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<ul class="summary-list"><li>President-elect Donald Trump has questioned the reality of the climate crisis.</li><li>He's expected to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, which he also did in his first term.</li></ul><p>President-elect Donald Trump has long questioned the reality of the climate crisis, describing it as a "scam" and accusing policies to tackle the crisis of destroying US jobs.</p><p>Many expect him to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement to limit emissions upon taking power in January, as he did in his first term.</p><p>But his hostility to green policies conflicts with another of his priorities — challenging the rise of China.</p><p>"A second US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement would present a significant opportunity for China to expand its leadership role in multilateral climate issues," Herbert Crowther, an analyst with the Eurasia Group in New York told Business Insider.</p><p>Trump's victory is overshadowing this week's UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where pledges from Biden administration officials are tempered by the fact they won't be around for long.</p><p>And China is already positioning itself to fill the power vacuum and build its global influence.</p><p>"In the week since the election, we're already seeing China try to claim the mantle of global climate leadership and portray itself as the more "responsible" actor in this space," Lily McElwee, fellow in the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, told Business Insider.</p><p>"Beijing is out in force at COP29 calling for the United States under Trump to engage in 'constructive dialogue' and highlighting China's contributions to decarbonization through major investments in electric vehicles and other greentech industries."</p><div type="image" title="Chinese solar power station" height="576" width="1024" msid="115335201" hostid="261" sizebytes="137800"></div><h2 id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d"><strong>The green tech superpower</strong></h2><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">China has a curious position as both the world's largest polluter, and a powerhouse of green technology.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">It tops the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-profile-china/index.html#">rankings for greenhouse emissions</a>, which helped power its huge economic growth in recent decades. </p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">In 2020, President Xi Jinping pledged that China would become <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://chinaeucn.com/carbon-neutrality-china/#:~:text=In%20September%202020%2C%20president%20Xi,carbon%20neutrality%20to%20the%20world.">carbon neutral by 2060,</a> and it's on track this year to record its first drop in greenhouse <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-meeting-us-climate-solar-panels-coal-power-energy-security-2024-5">emissions since 2016.</a></p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">At the same time, China has pushed harder to produce its own green technology — and sell it to the rest of the world.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">It is the world's largest producer of electric vehicles and solar panels, and the percentage of its energy coming from renewable sources <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary#">is rapidly growing.</a></p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">That work brings practical and economic benefits. Analysts also point to other motives for Beijing's green push: influence and power.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">"Where the Trump administration sees renewable energy as a threat to jobs, China is leveraging clean energy as part of a long-term strategic gambit," wrote <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-is-poised-to-transform-the-clean-energy-industry/">Daniel Araya of the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC, in 2018.</a></p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">China, as part of its "Belt and Road" initiative to grow its global influence, has provided developing countries with renewable energy technologies, including wind farms.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">"Green tech plays a critical role in Xi's economic vision. While China has spent a decade trying to catch up to the United States and other advanced economies in existing tech (like semiconductors), it is increasingly focused on securing leadership in emerging industries like cleantech," said McElwee.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">The strategy is paying off, with global demand for renewable energy production technologies predicted to surge, and China set to account for 60% of installed global renewable energy capacity by 2030, according to an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.iea.org/news/massive-global-growth-of-renewables-to-2030-is-set-to-match-entire-power-capacity-of-major-economies-today-moving-world-closer-to-tripling-goal">October report by the International Energy Agency.</a></p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">The US lags China as a clean tech economic power.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">Trump has been explicit about his plans to repeal and otherwise roll back climate policies from the Biden administration.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">That included <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/05/trump-inflation-reduction-act-00177493">a pledge</a> just before the election to "rescind all unspent funds" from President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which provided billions in funding for clean tech.</p><h2 id="d064aeb1-2497-4d9c-b893-7e2c1b98241d"><strong>Will China step up? </strong></h2><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">There are also doubts over how much China is willing to take an international leadership role on climate issues.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">It's been wary of international agreements to tackle climate change in the past, and last year was accused by European officials of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/china-denies-reports-it-obstructed-g20-climate-discussions-2023-08-02/#:~:text=China%20denies%20reports%20it%20obstructed%20G20%20climate%20discussions%20%7C%20Reuters">obstructing G20 efforts </a>to tackle the climate crisis, Reuters reported. </p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">Assuming a leadership role would likely require China to send money to other countries, said Crowther. </p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">"The key question for officials in Beijing will now turn to whether China wants to deepen its financial commitments to helping other countries—particularly emerging markets—accelerate their own energy transitions," he said.</p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">Crowther said the run up to next year's COP30 summit in Brazil would provide clues of China's intentions. </p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">Ultimately, Xi may be more interested in cementing China's economic advantages than in concrete diplomatic pledges. </p><p id="f89b9ca3-aa4a-4bb2-a5bf-27324f610f4d">"Although Beijing will try to boost its image as a global leader on climate change, I don't know how much substance will follow," said McElwee.</p>

Trump called the climate crisis a scam. It could prove a gift to China.

