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Tag: Climate change

  • South Korea’s climate pledge to cut coal, lower emissions clash with US push for LNG purchases

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    SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea is promising to shrink its reliance on coal power as part of its pledge to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, but that ambition is at odds with the Trump administration’s push for more U.S. natural gas exports.

    At recent United Nations climate talks, South Korea’s new Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment announced plans to retire most of the country’s coal-fired power plants by 2040 and to at least halve its carbon emissions by 2035.

    Experts say this shows that South Korea, a major coal importer with one of the world’s largest fleets of coal plants, wants to speed up its renewable energy transition, which lags behind its neighbors and global averages.

    But as part of trade deals with President Donald Trump, Seoul is raising imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Climate activists contend such plans may conflict with the country’s pledges to help curb climate change and could lock South Korea into a fossil fuel-dependent future.

    Talks are underway for South Korea to invest $350 billion in U.S. projects and purchase up to $100 billion worth of U.S. energy products, including LNG, a natural gas cooled to liquid form for easy storage and travel. It burns cleaner than coal, but still causes planet-warming emissions, especially of methane.

    South Korea’s overall LNG imports may not increase if it offsets purchases of more U.S. natural gas by reducing imports from other sources such as Australia and the Middle East.

    Still, it’s unclear how South Korea will “manage and consolidate all this somehow contradictory planning regarding its energy sector,” said Michelle Kim, an energy specialist for the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

    South Korea’s liberal President Lee Jae Myung, who won a snap election in June, campaigned for stronger climate commitments. They had softened under his conservative predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, who was ousted after a short-lived martial law declaration.

    “As the global temperature rises, we all need to responsibly take climate action and Korea will have a stronger sense of responsibility in tackling the climate crisis,” Kim Sung-hwan, the inaugural Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

    South Korea’s goal to cut carbon emissions by 53% to 61% of its 2018 level, fell short of climate activists’ expectations. Business lobbies representing major manufacturers had proposed a 48% emissions reduction target.

    “This range presents an effort by the government to accommodate two very different ways of thinking about the economic and climate future of the nation,” said Joojin Kim of the Seoul-based advocacy group, Solutions for Our Climate.

    The South Korean government made the ambitious commitment to increase its clean energy use even after Trump’s sweeping ‘America First’ tariffs spurred energy negotiations between Seoul and Washington.

    As part of its broader efforts to avoid higher tariffs, South Korea offered to import more LNG from the U.S., but the final trade deal has not been announced.

    The agreement still under negotiation could last between three to 10 years, according to industry analysis and U.S. federal documents. Depending on the deal’s duration, South Korea may import between 3 million to 9 million tons of American LNG a year.

    LNG made up almost a fifth of South Korea’s total energy supply last year, according to the International Energy Agency, or IEA. The government’s target was to cut that to 10.6% by 2038.

    South Korea risks its climate goals if the pending trade deal increases the total volume of imported LNG, which will likely lead to an oversupply issue and the excess burning of gas to justify the deal, said Insung Lee, with Greenpeace in Seoul.

    “If we just replace coal plants with LNG, that means the coal exit actually doesn’t lead to a green transition and merely shifts Korea’s addiction from coal to gas, which undermines the whole spirit of climate action,” Lee said.

    Renewable energy generated 7% of South Korea’s domestic power in 2022, according to the IEA. South Korean government data show that had increased to 10.5% last year, still one of the lowest levels among leading economies.

    Japan, with an economy more than twice as big, generates 21% of its power from renewable sources. Spain, whose economy is about the same size as South Korea’s, gets 42% of its power from renewable sources.

    Clean energy provided about 30% of global electricity production in 2023.

    Nuclear power produces a major share of South Korea’s domestic energy, with government data showing that nuclear sources accounted for 31% of total electricity generation last year.

    “We will transition into a new energy system that focuses on renewables and nuclear, while phasing out coal,” said Kim, the energy minister. He said South Korea will use LNG as a “complementary or emergency energy source” to make up for irregularities in renewable energy supplies.

    In early December, South Korea set another goal of boosting its offshore wind power capacity to 4 gigawatts, about 10 times the current level.

    South Korean companies that don’t cut back on carbon emissions may find that to be a competitive disadvantage, said Michelle Kim of the IEEFA.

    Many global industries, including shipping and aviation, face pressure to reduce their emissions by providing incentives for low emitters and creating deterrents for high ones, she said.

    “This is a lot of risk,” she said. “South Korea needs to speed up renewable energy deployment and come out from high dependency on the fossil fuel industry.”

    At last month’s climate talks, South Korea joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance, a group of businesses, organizations and governments promoting the green energy transition.

    That’s mainly a symbolic move, said Bruce Douglas, with the Global Renewables Alliance. “But it signifies very clear government intention to move away from fossil fuels and towards clean power.”

    South Korea imports virtually all its coal, largely from Australia, Indonesia and Russia, and the switch to renewables is bound to impact regional markets.

    The pledge to retire 40 of South Korea’s 61 coal sites by 2040 may be “an enforced transition” for coal exporters in the Asia-Pacific region, said James Bowen, with Climate Analytics. “It’s a reality that they’re going to have to face this downturn in the market.”

    “The writing’s on the wall,” Bowen said. “One of the biggest importers in the world, one of the biggest customers, is starting to move away from coal.”

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Hungary’s ‘water guardian’ farmers fight back against desertification

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    KISKUNMAJSA, Hungary — Oszkár Nagyapáti climbed to the bottom of a sandy pit on his land on the Great Hungarian Plain and dug into the soil with his hand, looking for a sign of groundwater that in recent years has been in accelerating retreat.

    “It’s much worse, and it’s getting worse year after year,” he said as cloudy liquid slowly seeped into the hole. ”Where did so much water go? It’s unbelievable.”

    Nagyapáti has watched with distress as the region in southern Hungary, once an important site for agriculture, has become increasingly parched and dry. Where a variety of crops and grasses once filled the fields, today there are wide cracks in the soil and growing sand dunes more reminiscent of the Sahara Desert than Central Europe.

    The region, known as the Homokhátság, has been described by some studies as semiarid — a distinction more common in parts of Africa, the American Southwest or Australian Outback — and is characterized by very little rain, dried-out wells and a water table plunging ever deeper underground.

    In a 2017 paper in European Countryside, a scientific journal, researchers cited “the combined effect of climatic changes, improper land use and inappropriate environmental management” as causes for the Homokhátság’s aridification, a phenomenon the paper called unique in this part of the continent.

    Fields that in previous centuries would be regularly flooded by the Danube and Tisza Rivers have, through a combination of climate change-related droughts and poor water retention practices, become nearly unsuitable for crops and wildlife.

    Now a group of farmers and other volunteers, led by Nagyapáti, are trying to save the region and their lands from total desiccation using a resource for which Hungary is famous: thermal water.

    “I was thinking about what could be done, how could we bring the water back or somehow create water in the landscape,” Nagyapáti told The Associated Press. “There was a point when I felt that enough is enough. We really have to put an end to this. And that’s where we started our project to flood some areas to keep the water in the plain.”

    Along with the group of volunteer “water guardians,” Nagyapáti began negotiating with authorities and a local thermal spa last year, hoping to redirect the spa’s overflow water — which would usually pour unused into a canal — onto their lands. The thermal water is drawn from very deep underground.

    According to the water guardians’ plan, the water, cooled and purified, would be used to flood a 2½-hectare (6-acre) low-lying field — a way of mimicking the natural cycle of flooding that channelizing the rivers had ended.

