March 10, 2021 10:06 AM EDT
With the climate crisis growing ever more urgent, and intersecting with other racial injustice, socioeconomic and health crises, we must secure ambitious NDCs from major emitters like the US this year. Quite simply, 2021 is shaping up to be a make-or-break year. Read more >
March 5, 2021 1:48 PM EDT
Yesterday I had the opportunity to offer comments at the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s public listening session on its recently issued Request for Information (RFI) on climate and natural disaster risk to the housing finance system. This is a watershed moment, with a growing recognition from regulators and market actors that climate change is an economic threat and that climate risks must be acknowledged and addressed. Read more >
March 2, 2021 9:28 AM EDT
Last Friday, the Biden administration announced an interim update to the social cost of heat-trapping emissions, key metrics for measuring the economic costs of climate impacts from a unit increase in these emissions.
This update to the social cost of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide comes as a result of an Executive Order from President Biden, and essentially restores the values to what they were prior to the Trump administration, adjusting for inflation. A more thorough process will follow to update these values by January 2022 to reflect the latest science and economics. Read more >
February 18, 2021 12:56 PM EDT
On Feb 19th, the United States will officially be back in the Paris Agreement, thirty days after President Biden signed a declaration to rejoin the agreement on his first day in office. The President has clearly signaled to the world that climate change will be a top tier domestic and international priority, putting the climate crisis at the center of US foreign policy and national security. There’s a lot of ground to make up but the hope of Paris is alive and strong. Read more >
December 9, 2020 4:05 PM EDT
On December 12, the world will mark the fifth anniversary of the landmark Paris Agreement. Back in 2015, there was so much hope that this would be a true turning point for global climate action. Yet, we have fallen well short of sharply bending the global heat-trapping emissions curve, and meanwhile climate change is unfolding around us in terrifying ways. Nevertheless, the Agreement endures and continues to be a precious beacon lighting the way. Now it’s time for nations—including the US, which will shortly rejoin the Agreement under President Biden—to show renewed and strengthened commitment to its goals, for people and the planet. Read more >