Climate Action 15: 2024's top global innovators powering green solutions

Dismayed by several recent changes in school <keyword id="6375423" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="syllabus" source="Orion">syllabus</keyword> related to the weather, <keyword id="6361617" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>, and even the Indian monsoon, a teachers' body has urged the <keyword id="48505" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="ncert" source="Orion">NCERT</keyword> to rethink these deletions from the school environmental syllabus and bring in different facets of the <keyword id="6375923" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="climate" source="Orion">climate</keyword> crisis.<br /><br />Teachers Against the Climate Crisis (<keyword id="14398053" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="tacc" source="Orion">TACC</keyword>) has claimed the NCERT has removed an entire chapter on Greenhouse Effect from Class 11 Geography syllabus; an entire chapter on weather, climate weather systems, and water from the Class 7 syllabus; and information about the Indian monsoon from the Class 9 syllabus.<br /><br />TACC, a non-funded, non-party organisation that seeks to promote understanding about climate and has members across universities and research institutions across <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword>, said it appreciates NCERT's efforts to manage learning deficit in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic by seeking to reduce students' workload by culling material - as explained on its website - however, "none of these concerns apply to fundamental issues such as climate change science, the Indian monsoon, and the other chapters that have been deleted."<br /><br />Stating that the relevant climate change science as being continuously updated via thousands of peer-reviewed papers published each year as well as very important compilations such as the <keyword id="8956" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="intergovernmental-panel" source="Orion">Intergovernmental Panel</keyword> on Climate Change (IPCC's) latest Assessment Reports and India's own report on climate change published by an agency under the <keyword id="158211" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="ministry-of-earth-sciences" source="Orion">Ministry of Earth Sciences</keyword>, a statement from TACC said, "It is extremely important that senior school students all over India are conveyed the essence of such updated information in an accessible, easy-to-understand manner."<br /><br />Across the world, including in India, students have been more and more concerned about the drastic changes wrought by environmental degradation, of which climate change is an example. "Young people's actions and interventions are crucial to meeting this most fundamental challenge. This action needs to be predicted upon systematic knowledge of the reality of climate change, its causes, and its enormous reach. Students need to understand the complexity of the climate crisis if they are to respond and engage intelligently with it," TACC said.<br /><br />Class 10 students, however, will no longer be able to learn and be inspired by popular people's movements such as Chipko movement or Narmada Bachao Andolan in their 'Popular Struggles and Movements' lessons since the chapter on them has been taken out of their 'Democratic Politics' syllabus, it said, and urged the NCERT to rethink its decision about deletions of these topics from the environmental syllabi.<br /><br />SEE ALSO : <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/twitter-fires-30-of-its-employees-in-the-talent-acquisition-team/articleshow/92739415.cms">Twitter fires 30% of its employees in the talent acquisition team</a><br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/enterprise/news/elon-musks-44-billion-twitter-deal-is-in-jeopardy-says-report/articleshow/92738854.cms">Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter deal is in jeopardy, says report</a><br /><br />

Bring back chapters on climate crisis, teachers body tells NCERT

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A new <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-effective-climate-solutions-to-implement-right-now-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">UN report</a> calls for drastic, immediate cuts to heat-trapping gas emissions.</li><li>A small part of those cuts come from individual people <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cycling-boom-us-streets-infrastructure-bike-lanes-history-united-states-2020-12" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">biking</a> to work or wasting less <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/foods-getting-more-expensive-this-year-inflation-supply-fertilizer-war-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">food</a>.</li></ul><p>Hundreds of<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-risk-arrest-in-global-climate-protests-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> scientists</a> called for immediate, drastic <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-effective-climate-solutions-to-implement-right-now-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">action</a> to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases in a<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-could-turn-around-this-decade-ipcc-report-2022-4" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> major report</a> last week.</p><p>The original goal set in the historic Paris Agreement — to limit<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> global warming</a> to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures — is quickly fading into the rearview mirror. The new report, from the<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>, drew a road map to give the planet one last chance at 1.5 degrees.</p><p>The <keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword> warned that emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide and<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-imagery-reveals-methane-pouring-from-the-us-russia-daily-2022-2" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> methane</a> must peak as soon as possible — in 2025 at the latest — then plummet to half their current levels by 2030, and drop to zero by 2050. That means drastic changes across all sectors of human life, especially a rapid transition away from <keyword id="11970530" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossil-fuels" source="Orion">fossil fuels</keyword>, such as coal and oil, to renewable-energy sources, such as solar and wind power.</p><p>Conversations about cutting emissions often involve a<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-fuel-companies-spend-millions-to-promote-individual-responsibility-2021-3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored"> familiar refrain</a>: What can I do? How can I make my lifestyle more sustainable?</p><p>The truth is that just a small fraction of the IPCC's road map involves individuals changing their day-to-day behaviors. There are some lifestyle changes that may be effective if people in the developing world deployed them en masse — diet, food waste, and transportation choices. But the report emphasized that government policies and better business practices were necessary to change human behavior on a large scale.</p><p>"Lifestyle choices and behavior is certainly important. But not everything is in our control," said Edward Byers, an energy and climate researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and a lead author on the IPCC report.</p><p>You could switch your gas-guzzler for an electric vehicle tomorrow, Byers added, but you might not be able to choose whether the new car's electricity came from a solar farm or a coal-fired power plant.</p><h2><strong>'Influencers' make daily decisions with big emissions implications</strong></h2><p>For developed countries, such as the US, there are some straightforward lifestyle changes that would reduce emissions. For example, it could make a big difference if urban populations ditched their cars for biking, walking, and public transport.</p><p>But that only happens if planners and developers make cities more walkable by building homes near businesses, designing roads that are safe for bikes, and planning accessible, cheap public transit systems.</p><p>That's why Stephanie Roe, a lead author on the IPCC report and climate scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, thinks of individual action in terms of "influencers." Such people have the power to make large-scale choices as professionals — such as planning transit systems or deciding what a restaurant chain does with its extra food — which can either significantly reduce emissions or have cascading effects that influence other people's behavior.</p><p>"We assume a lot of times it needs to be these top-down decisions, either from the federal or state level, that can make these changes. But oftentimes it's actually the actions of individuals within these sectors that can make a big difference," Roe said. </p><p>"If you have somebody who builds houses for a living, for example — that developer or that builder can choose heat pumps over boilers, or they can choose induction stoves over gas stoves," she added. "Those kinds of decisions, that are not necessarily facilitated or incentivized yet by policy, are made on an individual basis."</p><p>Food waste, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/methanes-warming-power-spurs-sustainability-solutions-in-agriculture-2021-10" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">releases</a> powerful methane gas as it decomposes, is one problem whose solution may fall largely on individual consumers. The IPCC report found that in 2019, 61% of the world's food waste came from households.</p><p>Still, the report recommended the creation of education campaigns to reduce household food waste, policies to make expiration-date labels clearer, and improved packaging to extend shelf life.</p><p>"A lot of the responsibility to decarbonize lives with big businesses, industries, and governments to establish the correct incentives and regulatory frameworks," Byers said. There are "many, many things that the public can do in their everyday choices. This also requires centralized and coordinated action, and political will."</p>