    “When the flooding is complete and the water recedes, there will be 2½ hectares of water surface in this area,” Nagyapáti said. “This will be quite a shocking sight in our dry region.”

    A 2024 study by Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University showed that unusually dry layers of surface-level air in the region had prevented any arriving storm fronts from producing precipitation. Instead, the fronts would pass through without rain, and result in high winds that dried out the topsoil even further.

    The water guardians hoped that by artificially flooding certain areas, they wouldn’t only raise the groundwater level but also create a microclimate through surface evaporation that could increase humidity, reduce temperatures and dust and have a positive impact on nearby vegetation.

    Tamás Tóth, a meteorologist in Hungary, said that because of the potential impact such wetlands can have on the surrounding climate, water retention “is simply the key issue in the coming years and for generations to come, because climate change does not seem to stop.”

    “The atmosphere continues to warm up, and with it the distribution of precipitation, both seasonal and annual, has become very hectic, and is expected to become even more hectic in the future,” he said.

    Following another hot, dry summer this year, the water guardians blocked a series of sluices along a canal, and the repurposed water from the spa began slowly gathering in the low-lying field.

    After a couple of months, the field had nearly been filled. Standing beside the area in early December, Nagyapáti said that the shallow marsh that had formed “may seem very small to look at it, but it brings us immense happiness here in the desert.”

    He said the added water will have a “huge impact” within a roughly 4-kilometer (2½-mile) radius, “not only on the vegetation, but also on the water balance of the soil. We hope that the groundwater level will also rise.”

    Persistent droughts in the Great Hungarian Plain have threatened desertification, a process where vegetation recedes because of high heat and low rainfall. Weather-damaged crops have dealt significant blows to the country’s overall gross domestic product, prompting Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to announce this year the creation of a “drought task force” to deal with the problem.

    After the water guardians’ first attempt to mitigate the growing problem in their area, they said they experienced noticeable improvements in the groundwater level, as well as an increase of flora and fauna near the flood site.

    The group, which has grown to more than 30 volunteers, would like to expand the project to include another flooded field, and hopes their efforts could inspire similar action by others to conserve the most precious resource.

    “This initiative can serve as an example for everyone, we need more and more efforts like this,” Nagyapáti said. “We retained water from the spa, but retaining any kind of water, whether in a village or a town, is a tremendous opportunity for water replenishment.”

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Judge upholds Hawaii’s new climate change tax on cruise passengers

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    A federal judge’s ruling allows Hawaii’s new tourist tax, which includes a levy on cruise ship passengers, to take effect in 2026

    HONOLULU — A federal judge’s ruling has cleared the way for Hawaii to include cruise ship passengers in a new tourist tax to help cope with climate change, a levy set to go into effect at the start of 2026.

    U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake denied a request Tuesday that sought to stop officials from enforcing the new law on cruises.

    In the nation’s first such levy to help cope with a warming planet, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed legislation in May that raises tax revenue to deal with eroding shorelines, wildfires and other climate problems. Officials estimate the tax will generate nearly $100 million annually.

    The levy increases rates on hotel room and vacation rental stays but also imposes a new 11% tax on the gross fares paid by a cruise ship’s passengers, starting next year, prorated for the number of days the vessels are in Hawaii ports.

    Cruise Lines International Association challenged the tax in a lawsuit, along with a Honolulu company that provides supplies and provisions to cruise ships and tour businesses out of Kauai and the Big Island that rely on cruise ship passengers. Among their arguments is that the new law violates the Constitution by taxing cruise ships for the privilege of entering Hawaii ports.

    Plaintiff lawyers also argued that the tax would hurt tourism by making cruises more expensive. The lawsuit notes the law authorizes counties to collect an additional 3% surcharge, bringing the total to 14% of prorated fares.

    “Cruise tourism generates nearly $1 billion in total economic impact for Hawai‘i and supports thousands of local jobs, and we remain focused on ensuring that success continues on a lawful, sustainable foundation,” association spokesperson Jim McCarthy said in a statement.

    According to court records, plaintiffs will appeal.

    Hawaii will continue to defend the law, which requires cruise operators to pay their share of transient accommodation tax to address climate change threats to the state, state Attorney General Anne Lopez said in a statement.

    The U.S. government intervened in the case, calling the tax a “scheme to extort American citizens and businesses solely to benefit Hawaii” in conflict with federal law.

    Plaintiff and Department of Justice attorneys filed motions Wednesday seeking to maintain the status quo pending appeal. Otake denied the motions.

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  • Neil Frank, former hurricane center chief who improved public outreach on storms, has died

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    Neil Frank, a former head of the National Hurricane Center credited with increasing the country’s readiness for major storms, died Wednesday. He was 94.

    Frank led the hurricane center from 1974 to 1987, the longest-serving director in its history.

    “He gets tremendous credit for the being the first one to go out of his way and reach out and make the connection between the National Hurricane Center and the emergency managers,” said meteorologist Max Mayfield, who served as the hurricane center’s director from 2000-2007.

    “He taught me that it’s not all about the forecast,” Mayfield said. “A perfect forecast is no good if people don’t take immediate action.”

    Frank’s son, Ron Frank, said in a Facebook post that his father died at home a few days after going into hospice care.

    KHOU-TV in Houston, where Frank spent two decades as chief meteorologist after leaving the hurricane center, first reported his death. The station referred an Associated Press call for comment to CBS, whose spokeswoman declined comment but directed the AP to Ron Frank’s post.

    When Frank started at the National Hurricane Center, advances with weather satellites were helping forecasters to better predict the location and direction of a storm. Frank worked to make that information more accessible to residents in hurricane-vulnerable areas, said Mayfield. He also regularly appeared on television to give updates on storms and advice on staying safe.

    “He was so passionate and you could just feel his enthusiasm but also sense of warning — that he wanted people to take action,” Mayfield said. “He was very animated, spoke with his hands a lot. And if you’d play it on fast-forward, he’d look like a juggler sometimes.”

    Frank was skeptical that human actions, such as the burning of oil, gas and coal, cause climate change, Mayfield said. In a video posted to YouTube titled “Is Climate Change Real?” he instead attributed warming to the planet’s natural and cyclical weather patterns. Scientists today overwhelmingly agree that burning of fossil fuels is the primary driver of planet-warming emissions that are causing more frequent, costly and deadly extreme weather around the world.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Democratic Governors Call on Trump Administration to Lift Freeze on Offshore Wind Projects

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    WASHINGTON, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Four ‌Democratic ​governors wrote to U.S. Interior ‌Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday to ask the ​Trump administration to lift its halt on five offshore wind projects on the ‍U.S. East Coast.

    The Department ​of the Interior on Monday attributed its suspension of the leases ​for the ⁠projects to national security concerns.

    However, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee rejected those claims, saying that the projects had already undergone extensive ‌federal review, including an assessment that addressed national security considerations.

    They said ​neither ‌the Interior Department nor ‍any other ⁠agency, including the Pentagon, informed their states about a new risk prior to the suspensions.

    “The sudden emergence of a new ‘national security threat’ appears to be less a legitimate, rational finding of fact and more a pretextual excuse to justify a predetermined outcome consistent with the President’s frequently stated personal opposition ​to offshore wind,” the governors wrote.

    The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The suspension was the latest blow for offshore wind developers that have faced repeated disruptions to their multi-billion-dollar projects under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he finds wind turbines ugly, costly and inefficient.

    Agencies including the U.S. Departments of the Interior and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency have been implementing a directive to suspend all ​new approvals needed for both onshore and offshore wind projects pending a review of leasing and permitting practices.

