being evicted from her home, 64-year-old Diana Smith was found dead in the back of her car. Her cause of death was methamphetamine and fentanyl, worsened by heat exposure, Phoenix’s medical examiner ruled.

    “In the last five years, we are seeing this consistent and record kind of unprecedented upward trend. And I think it’s because the levels of heat that we have seen in the last several years have exceeded what we had seen in the last 20 or 30,” said Balbus, of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Unrelenting heat

    Phoenix saw 20 consecutive days of extreme heat stress in July, the longest run of such dangerously hot days in the city since at least 1940, according to the data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

    Phoenix wasn’t alone.

    Last year the U.S. had the most heat waves since 1936. In the South and Southwest, Last year was the worst on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    “It was crazy,” said University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher Brian McNoldy, who spent the summer documenting how Miami broke its daily heat index record 40% of the days between mid-June and mid-October.

    Houston’s Hobby airport broke daily high temperature marks 43 times, meteorologists said. Nighttime lows set records for heat 57 times, they said. That didn’t give people’s bodies chances to recover.

    Across five southern states, the average rate of emergency department visits for heat illness in the summer of 2023 was over double that of the previous five summers, according to an analysis of data from the CDC.

    The deaths

    Experts warned that counting heat mortality based on death certificates leads to underestimates. Heat illness can be missed, or might not be mentioned.

    They pointed to “excess death” studies for a more realistic count. These are the type of long-accepted epidemiological studies that look at grand totals of deaths during unusual conditions — such as hot days, high air pollution or a spreading COVID-19 pandemic — and compare them to normal times, creating an expected trend line.

    Texas A&M’s Dessler and his colleague Jangho Lee published one such study early last year. According to their methods, Lee said, about 11,000 heat deaths likely occurred in 2023 in the U.S. — a figure that would represent a record since at least 1987 and is about five times the number reported on death certificates.

    Deaths are also up because of better reporting, and because Americans are getting older and more vulnerable to heat, Lee said. The population is also slowly shifting to cities, which are more exposed to heat.

    The future

    In some places, last year’s heat already rivals the worst on record. As of late May, Miami was on track to be 1.5 degrees warmer than the hottest May on record, according to McNoldy. Dallas’ Murphy pointed to maps saying conditions with a broiling Mexico are “eerily similar to what we saw last June” so he is worried about “a very brutal summer.”

    Texas A&M’s Dessler said last year’s heat was “a taste of the future.”

    “I just think in 20 years, you know, 2040 rolls around … we’re going to look back at 2023 and say, man, that was cool,” Dessler said. “The problem with climate change is if if it hasn’t pushed you over the edge yet, just wait.”

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Analysis finds 2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths

    Analysis finds 2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths

    [ad_1]

    David Hom suffered from diabetes and felt nauseated before he went out to hang his laundry in 108-degree weather, another day in Arizona’s record-smashing, unrelenting July heat wave.

    His family found the 73-year-old lying on the ground, his lower body burned. Hom died at the hospital, his core body temperature at 107 degrees.

    What You Need To Know

    • An Associated Press analysis of federal data shows that about 2,300 people in the United States died in the summer of 2023 with their death certificates mentioning the effects of excessive heat

    • That’s the highest in 45 years of records. More than two dozen doctors, public health experts, meteorologists and other experts tell The AP the real death toll was higher

    • Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show that last summer amped up America’s heat and health problem to a new level

    • The relentless warmth unusually killed more people in the South, which had been less prone to mass deaths

    The death certificates of more than 2,300 people who died in the United States last summer mention the effects of excessive heat, the highest number in 45 years of records, according to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. With May already breaking heat records, 2024 could be even deadlier.

    And more than two dozen doctors, public health experts, and meteorologists told the AP that last year’s figure was only a fraction of the real death toll. Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show America’s heat and health problem at an entirely new level.

    “We can be confident saying that 2023 was the worst year we’ve had from since … we’ve started having reliable reporting on that,” said Dr. John Balbus, director of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Last year, ambulances were dispatched tens of thousands of times after people dropped from the heat. It was relentless and didn’t give people a break, especially at night. The heat of 2023 kept coming, and people kept dying.

    “It’s people that live the hot life. These are the ones who are dying. People who work outside, people that can’t air-condition their house,” said Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who was in hard-hit southern Texas. “It’s really quite, quite grim.”