Changing your personal lifestyle is just a small part of fixing the climate crisis

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-bill-nelson-russia-space-dmitry-rogozin-chief-roscosmos-2022-3">NASA</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-satellite-images-show-tonga-volcano-eruption-reached-mesosphere-2022-2">scientist</a> and three others were arrested after chaining themselves to a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-grills-jamie-dimon-chase-charging-overdraft-fees-pandemic-2021-5">Chase Bank</a> on Wednesday.</li><li>The action was one of more than a dozen <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">climate</a> protests staged by Scientist Rebellion across the globe.</li></ul><p>A <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> scientist and three others were arrested in <keyword id="11940480" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="los-angeles" source="Orion">Los Angeles</keyword> on Wednesday after chaining themselves to the doors of a <keyword id="12279069" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="chase-bank" source="Orion">Chase Bank</keyword> office building.</p><p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. <a href="https://apstylebook.com/businessinsider/ap_stylebook/jpmorgan-chase-co"></a> has invested more money in fossil fuels than any other bank, according to a 2020 <a href="http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2020/03/Banking_on_Climate_Change_2020.pdf">report</a> from the Sierra Club and other climate advocacy organizations. In addition to calling for immediate action to address the climate crisis, the protestors on Wednesday were calling for the company to divest from coal, oil, and gas.</p><p>Peter Kalmus, who studies biological systems and <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword> at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, spoke to a crowd that assembled shortly after another protestor helped Kalmus chain himself to the handle of the bank's glass door. The event was <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ScientistRebellion/videos/438294118058895">livestreamed on </a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ScientistRebellion/videos/438294118058895">Facebook</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ScientistRebellion/videos/438294118058895"></a>.</p><div type="image" title="protest in front of chase bank with four people in white lab coats chained to doors" height="1152" width="2048" msid="90697172" hostid="261"></div><p>"I'm willing to take a risk for this gorgeous planet, for my sons," Kalmus said, his voice cracking as he mentioned his children.</p><p>Covering his face for a moment, he continued, "We've been trying to warn you guys for so many decades that we're heading towards a fucking catastrophe, and we've been being ignored. The <keyword id="6367929" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="scientists" source="Orion">scientists</keyword> of the world are being ignored, and it's got to stop. We're not joking. We're not lying. We're not exaggerating."</p><div type="image" title="peter kalmus climate scientist speaking with microphone" height="1127" width="1500" msid="90696891" hostid="261"></div><p>Insider was unable to identify the other three people who chained themselves to the bank's doors. Nearly four hours later, more than two dozen police officers blocked off the road, removed the four protestors, and carried them away in a van.</p><p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. declined to comment on Wednesday's events.</p><h2>Scientists are risking arrest in cities across the planet</h2><div type="image" title="protestors in white lab coats wearing a chain stand in a line with red smoke flares and signs" height="1680" width="2500" msid="90696892" hostid="261"></div><p>The actions of Kalmus and his companions were part of more than a dozen protests staged in cities across the globe this week, through a coalition called <a href="https://twitter.com/ScientistRebel1">Scientist Rebellion</a>, which is a branch of Extinction Rebellion dedicated to scientists taking actions of civil disobedience to advocate for climate action. This week's protests followed the release of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-effective-climate-solutions-to-implement-right-now-2022-4">United Nations' latest climate report</a>.</p><p>In Berlin, scientists glued their hands to the road to block a bridge. In Madrid, protestors threw red paint on the steps of the Spanish Parliament. In London, some <a href="https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2022/04/06/breaking-scientists-and-academics-throw-fake-oil-over-shell-hq/">threw fake oil</a> onto the facade of Shell's UK headquarters. In Sydney, five protestors, including a biology professor, were arrested after laying in the street to block traffic in pouring rain. In Washington, DC, people chained themselves to the fence surrounding the White House.</p><div type="image" title="police carry protestors in white lab coats away from spanish parliament steps covered in red paint" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90696894" hostid="261"></div><p>The report from the UN <keyword id="11911245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change" source="Orion">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</keyword> (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword>) released Monday concluded that the world must peak emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide in less than three years to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial standard.</p><p>Surpassing that temperature increase would have catastrophic consequences beyond the climate change that's already driving extreme wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and floods across the planet. The report found that the world's governments and corporations are far from meeting the emission-reduction goals that would help limit that extreme weather.</p><div type="image" title="gloved police officer uses paintbrush to remove glue holding protestor's hand to asphalt road" height="1657" width="2210" msid="90696895" hostid="261"></div><p>"Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels," António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said in a press briefing on Monday.</p><p>"It's now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C," Jim Skea, co-chair of the IPCC group that wrote the new report, said in a <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/resources/press/press-release/">press release</a>. "Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible."</p><p>Researchers representing Scientist Rebellion also participated in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03430-5">protests</a> surrounding the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, last year, where 15 scientists were arrested.</p><p>"This planet is everything, and it's time we start acting like it," Kalmus said.</p>