    Earlier this month, a federal judge rejected the Trump administration’s halt to all federal ​approvals for new wind energy projects.  

    (Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Alistair Bell)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • Hawaii cruise passengers face new climate change tax after court ruling

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    A federal judge’s ruling clears the way for Hawaii to include cruise ship passengers in a new tourist tax to help pay for the impacts of climate change, a levy set to go into effect at the start of 2026.

    U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake on Tuesday denied a request seeking to stop officials from enforcing the new law on cruises.

    In the nation’s first such levy to help cope with a warming planet, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed legislation in May that raises tax revenue to deal with eroding shorelines, wildfires and other climate problems. Officials estimate the tax will generate nearly $100 million annually.

    The levy increases rates on hotel room and vacation rental stays but also imposes a new 11% tax on the gross fares paid by a cruise ship’s passengers, starting next year, prorated for the number of days the vessels are in Hawaii ports.

    Cruise Lines International Association challenged the tax in a lawsuit, along with a Honolulu company that provides supplies and provisions to cruise ships and tour businesses out of Kauai and the Big Island that rely on cruise ship passengers. Among their arguments is that the new law violates the Constitution by taxing cruise ships for the privilege of entering Hawaii ports.

    Plaintiff lawyers also argued that the tax would hurt tourism by making cruises more expensive. The lawsuit notes the law authorizes counties to collect an additional 3% surcharge, bringing the total to 14% of prorated fares.

    “Cruise tourism generates nearly $1 billion in total economic impact for Hawaii and supports thousands of local jobs, and we remain focused on ensuring that success continues on a lawful, sustainable foundation,” association spokesperson Jim McCarthy said in a statement.

    According to court records, the plaintiffs will appeal. They asked the judge to grant an injunction pending an appeal and requested a ruling by Saturday afternoon, given that the law takes effect Jan. 1.

    Hawaii will continue to defend the law, which requires cruise operators to pay their share of transient accommodation tax to address climate change threats to the state, state Attorney General Anne Lopez said in a statement.

    The U.S. government intervened in the case, calling the tax a “scheme to extort American citizens and businesses solely to benefit Hawaii” in conflict with federal law.

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  • As Raleigh grows, the city uses AI to rethink traffic management

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    At a busy downtown intersection where cars, scooters, cyclists and pedestrians cross paths, Raleigh traffic engineers are testing a new approach to managing congestion as the city continues to grow.

    Using existing traffic cameras paired with artificial intelligence and mapping software, the city is analyzing how people and vehicles move through select intersections in near real time. City officials say the goal is not to eliminate traffic but to make signals operate more efficiently and safely, especially in areas with heavy pedestrian activity.

    “One of the core challenges of traffic engineering is moving vehicles efficiently,” said Jed Niffenegger, Raleigh’s city transportation manager. “We can’t change the fact that an intersection is busy. What we can do is make sure it’s operating as efficiently as possible.”

    The pilot program relies on computer vision technology that converts live video into data. Software tracks turning movements, traffic volumes and different modes of travel, replacing a manual process that once required staff to stand at intersections and count vehicles by hand.

    “The cameras allow us to make changes much more quickly,” Niffenegger said. “With analytics, the amount of work it takes has been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be.”

    Raleigh has roughly 250 closed-circuit traffic cameras citywide. For now, the AI system can analyze data from about 10 to 12 cameras at a time because of computing limits. Transportation staff rotate intersections into the program based on where signal timing studies or corridor reviews are underway, including along Glenwood Avenue and in parts of downtown.

    The technology allows engineers to fine-tune signal timing during peak hours, sometimes by only a few seconds, based on real-world conditions rather than assumptions.

    “We’ll look at the evening rush and see whether a signal is running too long or needs to start a little later,” Niffenegger said. “It’s about fine-tuning what we’re already doing.”

    City officials say that focus on intersections matters. While widening roads has long been used to relieve congestion, engineers say intersections are often the true bottlenecks.

    “If we can maximize efficiency at intersections, we can delay costly road-widening projects,” Niffenegger said. “That saves money and allows us to invest in other places where it can have a bigger impact.”

    James Alberque, Raleigh’s emerging technology manager, said the project is part of a broader effort to better understand how the city moves as its population grows. Raleigh surpassed 500,000 residents last year, putting new pressure on streets that were not designed for current traffic volumes.

    “Cameras record video, and we’re turning that video into data,” Alberque said. “That data helps traffic engineers understand what’s happening across the city, not just at one camera at one moment.”

    The data is visualized using a high-resolution, three-dimensional model of Raleigh, sometimes called a digital twin. City staff can compare traffic conditions before and after signal changes and evaluate whether adjustments are working as intended.

    The pilot initially focused on vehicle traffic. After validating those results, the city expanded the analysis to include pedestrians and bicycles, particularly in downtown areas with heavy foot traffic and scooter use.

    “We wanted to understand all modes of transportation,” Alberque said. “GIS allows us to integrate traffic data with other information and analyze it in one place.”

    City officials emphasized that privacy protections are built into the system. The city does not store video or collect personally identifiable information. The data is limited to anonymous counts, such as whether an object is a vehicle, pedestrian or bicycle, aggregated in 15-minute intervals.

    “There’s no identifying information at all,” Alberque said. “We’re not recording video.”

    The technology is not used to automatically change signal timing. Instead, the data is reviewed by engineers and used to inform decisions, with humans remaining in control throughout the process.

    During the pilot, the city has validated the AI results by running manual counts alongside the software. Alberque said more than a dozen test cases have been reviewed so far, helping staff build confidence in the accuracy of the data.

    Beyond traffic management, Raleigh’s camera network already supports other city departments. Police, 911 dispatchers and stormwater crews use the cameras during emergencies, including flooding events, to better understand conditions on the ground.

    Scaling the system beyond the pilot phase would require additional investment. Alberque said the city has so far relied on existing infrastructure and limited resources while testing the technology’s potential.

    “The technology is advancing very quickly,” he said. “We’re trying to be thoughtful about how we invest so we’re making good decisions as this evolves.”

    For now, city leaders say the pilot offers a way to improve safety and efficiency at busy intersections without expanding roadways, an approach they see as increasingly important as Raleigh continues to grow.

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  • NC has cleanest air in decades, state says in new report

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    North Carolinians are breathing the cleanest air in decades, according to new state data from the Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ).

    The NCDEQ released its updated Air Quality Trends in North Carolina report on Friday. The report attributes the decline in air pollution emissions to efforts by state leaders, regulatory agencies, electric utilities, industry and the public to address air quality concerns over the last 50 years. The report said carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide emissions in particular reached all-time lows in 2022, the latest year for which data is available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

    “Even as our population and economy continue to grow, North Carolina’s air quality keeps getting better and better,” said DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson. “By controlling air pollution, we are giving every North Carolinian a cleaner, healthier future.”

    “Our air quality continues to improve thanks to tireless efforts by our dedicated staff, partners and a wide variety of stakeholders who have come together to implement sound environmental policies,” said Mike Abraczinskas, Director of the Division of Air Quality.

    The report said statewide emissions of the air pollutants regulated under the federal Clean Air Act have also declined sharply from 1990 through 2022. Specifically, the report said emissions fell in the following categories:

    • 95% for sulfur dioxide (SO2).
    • 74% for carbon monoxide (CO).
    • 71% for nitrogen oxides (NOx).
    • 48% for fine particles (PM2.5).
    • 67% for volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

    The state said the measured concentrations of those pollutants have been below every federal health-based standard for more than a decade, with average concentrations of SO2 95% below the federal standard and nitrogen dioxide 89% below the standard. According to data from the state, CO, NOx and VOC emissions have declined by 81%, 72% and 85%, respectively, from 1990 through 2022, from those on-road sources of air pollution.

