Polluting companies pushed to clean up their act
A tougher carbon trading scheme to match Britain’s lofty climate goals will mean heavy industries pay more for emissions
15 May 2021 • 12:00pm
Tata Steel, like many in its ailing sector, is counting the cost of failing to clean up its carbon emissions.
Its huge steelworks, which looms over Port Talbot, has made the small Welsh town one of the UK’s most polluted areas.
While the company has made waves of job cuts at the plant, cutting emissions has proved to be trickier.
Its struggle has also proved costly. Tata and its rivals have been hit hard by EU policies ramping up the cost of emitting carbon, and they face no let up under Britain’s post-Brexit Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
China’s 2060 climate pledge is ‘largely consistent’ with 1.5C goal, study finds
New research has found that China’s pledge to achieve “carbon neutrality” before 2060 is “largely consistent” with the Paris Agreement’s aim of limiting global warming to 1.5C.
But, to stay below this level of warming, the country will need to aim higher than its current net-zero goal and accomplish “deep” emission reductions in the near term, the authors state.
According to the study, to hit the 1.5C goal, the world’s largest emitter would need to cut its total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and energy consumption by more than 90% and 39%, respectively, by 2050 – compared to a “no-policy” scenario where the government has not and will not impose climate policies.
NOAA: Hot is the New U.S. Climate Normal
It’s hot, get used to it.
That might be the clearest takeaway from a message out from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday, which gave us a glimpse of the “new normal” in a changing climate.
NOAA releases an analysis every 10 years of U.S. weather of the past three decades calculating the average values for temperature, rainfall and other conditions.
These 30-year averages, known as the U.S. Climate Normals, represent the new “normals” of our changing climate. The latest average spans 1991-2020.
The averages are calculated using climate observations collected at local weather stations across the nation.
Xi s climate speech wins global acclaim By CHEN WEIHUA in Brussels, REN QI in Moscow,,REN QI and ANGUS MCNEICE in London | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2021-04-24 06:32 Share CLOSE President Xi Jinping addresses the Leaders Summit on Climate via video link from Beijing on Thursday. Xi delivered an important speech titled For Man and Nature: Building a Community of Life Together at the two-day event hosted by the United States. [Photo/Xinhua]
President Xi Jinping s speech on Thursday at the Leaders Summit on Climate, where he set out China s ambitious pledges, has won praise from world leaders and experts.
In the speech, Xi talked about how man and nature should build a community of life together and vowed the country will take aggressive measures to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, including to begin phasing out coal.
Source：
2021-04-24 20:41
President Xi Jinping addresses the Leaders Summit on Climate via video link from Beijing on Thursday. Xi delivered an important speech titled For Man and Nature: Building a Community of Life Together at the two-day event hosted by the United States. [Photo/Xinhua]
President Xi Jinping s speech on Thursday at the Leaders Summit on Climate, where he set out China s ambitious pledges, has won praise from world leaders and experts.
In the speech, Xi talked about how man and nature should build a community of life together and vowed the country will take aggressive measures to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, including to begin phasing out coal.