NASA scientist arrested after chaining himself to Chase Bank as part of global climate protests

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-could-turn-around-this-decade-ipcc-report-2022-4">major UN report</a> offers a playbook for averting the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-endangers-women-girls-pregnant-people-2022-3">worst</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/allergy-season-may-last-longer-with-double-the-pollen-study-2022-3">effects</a> of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/Antarctica-ice-shelf-previously-thought-stable-collapses-2022-3">climate change</a>, if the world acts now.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-estimate-9000-tree-species-are-still-unknown-to-them-2022-1">Forests</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-solar-power-plan-clean-energy-by-2050-2021-9">solar</a> farms, and compact <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-investing-green-infrastructure-manage-climate-change-2022-3">cities</a> with electric buses can make a huge difference this decade.</li></ul><p>We only have three years left to avert the worst <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3">consequences</a> of <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-could-turn-around-this-decade-ipcc-report-2022-4">a sobering report from the United Nations</a> warned on Monday.</p><p>Human activities are releasing heat-trapping gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere. That's caused global temperatures to rise 1.1 degrees Celsius in the last 170 years, and the planet is on track to warm roughly 2 more degrees by the end of the century, catastrophically endangering humans' physical health, our food and water supply, the availability of safe places to live, and the survival of animal species.</p><p>However, there is still time to change our ways. That's the focus of the new report from the UN's <keyword id="11911245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change" source="Orion">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</keyword> (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword>), authored by hundreds of scientists from across the globe.</p><p>"As long as you want to keep temperatures below about 3 degrees, we needed to peak emissions immediately, as soon as possible — ideally five to 10 years ago — and the latest, before 2025," Edward Byers, an energy and climate researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, and a lead author on the report, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="farmer walks through field of dried brown soybean plants" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90694521" hostid="261"></div><p>If global emissions of heat-trapping gases peak by 2025, plummet to half their current level by 2030, and drop to zero by 2050 — there's a chance the planet won't warm past 1.5 degrees. In nearly 3,000 pages, the report lays out a playbook to meet that ambitious timeline.</p><p>Many of the measures in the IPCC's roadmap are cheap, quick, and doable with current technology. Some, like improved mass-transit systems, offer additional benefits, like creating new jobs and addressing socioeconomic inequity.</p><p>"The global benefits of climate action exceed the cost," Stephanie Roe, a lead author on the report and a climate scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, told Insider.</p><p>"It's still possible," Byers said.</p><p>Here are five straightforward climate actions that governments and businesses of all sizes can tackle right now.</p><h2>Retrofit cities for electrified transit, biking, and walking</h2><div type="image" title="electric buses lined up inside factory" height="1667" width="2500" msid="90694523" hostid="261"></div><p>Cities and urban areas make up two-thirds of all global emissions, according to the new IPCC report. Redesigning urban transportation could cut about one-quarter of those emissions by 2050.</p><p>That means building housing near workplaces, so that residents have short commutes, and designing streets that encourage biking, walking, or taking shared public transit instead of driving personal vehicles. The IPCC also recommends running public buses, trams, and other transit vehicles on electricity rather than oil.</p><p>The report found that these measures would ultimately save money. They would likely improve local air quality, too.</p><h2>Ditch <keyword id="11970530" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossil-fuels" source="Orion">fossil fuels</keyword> for solar and wind power</h2><div type="image" title="wind turbines and church silhouetted against sunset" height="1667" width="2500" msid="90694525" hostid="261"></div><p>Electric buses and trains won't drive down emissions much if their energy comes from coal-fired power plants. Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas release lots of carbon dioxide and methane when we burn them for energy.</p><p>For that reason, the energy sector is a far bigger greenhouse-gas polluter than sectors like agriculture or transport. In 2019, energy suppliers produced about 34% of all human-driven emissions worldwide, according to the IPCC report.