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Yale Environment 360
Long a Climate Laggard, Ireland Lays Path to Cut Emissions in Half by 2030
Ireland, which has historically lagged behind other European nations in tackling climate change, has set a course to slash emissions by 51 percent by 2030. The plan is the result of negotiations that sought to balance cuts to agricultural emissions with cuts to emissions from transport, power, and other sectors. Agriculture accounts for 38 percent of Ireland’s carbon output, with belching sheep and cattle a significant source of heat-trapping methane. To halve its carbon footprint, Ireland would need to make deep cuts to emissions from farming, a daunting prospect, or draw down emissions from other sectors to compensate for the impact of livestock.
More Energy on Less Land: The Drive to Shrink Solar’s Footprint
From the ground, the new solar farm shimmers like a mirage oasis on a hot summer day. Instead of row after slanting row of shiny panels stretching taller than corn, this array, mounted directly on the earth, lies flat as water. From the air, it looks like an acre-sized swimming pool. Yet despite its modest stature, this new type of photovoltaic plant — one of five now producing a combined 2.5 megawatts of energy in California’s Central Valley — can match the output of conventional solar farms nearly three times its size.
Massachusetts Bill Would Allow Residents to Contribute to Climate-Vulnerable Countries When Filing Taxes
A bill working its way through the Massachusetts state legislature would allow residents to contribute to a UN fund for climate-vulnerable countries when filing their tax returns. Bay State taxpayers currently have the option to direct a part of the refund to one of several state programs. The legislation would...
Biden Administration Touts Plans to Plant a Billion Trees, Restore Forests Scarred by Wildfires
The Biden administration has unveiled new plans to restore woodlands beset by drought, insect infestations, and wildfires, including planting more than one billion trees on federal lands. While most forests singed by fires are able to regrow on their own, some in the U.S. have been so thoroughly scarred by...
Porsche Says Its EVs Will Soon Be More Profitable Than Its Gas-Powered Cars
Porsche expects that, within two years, its electric cars will be as profitable as its conventional cars, and that within five years, its electric cars will prove even more profitable. Speaking at the company’s capital markets day, chief financial officer Lutz Meschke said that Porsche expects the margins on electric...
Wild Tiger Numbers 40 Percent Higher Than Previously Estimated
The number of endangered tigers around the world is 40 percent higher than previously thought, according to new data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The group estimates that there are between 3,726 and 5,578 tigers in the wild, up significantly from its last assessment in 2015....
How Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies Can Help in Climate Fight
Every year, some 36 billion tons of anthropogenic carbon enter the atmosphere, mainly as a result of burning fossil fuels. With 8 billion people on Earth, this means that each human adds an average of 4.5 tons of carbon into the air annually. And wealthy people have a far bigger footprint than the poor — by a couple orders of magnitude.
Brazilian Police Doing Little to Combat Destruction of the Amazon’s Unprotected Lands, Report Finds
In the past six years, Brazil’s Federal Police have undertaken just a handful of operations to stem the destruction of unprotected lands in the Amazon Rainforest, according to a new report. Some 224,000 square miles of forest, an area larger than France, is undesignated, meaning it does not belong...
Proposed Coal Mine in Queensland Would Destroy More Than 2,000 Acres of Koala Habitat
A proposed coal mine in Queensland, Australia would eliminate more than 2,000 acres of koala habitat and more than 150 acres of greater glider habitat, two species that were recently listed as endangered. The Vulcan South mine, which is currently awaiting approval from the Queensland government, will not require an...
Gone for Thousands of Years, Wild Bison Return to the UK
Wild bison, absent from the United Kingdom for thousands of years, are being reintroduced to a forest near Canterbury, England to help restore the woods to their natural state. The Wilder Blean project, a partnership of Wildwood Trust and Kent Wildlife Trust, is returning bison to the West Blean and...
China Sees Rooftop Solar Take Off as New Policies Bolster Growth
China is expecting to install 108 gigawatts of solar capacity this year, almost double the 55 gigawatts installed in 2021, with much of the growth driven by rooftop solar. Just this week, China announced it is aiming for 50 percent of new factory rooftops to sport solar installations by 2025, China Dialogue reports, as distributed solar increasingly figures into the energy plans of the world’s biggest emitter.
Shifting Sands: Carolina’s Outer Banks Face a Precarious Future
Rounding the corner near the village of Rodanthe, there is a stretch of highway known as the S-Curves because of its twisting loops and turns. It is, by almost any measure, one of the most vulnerable sections of roadway in North Carolina, if not the nation. Years ago, highway officials erected a massive dike here with 2,200 sandbags — each bag was 15 feet long, two feet tall, and five feet wide — and then buried the dike in even more sand in an effort to keep the ocean at bay and the highway, known as NC 12, open.
Heeding Calls from Environmentalists, South Sudan President Suspends Dredging of Sudd Wetland
Responding to opposition from activists and his own government, South Sudanese President Sava Kiir Mayardiit has said he is suspending dredging in the Sudd wetland until the environment ministry undertakes needed impact assessments. In May, Egypt delivered equipment to dredge 20 miles of waterways in the north of the Sudd,...
Urban Waters: Discovering the Hidden Beauty of a Jersey River
In southern New Jersey’s heavily urbanized Camden County, the Cooper River winds past factories, under interstate highway bridges, and over dams built long ago to drive mills or control water flow. The few people who brave paddling up the river by kayak or canoe are greeted by the noise of cars and trains and must occasionally dodge discarded tires, TVs, and other debris left by those who for years treated the river as the trash-filled sewer it once was. Opportunities to launch boats are limited to a few steep banks and muddy beaches.
Amazon Sees Record High Deforestation in First Half of 2022
In the first half of this year, deforestation claimed roughly 1,500 square miles of the Amazon rainforest, an area five times the size of New York City and the greatest loss since at least 2016, according to the Brazilian Space Agency. Data further show that last month the number of...
Once Facing Extinction, Massive Fin Whales Have Returned to Antarctic Waters
After being driven to the brink of extinction, fin whales, the second-largest creatures on Earth, have returned to their ancestral feeding grounds around the Antarctic Peninsula. From 1904 to 1976, when industrial whaling took place in the Southern Ocean, whalers killed an estimated 700,000 fin whales, reducing their population to...
Brazil’s High Court First to Declare Paris Agreement a Human Rights Treaty
In a global first, Brazil’s supreme court has declared the Paris Climate Agreement a human rights treaty. Within Brazil, the court ruled, the climate pact should supersede national law. “While scholars have argued that the Paris Agreement is a human rights treaty, the Brazilian court is the first to...
Alaska Is on Track for a Record Fire Season
Alaska is on pace for a historic fire season, spurred on by warm temperatures, a diminished snowpack, and an apparent uptick in lightning strikes. Fires have ripped through 2 million acres so far this year, roughly 10 times the total area burned in all of 2021. “While this doesn’t guarantee...
Bringing Back the Beasts: Global Rewilding Plans Take Shape
For thousands of years, bison herds thundered freely throughout the Chihuahuan Desert on both sides of what is now the U.S.-Mexico border. In November 2009, after three frantic months of chasing down the required permits, Rurik List and Nélida Barajas watched as 23 bison from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota arrived by tractor-trailer at the Santa Teresa international cattle crossing in southeastern New Mexico.
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Yale Environment 360 is an online magazine offering opinion, analysis, reporting, and debate on global environmental issues.
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