    Dallas postal worker Eugene Gates Jr., loved working outdoors and at 7:30 a.m. June 20, the 66-year-old texted his wife that it was close to 90 degrees. He kept working in the heat that felt like 119 degrees with the humidity factored in and finally passed out in somebody’s yard. He ran a fever of 104.6 degrees and died, with the medical examiner saying heat contributed to his death.

    “The way that my husband died, it could have been prevented,” said Carla Gates.

    “There’s just very low awareness that heat kills. It’s the silent killer,” said University of Washington public health scientist Kristie Ebi, who helped write a United Nations special report on extreme weather. That 2012 report warned of future dangerous heat waves.

    Ebi said in the last few years, the heat “seems like it’s coming faster. It seems like it’s more severe than we expected.”

    Deaths down south

    Last summer’s heat wave killed differently than past ones that triggered mass deaths in northern cities where people weren’t used to the high temperatures and air conditioning wasn’t common. Several hundreds died in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, in Philadelphia in 1998 and in Chicago in 1995.

    Nearly three-quarters of the heat deaths last summer were in five southern states that were supposed to be used to the heat and planned for it. Except this time they couldn’t handle it, and it killed 874 people in Arizona, 450 in Texas, 226 in Nevada, 84 in Florida and 83 in Louisiana.

    Those five states accounted for 61% of the nation’s heat deaths in the last five years, skyrocketing past their 18% share of U.S. deaths from 1979 to 1999.

    At least 645 people were killed by the heat in Maricopa County, Arizona, alone, according to the medical examiner’s office. People were dying in their cars and especially on the streets, where homelessness, drug abuse and mental illness made matters worse.

    Three months after being evicted from her home, 64-year-old Diana Smith was found dead in the back of her car. Her cause of death was methamphetamine and fentanyl, worsened by heat exposure, Phoenix’s medical examiner ruled.

    “In the last five years, we are seeing this consistent and record kind of unprecedented upward trend. And I think it’s because the levels of heat that we have seen in the last several years have exceeded what we had seen in the last 20 or 30,” said Balbus, of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Unrelenting heat

    Phoenix saw 20 consecutive days of extreme heat stress in July, the longest run of such dangerously hot days in the city since at least 1940, according to the data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

    Phoenix wasn’t alone.

    Last year the U.S. had the most heat waves since 1936. In the South and Southwest, Last year was the worst on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    “It was crazy,” said University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher Brian McNoldy, who spent the summer documenting how Miami broke its daily heat index record 40% of the days between mid-June and mid-October.

    Houston’s Hobby airport broke daily high temperature marks 43 times, meteorologists said. Nighttime lows set records for heat 57 times, they said. That didn’t give people’s bodies chances to recover.

    Across five southern states, the average rate of emergency department visits for heat illness in the summer of 2023 was over double that of the previous five summers, according to an analysis of data from the CDC.

    The deaths

    Experts warned that counting heat mortality based on death certificates leads to underestimates. Heat illness can be missed, or might not be mentioned.

    They pointed to “excess death” studies for a more realistic count. These are the type of long-accepted epidemiological studies that look at grand totals of deaths during unusual conditions — such as hot days, high air pollution or a spreading COVID-19 pandemic — and compare them to normal times, creating an expected trend line.

    Texas A&M’s Dessler and his colleague Jangho Lee published one such study early last year. According to their methods, Lee said, about 11,000 heat deaths likely occurred in 2023 in the U.S. — a figure that would represent a record since at least 1987 and is about five times the number reported on death certificates.

    Deaths are also up because of better reporting, and because Americans are getting older and more vulnerable to heat, Lee said. The population is also slowly shifting to cities, which are more exposed to heat.

    The future

    In some places, last year’s heat already rivals the worst on record. As of late May, Miami was on track to be 1.5 degrees warmer than the hottest May on record, according to McNoldy. Dallas’ Murphy pointed to maps saying conditions with a broiling Mexico are “eerily similar to what we saw last June” so he is worried about “a very brutal summer.”

    Texas A&M’s Dessler said last year’s heat was “a taste of the future.”

    “I just think in 20 years, you know, 2040 rolls around … we’re going to look back at 2023 and say, man, that was cool,” Dessler said. “The problem with climate change is if if it hasn’t pushed you over the edge yet, just wait.”