</p><p>Climate scientists' core message: We must stop using fossil fuels as quickly as possible.</p><p>Every pathway to limit warming to 1.5 or even 2 degrees requires almost eliminating fossil-fuel use by the 2050s, Byers said.</p><div type="image" title="worker in yellow hard hat standing amid field of solar panels spraying water" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90694527" hostid="261"></div><p>The good <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword> is that <keyword id="12265703" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wind-turbines" source="Orion">wind turbines</keyword> and solar panels have become significantly cheaper to install and operate in the last decade. Now, renewable energy is often competitive with fossil fuels. Governments, businesses, and households should draw energy from wind and solar farms whenever possible, the report recommends.</p><p>"Renewables can be done rapidly and very cheaply nowadays," Byers said, adding, "The electricity sector has made lots of progress on this."</p><h2>Cut methane emissions by patching leaks</h2><h2><div type="image" title="flames black cloud rising from flarestacks natural gas facility" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90694529" hostid="261"></div></h2><p>Nearly one-fifth of all the energy sector's emissions are methane — a powerful gas with 30 times the heat-trapping potential of carbon dioxide.</p><p>Most of that methane comes from "fugitive emissions," meaning leaks from fossil-fuel transportation and processing facilities. An analysis of satellite images from 2019 and 2020 found <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-imagery-reveals-methane-pouring-from-the-us-russia-daily-2022-2">more than 1,800 methane plumes along gas pipelines</a> all over the globe. Altogether, the study calculated, those leaks' emissions were comparable to 20 million additional vehicles on the road for a year.</p><p>Because the gas has such a potent heating effect in the atmosphere, a drop in methane emissions can help rapidly reduce the speed of global warming. Patching gas leaks would probably save energy companies money, too.</p><p>"That is a really low-hanging fruit, I think, that can be easily addressed," Roe said.</p><h2>Stop wasting food</h2><div type="image" title="volunteer carries bags of potatoes at drive-thru potato handout" height="1666" width="2223" msid="90694532" hostid="261"></div><p>Methane also comes from livestock and waste facilities, as cows belch and garbage decomposes. Landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in the US, and food waste is the largest category of garbage, according to the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sustainable-management-food/sustainable-management-food-basics">Environmental Protection Agency</a>. The <a href="https://www.usda.gov/foodlossandwaste/why">Department of Agriculture</a> estimates that 30-40% of the US food supply is wasted.</p><p>Wasting less food would mean fewer methane emissions at the landfill and could also reduce emissions upstream in food production. Using food that previously would have gone to waste could allow us to produce less of it, which would mean fewer emissions from fertilizer, farming, and food-processing machinery.</p><div type="image" title="field of plowed lettuce" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90694535" hostid="261"></div><p>That's a lifestyle change that individuals and families can make in developed countries. According to the IPCC report, 61% of the world's food waste came from households in 2019.</p><p>"That is an easy way to both increase efficiencies and reduce your own costs as a consumer, reduce the cost down the supply chain, and make a big, big difference in terms of reducing emissions, but also limiting and reducing pressure on land," Roe said.</p><h2>Protect <keyword id="13075240" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="forests" source="Orion">forests</keyword> and grow more of them</h2><div type="image" title="man with binoculars surveys rainforest canopy green trees" height="1998" width="2664" msid="90694537" hostid="261"></div><p>Trees thrive by absorbing carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in their tissues. That's why forests can be a powerful tool to slow global warming.</p><p>The IPCC report calls for protecting forests across the planet from deforestation, or the die-off of trees from changing climate conditions, fires, or humans cutting them down. It also points to afforestation, meaning planting new trees where there are none.</p><p>"Afforestation is something that can be deployed today," Byers said.</p><p>Growing trees takes time, he added, but "it can be done in every country in the world."</p><p>In this decade, the IPCC's plan could cost $100 or less for every ton of carbon dioxide emissions it prevents. More than half of those mitigation strategies cost just $20 or less per ton, the report estimates. Many of them would ultimately save money.</p><p>But relying on just one solution isn't enough.</p><p>"There are no silver bullets. We need to do it all," Roe said.</p>