    The state added it expects to see futher reductions from the transportation sector in the coming years due to increasing adoption of electric vehicles.

    NCDEQ in their report state that cars, trucks and other vehicles on North Carolina roads emit far less pollution than older vehicles, which they said is attributed to improved engine and fuel standards and more advanced emissions controls.

    More of the state’s power now comes from clean sources such as solar, wind and nuclear energy, and NCDEQ said the state’s transition away from coal for power generation has been a major driver of these changes.

    The report also provided these additional findings:

    • The number of “Code Red” air quality days continues to be low. From 2015 through 2024, North Carolina recorded just two days of “Code Red or above for ozone in the state, compared to 84 such days from 2005 through 2014.
    • Visibility in national and state parks improved in the last three decades. In 2023, visitors could see as afar as 119 miles at the Great Smoke Mountains Natioanl Park during an average clear day, compared to just 54 miles in 1996.
    • Net greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion have decreased by 38% from 2005 through 2020.
    • Combined emissions from federally designated Hazard Air Pollutatnts and state-designated Toxic Air Pollutatns fell by more than 108 million pounds between 1993 and 2022, an 82% drop.

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  • In Antarctica, Photos Show a Remote Area Teeming With Life Amid Growing Risks From Climate Change

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    ANTARCTICA (AP) — The Southern Ocean is one of the most remote places on Earth, but that doesn’t mean it is tranquil. Tumultuous waves that can swallow vessels ensure that the Antarctic Peninsula has a constant drone of ocean. While it can be loud, the view is serene — at first glance, it is only deep blue water and blinding white ice.

    Several hundred meters (yards) off the coast emerges a small boat with a couple dozen tourists in bright red jackets. They are holding binoculars, hoping for a glimpse of the orcas, seals and penguins that call this tundra home.

    They are in the Lemaire Channel, nicknamed the “Kodak Gap,” referring to the film and camera company, because of its picture-perfect cliffs and ice formations. This narrow strip of navigable water gives anybody who gets this far south a chance to see what is at stake as climate change, caused mainly by the burning of oil, gas and coal, leads to a steady rise in global average temperatures.

    The Antarctic Peninsula stands out as one of the fastest warming places in the world. The ocean that surrounds it is also a major repository for carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to warming. It captures and stores roughly 40% of the CO2 emitted by humans, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    On a recent day, Gentoo penguins, who sport slender, orange beaks and white spots above their eyes, appeared to be putting on a show. They took breaks from their dives into the icy water to nest on exposed rock. As the planet warms, they are migrating farther south. They prefer to colonize rock and fish in open water, allowing them to grow in population.

    The Adelie penguins, however, don’t have the same prognosis. The plump figures with short flippers and wide bright eyes are not able to adapt in the same way.

    By 2100, 60% of Adelie penguin colonies around Antarctica could threatened by warming, according to one study. They rely on ice to rest and escape predators. If the water gets too warm, it will kill off their food sources. From 2002 to 2020, roughly 149 billion metric tons of Antarctic ice melted per year, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

    For tourists, Antarctica is still a giant, glacial expanse that is home to only select species that can tolerate such harsh conditions. For example, in the Drake Passage, a dangerous strip of tumultuous ocean, tourists stand in wonder while watching orca whales swim in the narrow strip of water and Pintado petrels soar above.

    The majestic views in Antarctica, however, will likely be starkly different in the decades ahead. The growing Gentoo penguin colonies, the shrinking pieces of floating ice and the increasing instances of exposed rock in the Antarctic Peninsula all underscore a changing landscape.

    Associated Press writer Caleigh Wells contributed to this report from Cleveland.

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Colorado River water negotiators appear no closer to long-term agreement

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    LAS VEGAS — The seven states that rely on the Colorado River to supply farms and cities across the U.S. West appear no closer to reaching a consensus on a long-term plan for sharing the dwindling resource.

    The river’s future was the center of discussions this week at the annual Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas, where water leaders from California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming gathered alongside federal and tribal officials.

    It comes after the states blew past a November deadline for a new plan to deal with drought and water shortages after 2026, when current guidelines expire. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has set a new deadline of Feb. 14.

    Nevada’s lead negotiator said it is unlikely the states will reach agreement that quickly.

    “As we sit here mid-December with a looming February deadline, I don’t see any clear path to a long-term deal, but I do see a path to the possibility of a shorter-term deal to keep us out of court,” John Entsminger of the Southern Nevada Water Authority told The Associated Press.

    More than 40 million people across seven states, Mexico and Native American tribes depend on the water from the river. Farmers in California and Arizona use it to grow the nation’s winter vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and carrots. It provides water and electricity to millions of homes and businesses across the basin.

    But longstanding drought, chronic overuse and increasing temperatures have forced a reckoning on the river’s future. Existing water conservation agreements that determine who must use less in times of shortage expire in 2026. After two years of negotiating, states still haven’t reached a deal for what comes next.

    The federal government continues to refrain from coming up with its own solution — preferring the seven basin states reach consensus themselves. If they don’t, a federally imposed plan could leave parties unhappy and result in costly, lengthy litigation.

    Not only is this water fight between the upper and lower basins, individual municipalities, tribal nations and water agencies have their own stakes in this battle. California, which has the largest share of Colorado River water, has over 200 water agencies alone, each with their own customers.

    “It’s a rabbit hole you can dive down in, and it is incredibly complex,” said Noah Garrison, a water researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

    During a Thursday panel of state negotiators, none appeared willing to bend on their demands. Each highlighted what their state has done to conserve water, from turf-removal projects to canal lining in order to reduce seepage, and they explained why their state can’t take on more. Instead, they said, others should bear the burden.

    Entsminger, of Nevada, said he could see a short-term deal lasting five years that sets new rules around water releases and storage at Lakes Powell and Mead — two key reservoirs.

    Lower Basin states pitched a reduction of 1.5 million acre-feet per year to cover a structural deficit that occurs when water evaporates or is absorbed into the ground as it flows downstream. An acre-foot is enough water to supply two to three households a year.

    But they want to see a similar contribution from the Upper Basin. The Upper Basin states, however, don’t think they should have to make additional cuts because they already don’t use their full share of the water and are legally obligated to send a certain amount of water downstream.

    “Our water users feel that pain,” said Estevan López, New Mexico’s representative for the Upper Colorado River Commission.

    Upper Basin states want less water released from Lake Powell to Lake Mead.

    But Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said he hasn’t seen anything on the table from the Upper Basin that would compel him to ask Arizona lawmakers to approve those demands.

    Within the coming weeks, the Bureau of Reclamation will release a range of possible proposals, but it will not identify a specific set of operating guidelines the federal government would prefer.

    Scott Cameron, the bureau’s acting commissioner, implored the states to find compromise.

    “Cooperation is better than litigation,” he said during the conference. “The only certainty around litigation in the Colorado River basin is a bunch of water lawyers are going to be able to put their children and grandchildren through graduate school. There are much better ways to spend several hundred million dollars.”

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  • Major climate research center on Trump administration chopping block

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    The Trump administration intends to dismantle one of the world’s leading climate research institutions over what it said on Tuesday were concerns about “climate alarmism,” despite opposition to the plan.

    The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), established in 1960 as a federally funded research and education hub in Boulder, Colorado, will be broken up, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said on social media.

    Any of its operations deemed “vital,” such as weather research, will be moved “to another entity or location,” he said.

    “This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” Vought said.