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Biden expands 2 national monuments in California

    Biden expands 2 national monuments in California

    [ad_1]

    President Joe Biden on Thursday expanded two national monuments in California following calls from tribal nations, Indigenous community leaders and others for the permanent protection of nearly 120,000 acres of important cultural and environmental land.

    What You Need To Know

    • President Joe Biden has expanded two culturally significant California landscapes: the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in Southern California and Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Northern California

    • The move follows calls from tribal nations, Indigenous community leaders and others for the permanent protection of nearly 120,000 acres of important cultural and environmental land

    • The designations are part of the Democratic president’s “America the Beautiful” initiative, launched in 2021 in line with Biden’s campaign promises, and builds on the Great American Outdoors Act

    • Some Republicans and other critics of the president’s initiative say it unnecessarily ties up resources that could be crucial for agriculture and other uses


    The designations are part of the Democratic president’s “America the Beautiful” initiative, launched in 2021 in line with Biden’s campaign promises, and builds on the Great American Outdoors Act. The designations are aimed at honoring tribal heritage, meeting federal goals to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030 and addressing climate change, the White House said in a news release.

    Against the backdrop of Biden’s reelection campaign, the White House emphasized the role of Vice President Kamala Harris in ensuring protections in her home state. The state of California also has conservation targets.

    “These expansions will increase access to nature, boost our outdoor economy, and honor areas of significance to Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples as we continue to safeguard our public lands for all Americans and for generations to come,” Harris said in a written statement.

    Some Republicans and other critics of the president’s initiative say it unnecessarily ties up resources that could be crucial for agriculture and other uses. In some cases, they allege he has exceeded his legal authority. Some of the president’s past actions have included restoring monuments or conservation land that former Republican President Donald Trump had canceled.

    In Pasadena, Southern California, Biden expanded the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, driven by calls from Indigenous peoples including the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians and the Gabrieleno San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians. Both are the original stewards of the culturally rich and diverse lands, advocates noted in a separate news release.

    The president also expanded Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Sacramento in Northern California, to include Molok Luyuk, or Condor Ridge. The newly renamed ridgeline has been significant to tribal nations such as the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation for thousands of years. It is a central site for religious ceremonies and was once important to key trading routes, advocates said.

    Expansion of both sites makes nature more accessible for Californians, while protecting a number of species, including black bears, mountain lions and tule elk, the White House release said.

    Californians are calling on the Biden administration to make a total of five monument designations this year. The other three include the designation of a new Chuckwalla National Monument, new Kw’tsán National Monument and a call to protect and name Sáttítla, known as the Medicine Lake Highlands, as a national monument.

    Expansion and designation efforts are made under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which authorizes the president to “provide general legal protection of cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest on Federal lands,” according to the Department of the Interior.

    Across the nation, coalitions of tribes and conservation groups have urged Biden to make a number of other designations over the past three years. With Thursday’s news, the administration has established or expanded seven national monuments, restored protections for three more and taken other measures, the White House said.

    Biden signed a national monument designation outside Grand Canyon National Park called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni last August, a move which the top two Republicans in Arizona’s Legislature are currently challenging.

    In 2021, Biden restored two sprawling national monuments in Utah and a marine conservation area in New England where environmental protections had been cut by Trump. The move was also challenged in court.

    Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, sacred to Native Americans in southern Nevada, was designated in 2023 along with the Castner Range in El Paso, Texas.

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Wind energy installations hit new high in 2023

    Wind energy installations hit new high in 2023

    [ad_1]

    Wind energy saw record growth last year. New installations increased 50% in 2023 compared with a year earlier, according to the Global Wind Energy Council’s new annual report.

    The organization attributed the gains to “increased political ambition” and last year’s COP28 climate conference, when global leaders from about 200 countries agreed to triple the amount of renewable energy that is produced by 2030.

    What You Need To Know

    • Global wind energy installations hit a new record in 2023

    • Wind energy capacity increased 50% last year compared with 2022

    • China added the most capacity, followed by the United States, Brazil and Europe

    • Wind energy capacity needs to triple by 2030 under an agreement reached by almost 200 countries at least year’s COP28 climate conference

    “Around the world, we are beginning to see the positive impacts of major policy interventions designed to incentivize new projects,” Global World Energy Council Chairman Jonathan Cole said in a statement.