Scientists say climate solutions like solar power and walkable cities are cheap, doable, and can make a dent in the crisis

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The world can turn around the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">climate crisis</a> this decade, hundreds of scientists concluded in a major UN report.</li><li>To avert the worst <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-crisis-endangers-women-girls-pregnant-people-2022-3">climate</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3">catastrophes</a>, the world has three years to start cutting emissions.</li></ul><p>Governments and corporations across the planet have the tools to turn around the climate crisis in the next decade, hundreds of scientists concluded in a major climate report on Monday.</p><p>Humans are filling the atmosphere with more carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases than ever before. But there's still time to limit the planet's warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial standard, according to the report. That temperature cap would avert the most catastrophic <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword>, including further <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-animal-extinctions-climate-change-un-ipcc-report-2022-3">mass animal and plant extinctions</a>, significant increases in the frequency and severity of heat waves and droughts, and tipping points that could lock in even greater levels of warming.</p><p>To avoid heating the planet past that 1.5-degree goalpost, global emissions of heat-trapping gases must peak by 2025, drop to half their current level by 2030, and drop to zero by 2050.</p><div type="image" title="rising seas surround little girl on bench" height="1666" width="2222" msid="90652614" hostid="261"></div><p>The new 3,000-page report, from the <keyword id="11896449" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="united-nations" source="Orion">United Nations</keyword>' <keyword id="11911245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change" source="Orion">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</keyword> (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ipcc" source="Orion">IPCC</keyword>), lays out a playbook to meet that ambitious timeline. It recommends transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources like solar and wind, outfitting cities with electrified transportation systems and energy-efficient buildings, and deploying technologies that suck carbon out of the atmosphere.</p><p>"We clearly have the tools to tackle the climate crisis. That's what the report shows. But they need to be deployed much more rapidly, on a larger scale, to keep 1.5 within reach," Stephanie Roe, a lead author on the report and a climate scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="wind turbines and church silhouetted against sunset" height="1667" width="2500" msid="90652615" hostid="261"></div><p>The problem is mustering the political will and financial resources to do it. The report identified just 18 countries that have consistently reduced their emissions over the last decade. Worldwide, financial investment in mitigation efforts would need to increase three- to six-fold in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, the report found.</p><p>Existing fossil-fuel projects, like coal plants and oil wells, are enough on their own to lock in warming that exceeds 1.5 degrees, the report found.</p><p>"Some government and business leaders are saying one thing, but doing another. Simply put, they're lying and the results will be catastrophic," António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said in a press briefing on Monday.</p><p>"Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels," he added.</p><h2>The last IPCC assessment before the crucial 2025 deadline</h2><div type="image" title="pair of hands cupped holding crude oil" height="1755" width="2341" msid="90652616" hostid="261"></div><p>The new report is the third installment of the IPCC's sixth assessment. The first portion, released last year, focused on physical changes to the planet. In February, the second portion assessed how those changes will impact humans and ecosystems.</p><p>The IPCC conducts the three-part assessment process roughly every six or seven years. This assessment was delayed several months by the COVID-19 pandemic. The last time the IPCC published a solutions-oriented report was in 2014, as part of its fifth assessment.</p><p>This time around, the solutions recommended in the report may be more doable, despite the rapidly approaching 2025 deadline for turning around global emissions. The cost of solar and wind energy has plummeted since the IPCC's fifth assessment, and new innovations have made renewable-energy and energy-efficiency technologies work better on a larger scale.</p><p>"I think we're actually pretty fortunate to be alive during this brief time in history, where we sort of understand the stakes, but have time to do something about it," John Bistline, a contributing author to the energy-systems chapter of the report, told Insider.</p><p>This will be the last IPCC assessment before the 2025 milestone. By the time the UN convenes scientists to make another such assessment, it will likely be too late to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.</p>

The world can turn around the climate crisis this decade, UN report confirms, but governments need to step up

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A prolonged drought in southeast Asia contributed to massive fish deaths in southern Vietnam.</li><li>The climate crisis and human development threaten the Mekong Delta, a key global agricultural center.</li></ul><p>A weekslong drought across parts of southeast Asia has killed hundreds of thousands of fish in a reservoir in Vietnam and pushed a key metric for coffee prices to record levels — just two indicators of the kind of havoc the climate is wreaking on people and the economy.</p><p>In Vietnam, the maze of wetlands that comprise the Mekong Delta is called the country's "rice bowl" because of the vast agriculture it supports. The climate crisis and human development threaten the water the region relies on, especially in El Niño years like this one.</p><p>As Vietnam's freshwater levels drop, salt water intrudes, causing massive economic devastation. From 2020 to 2023, the Mekong Delta lost 70 trillion Vietnamese dong, or $2.96 billion, annually because of salt intrusion, the country's Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment <a target="_blank" href="https://e.vnexpress.net/news/environment/mekong-delta-loses-3b-a-year-to-salt-intrusion-4723065.html">said</a> in mid-March. Those figures are expected to climb in coming years, the ministry said.</p><p>While Vietnam is no longer a heavily agricultural economy, the industry still accounted for about 12% of its GDP last year, according to the <a target="_blank" href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.AGR.TOTL.ZS?locations=VN">World Bank</a>.</p><p>It's too early to know exactly how this year's drought, exacerbated by El Niño, will affect harvests and exports. But early gauges indicate trouble for at least one key export. Vietnam's coffee association said in late March that exports of robusta coffee — the bean used in espresso and instant coffee — could decline as much as 20% in the 12 months ending in September, compared with the same period last year. Vietnam is the world's largest robusta producer, and futures prices for the bean <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coffee-prices-vietnam-robusta-futures-high-asia-expensive-drought-espresso-2024-4">hit a 16-year high</a> last week.</p><p>Meanwhile, in southern Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of fish died in a reservoir last month as temperatures peaked over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and no rain fell for weeks, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240501-mass-fish-die-off-in-vietnam-as-heatwave-roasts-southeast-asia">AFP reported</a>. Residents blamed the weather and the reservoir's management.</p><p>Business Insider could not locate the owner of the reservoir for comment.</p><div type="image" title="Vietnamese fisherman collects dead fish in a reservoir." height="682" width="1024" msid="109880703" hostid="261" sizebytes="114460"></div><p>Irrigation measures, including those put in after a disastrous 2020 drought, have helped keep much of the Mekong Delta wet despite the widespread dryness, <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/MekongMonitor/status/1785331362112663872">reported</a> the Mekong Dam Monitor last week. The group, run by a US think tank, highlighted that two southern provinces still had "extreme dryness" — and those areas are harvesting crops this month, the group said.</p><p>Water levels are below average in 13 of the country's 24 monitoring stations, largely in the far north and far south, according to the intergovernmental agency <a target="_blank" href="https://www.mrcmekong.org/">Mekong River Commission</a>.</p><p>While Vietnam has built significant infrastructure to combat increasingly brutal droughts, farmers told <a target="_blank" href="https://e.vnexpress.net/photo/environment/central-highlands-suffering-from-extreme-drought-4734165.html">local media</a> last month they're still struggling. Some of the reservoirs they need to tap are contaminated with chemicals like alum, while other irrigation options are costly. A farmer in a central province said two acres of his rice burned from the drought.</p><p>"Every year we harvest about 18 bags of rice, each bag is 60 kilograms, but this year there is a lack of water, so maybe we'll only get a few bags," Ksor Phung told VnExpress.</p><p>At least three provinces declared states of emergency last month, asking for government help to address water shortages and salinity problems.</p><p>The drought in Vietnam underscores how the climate crisis is hitting agriculture worldwide. Lower and less predictable crop yields can translate to lower productivity, higher inflation, and worse nutrition, among other issues.</p>