    The plan was first reported by USA Today. It said moves to dismantle NCAR will begin immediately.

    Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished NCAR scholar, told The Washington Post breaking up the laboratory would result in a major loss of scientific research.

    Trenberth, an honorary academic in physics at New Zealand’s University of Auckland, said the center was crucial to the search for advanced climate science discoveries.

    Antonio Busalacchi, the president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which oversees NCAR, told the Post that, “Any plans to dismantle NSF NCAR would set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters.”

    Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement on Tuesday that he hadn’t been briefed on the plans by White House officials.

    However, he said part of the NCAR’s work provides data on severe weather events “that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families.”

    “If true, public safety is at risk and science is being attacked,” Polis said. “If these cuts move forward we will lose our competitive advantage against foreign powers and adversaries in the pursuit of scientific discovery.”

    President Trump has sought in his second term in office to roll back clean energy and climate initiatives established under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.

    Mr. Trump has referred to climate change as a “con job” and, in a speech to the United Nations in September, called it the “biggest hoax ever perpetrated” against the world.

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  • EPA hasn’t released completed PFAS health review; NC scientists want to know why

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    A group of North Carolina health and science leaders is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to release a long-awaited toxicity report on PFNA, a “forever chemical” found in drinking water systems in North Carolina and nationwide.

    The request comes after a ProPublica investigation reported that EPA scientists completed the PFNA toxicity assessment in April and prepared it for public release, citing internal documents and two agency scientists familiar with the report. The assessment has still not been published.

    In a letter sent last month to Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, East Carolina University and several former EPA officials urged him to press the agency for transparency. The signatories wrote that without access to the findings, “families in North Carolina, and across the country, [cannot] know their water is safe.”

    PFNA, part of the PFAS class of chemicals used in industrial and consumer products, has been linked in scientific studies to developmental effects, liver damage and reproductive harms. It has been detected in drinking water serving an estimated 26 million people, according to the Environmental Working Group.

    Dr. Kathleen Shapley-Quinn, the executive director of Carolina Advocates for Climate, Health and Equity, is one of the dozens of North Carolina health experts who signed the letter.

    “We know PFNA harms human health, and we need to understand where it is and how much of it is there,” Shapley-Quinn said. “Without that information, we’re swimming in a sea of unknowns.”

    Shapley-Quinn, who is a family physician, says the lack of a public report leaves communities unsure whether their water poses a risk — and leaves health officials without the data needed to identify where cleanup or monitoring efforts should be focused.

    “Communities that already know they’re affected are worried about what this means for their families,” Shapley-Quinn said. “And in places where we don’t have data, people don’t even know whether to be concerned.”

    EPA did not answer specific questions from WRAL about the status of the assessment, when it would be released or what has contributed to the delay. In a statement, the agency said the “Trump EPA is committed to addressing PFAS to ensure that Americans have the cleanest air, land, and water,” and cited ongoing litigation over national PFAS drinking-water standards.

    The agency said it intends to defend drinking-water limits for PFOA and PFOS, two of the most studied PFAS chemicals, but is asking a federal court to vacate limits for PFHxS, PFNA, GenX and several mixtures while it reconsiders how those regulations were issued.

    The experts’ letter to Rep. Murphy notes that EPA scientists have already completed the work and argues that releasing the assessment is a basic matter of public transparency. 

    “We still don’t have the information that was rightfully asked for on behalf of the public, who funded this report,” Shapley-Quinn said.

    PFAS contamination has been documented in hundreds of North Carolina communities, including extremely high levels in the lower Cape Fear region and areas near military installations. Researchers say the PFNA assessment would help determine whether additional protections are needed.

    Rep. Murphy, who co-chairs the GOP Doctors Caucus and represents areas with known PFAS contamination, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

    “In the absence of information, it’s unsettling,” Shapley-Quinn said. “But with accurate data, we can make informed choices and reduce risks. That’s what this report is supposed to provide.”

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  • As reefs vanish, assisted coral fertilization offers hope in the Dominican Republic

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    BAYAHIBE, Dominican Republic — Oxygen tank strapped to his back, Michael del Rosario moves his fins delicately as he glides along an underwater nursery just off the Dominican Republic coast, proudly showing off the “coral babies” growing on metal structures that look like large spiders. The conservationist enthusiastically points a finger to trace around the largest corals, just starting to reveal their vibrant colors.

    Del Rosario helped plant these tiny animals in the nursery after they were conceived in an assisted reproduction laboratory run by the marine conservation organization Fundemar. In a process something like in vitro fertilization, coral egg and sperm are joined to form a new individual.

    It’s a technique that’s gaining momentum in the Caribbean to counter the drastic loss of corals due to climate change, which is killing them by heating up oceans and making it more difficult for those that survive to reproduce naturally.

    “We live on an island. We depend entirely on coral reefs, and seeing them all disappear is really depressing,” del Rosario said once back on the surface, his words flowing like bubbles underwater. “But seeing our coral babies growing, alive, in the sea gives us hope, which is what we were losing.”

    The state of corals around the Dominican Republic, as in the rest of the world, is not encouraging. Fundemar’s latest monitoring last year found that 70% of the Dominican Republic’s reefs have less than 5% coral coverage. Healthy colonies are so far apart that the probability of one coral’s eggs meeting another’s sperm during the spawning season is decreasing.

    “That’s why assisted reproduction programs are so important now, because what used to be normal in coral reefs is probably no longer possible for many species,” biologist Andreina Valdez, operations manager at Fundemar, said at the organization’s new marine research center. “So that’s where we come in to help a little bit.”

    Though many people may think corals are plants, they are animals. They spawn once a year, a few days after the full moon and at dusk, when they release millions of eggs and sperm in a spectacle that turns the sea around them into a kind of Milky Way. Fundemar monitors spawning periods, collects eggs and sperm, performs assisted fertilization in the laboratory, and cares for the larvae until they are strong enough to be taken to the reef.

    In the laboratory, Ariel Álvarez examines one of the star-shaped pieces on which the corals are growing through a microscope. They’re so tiny they can hardly be seen with the naked eye. Álvarez switches off the lights, turns on an ultraviolet light, and the coral’s rounded, fractal shapes appear through a camera on the microscope projected onto a screen.

    One research center room holds dozens of fish tanks, each with hundreds of tiny corals awaiting return to the reef. Del Rosario said the lab produces more than 2.5 million coral embryos per year. Only 1% will survive in the ocean, yet that figure is better than the rate with natural fertilization on these degraded reefs now, he said.

    In the past, Fundemar and other conservation organizations focused on asexual reproduction. That meant cutting a small piece of healthy coral and transplanting it to another location so that a new one would grow. The method can produce corals faster than assisted fertilization.

    The problem, Andreina Valdez said, is that it clones the same individual, meaning all those coral share the same disease vulnerabilities. In contrast, assisted sexual reproduction creates genetically different individuals, reducing the chance that a single illness could strike them all down.

    Australia pioneered assisted coral fertilization. It’s expanding in the Caribbean, with leading projects at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Carmabi Foundation in Curaçao, and it’s being adopted in Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica, Valdez said.

    “You can’t conserve something if you don’t have it. So (these programs) are helping to expand the population that’s out there,” said Mark Eakin, corresponding secretary for the International Coral Reef Society and retired chief of the Coral Reef Watch program of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    But the world must still tackle “the 800-pound gorilla of climate change,” Eakin said, or a lot of the restoration work “is just going to be wiped out.”

    Burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal produces greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, driving up temperatures both on Earth’s surface and in its seas. Oceans are warming at twice the rate of 20 years ago, according to UNESCO’s most recent State of the Ocean Report last year.

