"Pete Buttigieg, President Biden’s choice to lead the Department of Transportation, vowed to make climate change a top priority during his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday. But that raises a question: How much can a transportation secretary realistically do to reduce emissions from America’s vast fleet of cars, trucks and airplanes — all of which the agency oversees, to varying degrees?"
"The United States will mark its return to the global fight against climate change on Monday by joining high level talks on ways to better protect people and economies from the effects of global warming already taking place."
"The new president is unwinding Trump’s climate change legacy while forging his own". The Washington Post has launched a tracker that may update individual Biden actions to roll back Trump rollbacks.
"The Biden administration is planning to host world leaders in a climate summit on Earth Day according to three people familiar with the matter, a sign of the new president’s commitment to not just rejoin the Paris carbon-cutting accord but also strengthen it.
The U.S.-hosted meeting on April 22 could be virtual, one of the people said, similar to a United Nation’s climate summit in December. That event featured six hours of remarks from world leaders, but they only offered incremental steps to combating climate change.
"Electric vehicles are close to the “tipping point” of rapid mass adoption thanks to the plummeting cost of batteries, experts say."
The Biden administration has moved rapidly to reset energy and environment policies dramatically shifted by the Trump White House. But how quickly can such a reversal occur, what are the priorities and what are the critical pathways for change? To help sort out the latest news and track larger trends, SEJournal offers this overview and analysis, part of our extensive “2021 Journalists’ Guide to Energy & Environment.”
"A layer of warming water is rising from the subsurface, threatening to speed up Antarctic ice melt".
"U.S. President Joe Biden will announce a second round of executive orders focused on combating climate change early next week as he rushes to reverse Trump-era environmental rollbacks, according to a memo seen by Reuters."
"The last story I wrote before Donald Trump was elected president, four years and two months ago, was about the Obama administration’s claim that it had approved 60 renewable energy projects on public lands, capable of powering up to 5 million homes. I scrutinized those numbers, finding they dramatically overestimated the outgoing president’s accomplishments."
"The world is lagging behind the pace of change needed to avert catastrophic impacts from the climate crisis, John Kerry has warned in his first remarks as the US’s new climate envoy."