    The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, the European Union’s Wind Power Package and China’s Five-Year Plan have all helped drive wind energy to a record capacity of 1 terawatt — enough to power 10 billion 100-watt light bulbs. Meeting the 2030 target will require a tripling of wind energy capacity to 3 terawatts by the end of the decade.

    While the number of onshore wind installations last year was the highest ever and offshore projects reached their second highest level, “We must acknowledge that this rate of growth still leaves us far short of the tripling target,” Cole said.

    Meeting the 2030 goal is being “tested by the tough macroeconomic climate,” Cole added. “Global inflationary pressures, rising cost of capital and fragility in the supply chain have affected our ability to ramp up in many regions.”

    The group said 54 countries built new wind power projects last year. China set a new record for installations, adding 75 gigawatts of the 117-gigawatt total of new installations last year. One gigawatt is enough to power 750,000 homes. The United States ranked second for onshore wind projects, adding 6.4 gigawatts of capacity, followed by Brazil and Europe.

    The wind energy report comes about a month after the Solar Energy industries Assn. said new electricity-generating capacity from solar increased 51% in 2023 compared with a year earlier, marking the first time a renewable electricity source had made up more than 50% of capacity additions in a single year.

    [ad_2]

    Susan Carpenter

    Source link

  • Solar companies join forces to make panels in the U.S.

    Solar companies join forces to make panels in the U.S.

    [ad_1]

    A pair of North American solar companies are joining forces to take advantage of a new federal clean energy subsidy.

    On Wednesday, the Georgia-based silicon solar cell maker Suniva announced it is partnering with Canada-based photovoltaic solar module provider Heliene to sell American-made solar panels starting later this year. The panels will be made at Heliene’s factory in Mountain Iron, Minn.

    What You Need To Know

    • A pair of North American solar companies are joining forces to take advantage of an Inflation Reduction Act subsidy

    • Suniva, based in Georgia, and Heliene, based in Canada, will make solar panels in the United States

    • China currently makes about 80% of the solar panels made globally

    • The U.S. makes about 2% of solar panels

    The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act qualifies the companies for a10% domestic content bonus investment tax credit as part of its goal to bring green technology manufacturing back to the United States. China currently makes about 80% of the solar panels used globally, while the U.S. makes about 2%.

    Suniva is the country’s largest and oldest U.S. maker of monocrystalline silicon solar cells, which are smaller, more energy efficient and longer lasting than other types of cells but also more expensive to manufacture.

    “This contract is a testament to the effectiveness of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Suniva CEO Cristiano Amoruso said in a statement. “We are proud to fulfill our longstanding promise to bring back cell manufacturing to the United States.”

    The partnership announcement comes as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is scheduled to visit Suniva’s facility in Norcross, Ga., on Wednesday. The U.S. lost about 20% of its solar manufacturing jobs from 2016-2020, according to the Treasury Department.

    Despite the loss in U.S. solar manufacturing, the country added more solar energy to the grid than ever before in 2023, according to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Assn. released earlier this month. The amount of new electricity-generating capacity from solar increased 51% compared with 2022 and marked the first time that a renewable electricity source made up more than 50% of capacity additions in a single year.

    [ad_2]

    Susan Carpenter

    Source link

  • SEC takes up narrower climate disclosure rule after heavy pushback

    SEC takes up narrower climate disclosure rule after heavy pushback

    [ad_1]

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has weakened a proposed climate disclosure rule after strong pushback from companies and others, and will no longer require companies to report some greenhouse gas emissions.

    What You Need To Know

    • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has weakened a proposed climate disclosure rule after strong pushback from companies and others

    • It will no longer require companies to report some indirect emissions known as Scope 3

    • Those don’t come from a company or its operations, but happen along its supply chain — for example, in producing the fabrics to make a retailer’s clothing — or that result when a consumer uses a product, such as gasoline

    • The final rule also reduces reporting requirements for other types of emissions, known as Scope 1 and 2; Scope 1 emissions refer to a company’s direct emissions, and Scope 2 are indirect emissions that come from the production of energy a company acquires for use in its operations


    Ahead of a planned vote by commissioners Wednesday, the SEC said the final version would not include requirements for publicly traded companies to report some indirect emissions known as Scope 3. Those don’t come from a company or its operations, but happen along its supply chain — for example, in producing the fabrics to make a retailer’s clothing — or that result when a consumer uses a product, such as gasoline.