    And that’s devastating for corals. Rising heat causes them to feel sick and expel the algae that live in their tissue and provide them both their striking colors and their food. The process is known as bleaching because it exposes the coral’s white skeleton. The corals may survive, but they are weakened and vulnerable to disease and death if temperatures don’t drop.

    Half the world’s reefs have been lost since 1950, according to research by the University of British Columbia published in the journal One Earth.

    For countries such as the Dominican Republic, in the so-called “hurricane corridor,” preserving reefs is particularly important. Coral skeletons help absorb wave energy, creating a natural barrier against stronger waves.

    “What do we sell in the Dominican Republic? Beaches,” del Rosario said. “If we don’t have corals, we lose coastal protection, we lose the sand on our beaches, and we lose tourism.”

    Corals also are home to more than 25% of marine life, making them crucial for the millions of people around the world who make a living from fishing.

    Alido Luis Báez knows this well.

    It’s not yet dawn in Bayahibe when he climbs into a boat to fish with his father, who at 65 still goes to sea every week. The engine roars as they travel mile after mile until the coastline fades into the horizon. To catch tuna, dorado, or marlin, Luis Báez sails up to 50 miles offshore.

    “We didn’t have to go so far before,” he said. “But because of overfishing, habitat loss, and climate change, now you have to go a little further every day.”

    Things were very different when his father, also named Alido Luis, started fishing in the 1970s. Back then, they went out in a sailboat, and the coral reefs were so healthy they found plenty of fish close to the coast.

    “I used to be a diver, and I caught a lot of lobster and queen conch,” he said in a voice weakened by the passage of time. “In a short time, I would catch 50 or 60 pounds of fish. But now, to catch two or three fish, they spend the whole day out there.”

    Del Rosario said there’s still time to halt the decline of the reefs.

    “More needs to be done, of course … but we are investing a lot of effort and time to preserve what we love so much,” he said. “And we trust and believe that many people around the world are doing the same.”

    ___

    Follow Teresa de Miguel on X at @tdemigueles

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    Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Banking on carbon markets 2.0: why financial institutions should engage with carbon credits | Fortune

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    The global carbon market is at an inflection point as discussions during the recent COP meeting in Brazil demonstrated. 

    After years of negotiations over carbon market rules under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, countries are finally moving on to the implementation phase, with more than 30 countries already developing Article 6 strategies. At the same time, the voluntary market is evolving after a period of intense scrutiny over the quality and integrity of carbon credit projects.

    The era of Carbon Markets 2.0 is characterised by high integrity standards and is increasingly recognised as critical to meeting the emission reduction goals of the Paris Agreement.

    And this ongoing transition presents enormous opportunities for financial institutions to apply their expertise to professionalise the trade of carbon credits and restore confidence in the market. 

    The engagement of banks, insurance companies, asset managers and others can ensure that carbon markets evolve with the same discipline, risk management, and transparency that define mature financial systems while benefitting from new business opportunities.

    Carbon markets 2.0

    Carbon markets are an untapped opportunity to deliver climate action at speed and scale. Based on solutions available now, they allow industries to take action on emissions for which there is currently no or limited solution, complementing their decarbonization programs and closing the gap between the net zero we need to achieve and the net zero that is possible now. They also generate debt-free climate finance for emerging and developing economies to support climate-positive growth – all of which is essential for the global transition to net zero.

    Despite recent slowdowns in carbon markets, the volume of credit retirements, representing delivered, verifiable climate action, was higher in the first half of 2025 than in any prior first half-year on record. Corporate climate commitments are increasing, driving significant demand for carbon credits to help bridge the gap on the path to meeting net-zero goals.

    According to recent market research from the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity initiative (VCMI), businesses are now looking for three core qualities in the market to further rebuild their trust: stability, consistency, and transparency – supported by robust infrastructure. These elements are vital to restoring investor confidence and enabling interoperability across markets.

    MSCI estimates that the global carbon credit market could grow from $1.4 billion in 2024 to up to $35 billion by 2030 and between $40 billion and $250 billion by 2050. Achieving such growth will rely on institutions equipped with capital, analytical rigour, risk frameworks, and market infrastructure.

    Carbon Markets 2.0 will both benefit from and rely on the participation of financial institutions. Now is the time for them to engage, support the growth and professionalism of this nascent market, and, in doing so, benefit from new business opportunities.

    The opportunity

    Institutional capital has a unique role to play in shaping the carbon market as it grows. Financial institutions can go beyond investing or lending to high-quality projects by helping build the infrastructure that will enable growth at scale. This includes insurance, aggregation platforms, verification services, market-making capacity, and long-term investment vehicles. 

    By applying their expertise and understanding of the data and infrastructure required for a functioning, transparent market, financial institutions can help accelerate the integration of carbon credits into the global financial architecture. 

    As global efforts to decarbonise intensify, high-integrity carbon markets offer financial institutions a pathway to deliver tangible climate impact, support broader social and nature-positive goals, and unlock new sources of revenue, such as:

    • Leveraging core competencies for market growth, including advisory, lending, project finance, asset management, trading, market access, and risk management solutions.
    • Unlocking new commercial pathways and portfolio diversification beyond existing business models, supporting long-term growth, and facilitating entry into emerging decarbonisation-driven markets.
    • Securing first-mover advantage, helping to shape norms, gain market share, and capture opportunities across advisory, structuring, and product innovation.
    • Deepening client engagement by helping clients navigate carbon markets to add strategic value and strengthen long-term relationships.

    Harnessing the opportunity

    To make the most of these opportunities, financial institutions should consider engagements in high-integrity carbon markets to signal confidence and foster market stability. Visible participation, such as integrating high-quality carbon credits into institutional climate strategies, can help normalise the voluntary use of carbon credits alongside decarbonisation efforts and demonstrate leadership in climate-aligned financial practices.

    Financial institutions can also deliver solutions that reduce market risk and improve project bankability. For instance, de-risking mechanisms like carbon credit insurance can mitigate performance, political, and delivery risks, addressing one of the core challenges holding back investments in carbon projects. 

    Additionally, diversified funding structures, including blended finance and concessional capital, can lower the cost of capital and de-risk early-stage startups. Fixed-price offtake agreements with investment-grade buyers and the use of project aggregation platforms can improve cash flow predictability and risk distribution, further enhancing bankability.

    By structuring investments into carbon project developers, funds, or the broader market ecosystem, financial institutions can unlock much-needed finance and create an investable pathway for nature and carbon solutions.

    For instance, earlier this year JPMorgan Chase struck a long-term offtake agreement for carbon credits tied to CO₂ capture, blending its roles as investor and market facilitator. Standard Chartered is also set to sell jurisdictional forest credits on behalf of the Brazilian state of Acre, while embedding transparency, local consultation, and benefit-sharing into the deal. These examples offer promising precedents in demonstrating that institutions can act not only as financiers but as integrators of high-integrity carbon markets.

    The institutions that lead the growth of carbon markets will not only drive climate and nature outcomes but also unlock strategic commercial advantages in an emerging and rapidly evolving asset class.

    However, the window to secure first-mover advantage is narrow: carbon markets are now shifting from speculation to implementation. Now is the moment for financial institutions to move from the sidelines and into leadership, helping shape the future of high-integrity carbon markets while capturing the opportunities they offer.

    The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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    Usha Rao-Monari

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  • This Startup’s New Product Is Targeting Plastic Pollution With a Novel Kind of Recyclable Packaging

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    They are officially announcing their new second-generation bottle platform, which they call PB1, on Thursday. 

