Saving the world isn’t going to be cheap. If you sell oil, coal or old-fashioned cars, that threatens disaster. For makers of stuff like solar panels, high-tech home insulation, and efficient lighting, it’s a potential miracle. That’s the bottom line from this weekend’s climate deal in Paris.
With the sudden bang of a gavel Saturday night, representatives of 195 countries reached a landmark climate accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change.
The lower cost of gasoline is effectively putting $100 billion a year extra into the pockets of American consumers.
U.S. oil futures settled lower on Friday after the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that global oversupply of crude could worsen next year.
A contingent of powerful U.S. representatives are pressing the chief executives of six of the country’s largest fossil fuel companies to answer questions about when the companies first understood that burning fossil fuels drives climate change and whether they became active partners in an effort to downplay the harm that could result.
Volkswagen investigators have determined that engineers cheated U.S. emissions tests in part because they could not figure out how to meet the standards, the company said.
Round-the-clock negotiations are currently underway in Paris with perhaps the boldest goal of any international summit of world leaders in history: a comprehensive plan to transition the world economy away from fossil fuels and prevent catastrophic climate change.
Even as some experts are questioning the extent to which it’s even possible, more and more voices at the U.N. climate change conference here are standing up for at least trying to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, rather than the more commonly cited 2 degrees C.
The ground is shaking near Cushing, Okla., home to the largest commercial crude oil storage center in North America.
Rep. Lamar Smith is using his committee chairmanship to go after the government’s own climate scientists, whose latest study is an inconvenience to his views.