Hundreds of thousands of fish died in a single reservoir in Vietnam, another sign of how climate change is strangling the economy

A day ahead of the final Budget presentation, India released the <keyword id="20613906" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="economic-survey" source="keywords">Economic Survey</keyword> 2023-2024, outlining a plethora of optimistic — and some bittersweet — indicators of the health of the nation’s economy. When you consider the climate-related aspects of the report, there’s a ton of good news: we have achieved massive strides in clean power generation, while cutting out a ton of dirty emissions from our products.<br /><br />However, scroll down to the bottom of the report, and you find a scathing criticism of the “western” approach to climate change. Here's a closer look at why, and what clues do such narratives hold about India's <keyword id="22513472" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="environmental-strategy" source="keywords">environmental strategy</keyword> in coming years.<br /><h2>Problems with the “Western way”</h2>The major criticism, as per the survey, is that the Western approach to climate change is far too alarmist. They argue that this “one-size-fits-all” attitude often fails to account for the diverse needs of countries like India. To that end, it also points out that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) promotes "accelerated and equitable mitigation pathways" that don't always align with the developmental priorities of <keyword id="20353838" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="developing-nations" source="keywords">developing nations</keyword>.<br /><br />Additionally, the report notes that Western solutions often prioritise market-based strategies to sustain high consumption levels rather than addressing the root issue of overconsumption. The survey emphasises that <keyword id="20224417" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="sustainable-living" source="keywords">sustainable living</keyword> is deeply ingrained in <keyword id="19983840" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indian-culture" source="keywords">Indian culture</keyword>, which contrasts sharply with the consumption-driven lifestyle prevalent in the West. This focus on high consumption misses the mark, as it doesn't consider the environmental impact of such lifestyles.<br /><br />And for the most part, this bit is true; Indian history is enriched with traditions that emphasise the conservation of nature. As <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2017/3828609">per estimates</a>, religious practices have preserved an estimated 1.5 lakh sacred groves across India, and natural conservation efforts can be traced back to the time of Ashoka.<br />    <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111925936" title="Economic Survey 2023-24: Where does India stand on the employment, and what&amp;#39;s next?" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>Therefore, it may not be entirely inaccurate to say that in India, sustainability isn't a new concept; it's a way of life. Traditional Indian practices like using reusable materials, upcycling, and embracing minimalism have always promoted sustainability. The survey highlights that these practices are now threatened by Western capitalist ideals that equate consumption with progress. By returning to these roots, India can offer a model of sustainability that's both practical and culturally relevant.<br /><h2>Fixation on technical solutions</h2>The Economic Survey also critiques the Western obsession with high-tech solutions, such as solar-powered buildings and electric vehicles. These solutions require substantial financial and infrastructural resources that many developing countries simply don't have. Moreover, they often overlook the broader environmental impact and lifecycle costs associated with urban sprawl and high-density living. Instead, the survey suggests that simpler, more holistic solutions might be more effective and sustainable.<br />    <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111774972" title="Economic Survey shows India&amp;#39;s energy needs to grow 2.5x, healthy growth in formal employment" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>However, this does not mean that India refuses to embrace greener tech. Not only has the country launched various initiatives to promote energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, it also aims to to generate 40% of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. As per the report, India is the only G20 country on track to meet the 2°C warming commitment under the Paris Agreement, with significant investments in <keyword id="19895602" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="renewable-energy" source="keywords">renewable energy</keyword>, particularly solar power.<br /><h2><keyword id="20269618" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mission-LiFE" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Mission LiFE" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Mission LiFE">Mission LiFE</keyword>: A sustainable initiative</h2>In order to help reinforce and rejuvenate the Indian way, the survey highlights Prime Minister Modi's Lifestyle for Environment initiative, or Mission LiFE. This initiative underscores individual responsibility in combating climate change, drawing from ancient Indian philosophy that advocates for a naturally sustainable lifestyle. By focusing on small, individual actions that collectively lead to significant environmental benefits, Mission LiFE contrasts sharply with the Western top-down policy approach. This grassroots strategy could be key to achieving real, lasting change, the report asserts.<br />    <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="111927198" title="On the right track — Economic Survey 2023-24 outlines India’s commendable climate action" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"></div>All in all, the report challenges the dominance of Western policies and offers a pathway that could be more adaptable and relevant for other developing nations facing similar challenges. With its ongoing progress towards climate goals, India is well-placed to lead by example, showcasing a sustainable and culturally attuned approach to environmental stewardship.<br />

Why did the latest Economic Survey of India heavily shun the ‘Western ways’ of climate action?