    This time, they are relying less on bioplastic and putting more emphasis on fiber bottle technology that can be recycled using the paper recycling infrastructure already in place. “The mission of the company has always been to effectively develop a strong case study that offers a picture of what it could look like to move beyond plastics,” says Cove CEO and founder Alex Totterman.

    The company says that their first launches in 2026 will include a focus on cosmetics and personal care, and they think the volume of the PB1 bottle could be measured in the “tens of millions of units” by the year after.

    Cove, which has raised $29 million so far, began about seven years ago with a problem, curiosity, and a hopeful solution. While working for a water purification startup, Totterman came face-to-face with the massive problem of microplastics. “I’ve always been very interested in sustainability, more on solving it than being worried about it,” Totterman adds. “It just seems sort of obvious—why wouldn’t you try and find a solution?”

    This first solution was Cove’s initial product: a single-use water bottle made from polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHA. This mouthful of a polymer is made by fermenting sugars and fats from cooking oil gathered from local restaurants, and the bottles made from it can theoretically biodegrade within one to five years. While this sounds awesome in theory, Cove faced all sorts of barriers: It was expensive to create, relied on inconsistent industrial composting infrastructure, and bioplastic bottles themselves ran the risk of mucking up conventional recycling streams. 

    “For us,” Totterman adds, “it was about going back to the first principles of if we want to really have the impact we’re looking for, how do we deliver the biomaterial in a format that would actually work?” 

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    Sara Kiley Watson

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  • The country’s largest all-electric hospital is about to open in Orange County

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    A new hospital at UC Irvine opens Wednesday and it will be all-electric — only the second such medical center, and the largest, in the country so far.

    People live through some of the toughest moments of their lives in hospitals, so they need to be as comfortable as possible. Hospitals traditionally connect with natural gas lines several times bigger than those connected to residential homes, to ensure that rooms are always warm or cool enough and have sufficient hot water.

    But burning that natural gas is one of the main ways that buildings cause climate change. The way we build and operate buildings is responsible for more than one-third of global greenhouse gases.

    UCI Health–Irvine will include 144 beds and will be entirely electric.

    The difference is manifest in the hospital’s new kitchen.

    Yes, said principal project manager Jess Langerud on a recent tour, people are permitted to eat fried food in a hospital. Here, the fryer is electric. “After all, you still have to have your crunchy fries, right?”

    He moved over to an appliance that looked like a stove but with metal zigzagging across the top instead of the usual burners. “I can still put your sear marks on your steak or burger with an infrared grill that’s fully electric,” said Langerud. “It’ll look like it came off your flame-broiled grill.”

    The kitchen, though, is relatively minor. One of the real heavy hitters when it comes to energy use in any new building, and especially in hospitals, are the water heaters. At UCI Health–Irvine, that means a row of 100-gallon water heaters 20 feet long.

    1

    2

    Art work lines the hallways shown with the nurses station in the foreground at UCI Health - Irvine hospital building

    1. Four electric water heaters service the hospital building. It’s a 144-bed facility, with no natural gas or fuel. (Gary Coronado/For The Times) 2. Art lines the hallways near the nurses’ station. (Gary Coronado/For The Times)

    “This is an immense electrical load we’re looking at right here,” said Joe Brothman, director of general services at UCI Health.

    The other heaviest use of energy in the complex is keeping rooms warm in winter and cool in summer. For that, UCI Health is employing rows of humming heat pumps installed on the rooftop.

    “The largest array, I think, this side of the Mississippi,” Brothman said.

    A floor below, indoors, racks of centrifugal chillers that control the refrigerant make him smile.

    “I love the way they sound,” Brothman said. “It sounds like a Ferrari sometimes, like an electric Ferrari.”

    While most of the complex is nonpolluting, there is one place where dirty energy is still in use: the diesel generators that are used for backup power. That’s due in part to the fact that plans for the complex were drawn up six years ago. Solar panels plus batteries have become much more common for backup power since then.

    The Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ambulatory Care building

    The Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ambulatory Care building, left, with the San Joaquin Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, right, next to the UCI Health–Irvine hospital.

    Blackouts are bad for everyone, but they are unacceptable for hospitals. If an emergency facility loses power, people die.

    So four 3-megawatt diesel generators sit on the roof of the facility’s central utility plant. Underground tanks hold 70,000 gallons of diesel fuel to supply them. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the National Fire Protection Assn. have codes that require testing the generators once a month at 30% power for half an hour, Brothman said.

    The emissions from burning that diesel are real, he conceded. But “it’s not something that you want to mess around with.”

    Normally a central utility plant for a large facility like this would be “very noisy. It’s grimy. Usually there’s hazardous chemicals,” said Brothman, who has managed physical plants for many years. “Here there’s no combustion. No carbon monoxide.”

    Tony Dover, energy management and sustainability officer at UCI Health, said the building project team is currently applying for LEED Platinum certification, the highest level the U.S. Green Building Council awards for environmentally sustainable architecture.

    Most of the energy and pollution savings at the hospital come from the way the building is run. But that tells only part of the story. The way the building was constructed in the first place is also a major consideration for climate change. Concrete is particularly damaging for the climate because of the way cement is made. Dover said lower-carbon concrete was used throughout the project.

    A tunnel from the UCI Health–Irvine hospital building leading to the Central Utility Plant

    Jess Langerud, principal project manager for the hospital, stands inside a tunnel leading from the hospital to the central utility plant.

    Alexi Miller, a mechanical engineer and director of building innovation at the New Buildings Institute, a nonprofit that gives technical advice on climate and buildings, said the new UCI hospital is a milestone and he hopes to see more like it.

    There are things Miller thinks could have been done differently. He’s not so much worried about using diesel generators for backup power, but he did suggest that a solar-plus-storage system might have been better than what UCI ended up with. Such systems, he said, “refuel themselves.” They would be “getting their fuel from the sun rather than from a tanker truck.”

    One area Miller believes UCI could have done better: the hot water heaters, which, despite being new, utilize an older and relatively inefficient technology called “resistance heat,” instead of heat-pump hot water heaters, which are now used regularly in commercial projects.

    “It’s a little surprising,” he said. “Had they chosen to go with heat-pump hot water heaters, they could have powered it roughly three times as long, because it would be three to four times as efficient.”

    But overall, “I think we should applaud what they’ve achieved in the construction of this building,” Miller said.

    There are other all-electric hospitals on the way: In 2026, UCLA Health plans to open a 119-bed neuropsychiatric hospital that does not use fossil fuels. And an all-electric Kaiser Permanente hospital is set to open in San Jose in 2029.

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    Ingrid Lobet

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  • Michigan and Ohio State take rivalry to new heights with zero-waste game day experiences

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    One of the oldest and most notorious rivalries in college football is between the University of Michigan and Ohio State. On Saturday afternoon, the Wolverines will take on the Buckeyes in Ann Arbor for their annual matchup. Behind the scenes, staffers at each school will compete for a totally different title.

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  • Scientists Just Found Another Way Antarctica Is Falling Apart

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    The West Antarctic Ice Sheet covers some 760,000 square miles and is up to 1.2 miles thick. If it were to ever melt away entirely, it would add 10 feet to global sea levels. Even considering how quickly humans are heating the planet, such a change would likely unfold over centuries—that’s how much ice we’re talking about here. But scientists are finding more and more evidence that Antarctica’s ice is in far more peril than previously believed, with many abrupt changes, like the loss of sea ice, reinforcing one another.