    Companies, business groups and others had fiercely opposed requiring Scope 3 emissions when the SEC proposed its rule two years ago. They said quantifying such emissions would be difficult, especially in getting information from international suppliers or private companies.

    The SEC said it had dropped the requirement after considering comments from companies and others related to the cost of reporting Scope 3 emissions and the reliability of such information. Environmental groups and others in favor of more disclosure had argued that Scope 3 emissions are usually the largest part of any company’s carbon footprint and that many companies are already tracking such information.

    Hana Vizcarra, senior attorney at Earthjustice, said a reporting rule is overdue given climate change’s threat to the U.S. economy. But Vizcarra said the SEC “is condoning misleading and incomplete disclosures that open investors to risk by dropping the Scope 3 emissions disclosure requirements.”

    The final rule also reduces reporting requirements for other types of emissions, known as Scope 1 and 2. Scope 1 emissions refer to a company’s direct emissions, and Scope 2 are indirect emissions that come from the production of energy a company acquires for use in its operations.

    Companies would only have to report those emissions if they believe they are “material” — in other words, significant — to investors — a decision that ultimately allows companies to decide whether they need to disclose emissions-related information. And small or emerging companies don’t have to report emissions at all.

    The final rule will affect publicly traded companies with business in the U.S. ranging from retail and tech giants to oil and gas majors, and has drawn intense interest in the two years since it was first proposed, with more than 24,000 comments from companies and others.

    The SEC estimates that roughly 2,800 U.S. companies will have to make the disclosures and about 540 foreign companies with business in the U.S. will have to report information related to their emissions.

    The goal of the rule was to require companies to say much more in their financial statements about the risks that climate change poses to their operations and about their own contributions to the problem. That includes the expected costs of moving away from fossil fuels, as well as risks related to the physical impact of storms, drought and higher temperatures intensified by global warming. The SEC has said many companies already report such information, and the SEC’s rule would standardize such disclosures.

    At Wednesday’s SEC meeting, Commissioner Hester Peirce spoke against the rule, saying it would be burdensome and expensive for companies and would trigger a flood of inconsistent information that would overwhelm, not inform, investors.

    “However well-intentioned, these particularized interests don’t justify forcing investors who don’t share them to foot the bill,” Peirce said.

    Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw supported the rule but called it “a bare minimum” that omits important disclosures. She called Scope 3 emissions a “key metric for investors in understanding climate risk” and said investors are already using such information to make decisions.

    “Today’s recommendation adopts an unnecessarily limited version of these disclosures,” she said.

    The public comment period for the rule had been extended several times, and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler acknowledged last year that debate over Scope 3 emissions was delaying the final rule, with many observers predicting swift legal challenges.

    Some Republicans and some industry groups accused Gensler, a Democrat, of overreach. Their criticism largely centered on whether the SEC went beyond its mandate to protect the financial integrity of security exchanges and investors from fraud.

    Gensler said Wednesday that more companies are disclosing such information and both big and small investors are making decisions based on such information.

    “It’s in this context that we have a role to play with regard to climate-related disclosures,” Gensler said.

    Coy Garrison, an attorney who advises companies on SEC reporting and disclosure requirements, said dropping Scope 3 emissions from the rule was unlikely to deter litigation. He called the rule a vast expansion of disclosure requirements and said the amount of information required and cost to compile it “will continue to raise concerns that the SEC is acting beyond its statutory authority in adopting this rule.”

    Suzanne Ashley, a former special counsel and senior advisor to the SEC’s enforcement director and founder of Materiality Strategies, a company that advises companies on issues including regulation, saw it differently.

    “Given the very real financial impact of climate-related risks, this more narrowly tailored SEC rule with Scope 3 removed and clarifying that a materiality standard will govern Scope 1 and 2 emissions positions the rule squarely within the SEC’s existing statutory authority to require clear and comparable disclosure of information necessary for the protection of investors,” Ashley said.

    Three of the SEC’s five commissioners, including Gensler, were appointed by President Joe Biden. Two were appointed by then-President Donald Trump.

    The SEC rule comes after California passed a similar measure last October that requires both public and private companies operating in the state with more than $1 billion in revenue to report their direct and indirect emissions, including Scope 3. More than 5,300 companies will be required to report their emissions under the California rule, according to Ceres, a nonprofit that works with investors and companies to address environmental challenges. The European Union also adopted sweeping disclosure rules that will soon take effect.

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link