    We can now add underwater “storms” to the troubles unfolding around the frozen continent. A new paper suggests that vortices are drawing relatively warm waters across the underside of the extension of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, known as the ice shelf, floating on the Southern Ocean, potentially accelerating its destruction.

    The seemingly serene waters around the shelf are in fact rather chaotic. For one, strong winds scour the sea surface, pushing it along. But what’s driving these storms is the gain and loss of ice: when it freezes, it ejects salt, and when it melts, it injects that fresh H2O into the sea. This changes the density of ocean water, creating vortices that draw warmth from the depths. “They look exactly like a storm,” said lead author Mattia Poinelli, a glaciologist at University of California, Irvine and an affiliate at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, describing the work in the journal Nature Geoscience. “They’re strongly energetic, so there is a very vertical and turbulent motion that happens near the surface.”

    This is bad news for the shelf because it displaces the insulating layer of frigid water where the ice meets the sea, which should prevent melting. Other scientists have found that instead of the underbelly being flat—which would help that insulating layer accumulate—it can undulate, creating currents that similarly expose the ice to warm waters. (Researchers are only recently learning these things because it’s exceedingly difficult to see what’s going on down there—advanced robots are now getting the job done.) “We’re really trying to understand, where is warm water getting in, how’s it getting in, and what are these processes by which the ice is melting from below?” said Clare Eayrs, a climate scientist at the Korea Polar Research Institute, who wasn’t involved in the new paper.

    The troubles under the shelf are bad news for the rest of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Think of the floating bit like a cork holding back the glacier resting on land. If melting along the shelf’s underbelly makes it break up, the sheet will march more quickly into the ocean, raising sea levels around the world.

    Not helping matters is the dramatic decline of sea ice surrounding the continent. All those chunks normally act as a buffer, absorbing the wave energy that would otherwise crash into the shelf and break it apart. Sea ice also helps keep marine temperatures cool: because it’s white, it reflects the sun’s energy back into space, but with darker waters exposed, the sea instead absorbs that heat.

    As sea ice disappears and the shelf degrades, more fresh water is added to the ocean, meaning more of the storms that drive more melting—and on and on. “In the future, where there is going to be more warm water, more melting, we’re going to probably see more of these effects in different areas of Antarctica,” Poinelli said.

    These storms may also help explain the retreat of Antarctica’s “grounding lines,” where the ice lifts off the land and begins floating on the ocean. Researchers have previously found that as fresh water flows beneath the ice sheet and into the ocean, it creates turbulence that draws up warm water, further hastening melting. Earlier this month, a separate team of researchers used a quarter-century’s worth of data to find grounding line retreat of up to 2,300 feet a year. When that happens, warm ocean water can access more parts of the glacier, eating away at the ice and making the entire sheet system less stable.

    And now storms could be adding to this attack on the grounding line. “This study provides a compelling mechanism of tiny but powerful storms that punch beneath the ice and accelerate melt,” said Pietro Milillo, a physicist at the University of Houston who co-authored the retreat paper but wasn’t involved in the storm research. “The kind of retreats that we see in our dataset can be partially explained with these underwater storms.”

    Just how much more melting we might see because of these storms remains an open question. Also, the finding came out of a model, though Poinelli said scientists have observed the dynamic in another area of Antarctica. Scientists desperately need more data to get a better idea of how fast this ice will disappear and, as a consequence, how quickly sea levels will rise. “We sometimes think the ice sheet responds slowly to changes, but this work, and our work, remind us that Antarctica can change on timescales of days or weeks,” Milillo said. “We need to monitor the underside of the ice shelf with the same urgency we monitor atmospheric storms.”

    This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/science/violent-storms-hidden-under-antarcticas-ice-could-be-speeding-its-decline/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org.

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    Matt Simon, Grist

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  • Ambitious plan to store CO2 beneath the North Sea set to start operations

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    NORTH SEA, Denmark — Appearing first as a dot on the horizon, the remote Nini oil field on Europe’s rugged North Sea slowly comes into view from a helicopter.

    Used to extract fossil fuels, the field is now getting a second lease on life as a means of permanently storing planet-warming carbon dioxide beneath the seabed.

    In a process that almost reverses oil extraction, chemical giant INEOS plans to inject liquefied CO2 deep down into depleted oil reservoirs, 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) beneath the seabed.

    The Associated Press made a rare visit to the Siri platform, close to the unmanned Nini field, the final stage in INEOS’ carbon capture and storage efforts, named Greensand Future.

    When the project begins commercial operations next year, Greensand is expected to become the European Union’s first fully-operational offshore CO2 storage site.

    Environmentalists say carbon capture and storage, also known as CCS, has a role to play in dealing with climate change but should not be used as an excuse by industries to avoid cutting emissions.

    Mads Gade, chief executive of INEOS Energy Europe, says it will initially begin storing 400,000 tons (363,000 metric tons) of CO2 per year, scaling up to as much as 8 million tons (7.3 million metric tons) annually by 2030.

    “Denmark has the potential to actually store more than several hundred years of our own emissions,” says Gade. “We are able to create an industry where we can support Europe in actually storing a lot of the CO2 here.”

    Greensand has struck deals with Danish biogas facilities to bury their captured carbon emissions into the Nini field’s depleted reservoirs.

    A “CO2 terminal” that temporarily stores the liquefied gas is being built at the Port of Esbjerg, on the western coast of the Danish Jutland peninsula.

    A purpose-built carrier vessel, dubbed “Carbon Destroyer 1,” is under construction in the Netherlands.

    Proponents of carbon capture technology say it is a climate solution because it can remove the greenhouse gas that is the biggest driver of climate change and bury it deep underground.

    They note the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s top body of climate scientists, has said the technology is a tool in the fight against global warming.

    The EU has proposed developing at least 250 million tons (227 million metric tons) of CO2 storage per year by 2040, as part of plans to reach “net zero” emissions by 2050.

    Gade says carbon capture and storage is one of the best means of cutting emissions.

    “We don’t want to deindustrialize Europe,” he said. “We want to have actually a few instruments to decarbonize instead.”

    Experts at Denmark’s geological survey say Greensand sandstone rock is well-suited for storing the liquefied CO2. Almost a third of the rock volume is made up of tiny cavities, said Niels Schovsbo, senior researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

    “We found that there (are) no reactions between the reservoir and the injected CO2. And we find that the seal rock on top of that has sufficient capacity to withhold the pressure that is induced when we are storing CO2 in the subsurface,” added Schovsbo.

    “These two methods makes it a perfect site for storage right there.”

    But while there are many carbon capture facilities around the world, the technology is far from scale, sometimes uses fossil fuel energy in its operations and captures just a tiny fraction of worldwide emissions.

    The Greensand project aims to bury up to 8 million tons (7.3 million metric tons) of CO2 a year by 2030. The International Energy Agency says nearly 38 billion tons (34.5 billion metric tons) of CO2 were emitted globally last year.

    Environmental campaigners say CCS has been used as an excuse by industries to delay cutting emissions.

    “We could have CCS on those very few sectors where emissions are truly difficult or impossible to abate,” said Helene Hagel, head of climate and environmental policy at Greenpeace Denmark.

    “But when you have all sectors in society almost saying, we need to just catch the emissions and store them instead of reducing emissions — that is the problem.”

    While the chemical giant ramps up carbon storage efforts, it is also hoping to begin development at another previously unopened North Sea oil field.

    “The footprint we deliver from importing energy against producing domestic or regional oil and gas is a lot more important for the transition instead of importing with a higher footprint,” said Gade, defending the company’s plans.

    “We see a purpose in doing this for a period while we create a transition for Europe.”

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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