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Biden and Trump diverge sharply on climate policy as the 2024 election nears.</li><li>Republicans are emphasizing fossil fuels; Democrats push renewable energy.</li></ul><p>President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump couldn't be farther apart when it comes to climate action.</p><p>Trump has said he'd "drill, baby, drill" for fossil fuels that are causing the climate crisis, an issue that isn't mentioned once <a target="_blank" href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform">in the platform adopted</a> by the Republican National Convention this week in Milwaukee. Trump and his pick for vice president, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jd-vance-elon-musk-tesla-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-oil-2024-7">are both climate deniers</a>. By contrast, the Democrats <a target="_blank" href="https://democrats.org/news/dnc-releases-2024-party-platform-draft-outlining-historic-record-and-bold-agenda-for-president-biden-and-vice-president-harris-to-finish-the-job/">unveiled a platform</a> that said it would build on the Biden administration's unprecedented spending on renewable energy and the green workforce while cracking down on the oil-and-gas industry.</p><p>A lot is at stake for the planet this election. America emits more greenhouse gases than any country except China, and leading climate scientists say it needs to slash greenhouse-gas emissions in half this decade if there's any chance of keeping global temperatures below catastrophic levels. Meanwhile, 2024 <a target="_blank" href="https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-june-2024-marks-12th-month-global-temperature-reaching-15degc-above-pre-industrial">is on track to be the hottest year on record</a>, fueling extreme heat that's killed dozens already this year as well as Hurricane Beryl in parts of the Caribbean and Texas.</p><p>But will it matter in November?</p><p>In a <a target="_blank" href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-in-the-american-mind-politics-policy-spring-2024/toc/3/">survey</a> of 1,031 US adults, including 896 registered voters, taken from April 25 to May 4, about 62% of the registered voters said they would prefer a candidate who supports climate action. But when pollsters asked registered voters to indicate how important various issues were to them, global warming ranked 19th out of 28 issues Issues like free and fair elections, abortion, and healthcare were the top priorities for respondents. Plus, most respondents said they hadn't heard about Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.</p><p>The <a target="_blank" href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-in-the-american-mind-politics-policy-spring-2024/toc/3/">survey</a> suggests that while concern about the climate crisis is on the rise in the US, other issues are top of mind for voters this year, Edward Maibach, the director of the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, told Business Insider. The center conducted the survey with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.</p><p>Maibach added that most Democrats, along with moderate and younger Republicans, want the US to do something about the climate crisis. But Republicans are very unlikely to factor the issue into their voting decisions, and the most conservative wing of the GOP has grown more opposed to renewable energy and electric vehicles over the past few years.</p><p>"Plenty of conservative Republicans in recent years have thought that moving the country towards a clean-energy future was a good idea for reasons totally unrelated to climate change," Maibach said. "Now they are increasingly moving away from that position, in large part because of what the elites and media pundits in their party are telling them."</p><p>The findings are similar to those of the Pew Research Center. A 2023 survey indicated that Republicans <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/06/28/what-americans-think-about-an-energy-transition-from-fossil-fuels-to-renewables/">prioritized developing fossil fuels</a> more than they did renewable sources like wind and solar. That's a change from 2020, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/06/28/climate-change-appendix/">when a majority of Republicans in a Pew poll</a> said renewable energy should be prioritized over oil, gas, and coal.</p><p>There was one caveat: A majority of Republicans ages 18 to 29 in the 2023 survey said the country should focus on renewables. The findings are based on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2023/06/28/climate-change-methodology/">Pew's annual surveys</a> of a nationally representative sample of more than 10,000 US adults.</p><p>Meanwhile, Americans are increasingly unlikely to say they would buy an electric vehicle. Pew, in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/06/27/about-3-in-10-americans-would-seriously-consider-buying-an-electric-vehicle/">a separate survey from May of more than 8,600 adults</a>, found that 29% said they would consider purchasing an EV — down 9 percentage points over the past year. The share of Americans who said EVs are better for the environment than gas vehicles also dropped by 20 percentage points from 2021, largely due to Republicans.</p><h2 id="e1a3476e-1597-4af9-83b2-ab1cb1f05539">The majority of Americans support climate action</h2><p>Maibach said the shift among Republicans shouldn't distract from the fact that the majority of Americans support many of Biden's climate policies. These include implementing tax breaks for people who buy solar panels and energy-efficient vehicles and appliances; providing funding for transitioning the economy away from fossil fuels by 2050; cracking down on methane emissions from the oil-and-gas industry; and paying farmers to adopt practices that store more carbon in the soil.</p><p>Trump and GOP leaders, on the other hand, have said they would roll back many of those policies. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's national press secretary, argued that America was "caving to the radical demands of environmental extremists at home while begging" its adversaries to produce oil for us abroad, "creating the worst inflation crisis in generations."</p><p>While Biden has enacted the most sweeping climate policies in US history, the country has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-top-natural-gas-exporter-amid-europe-energy-crisis-security-2022-5">simultaneously become the world's largest exporter of natural gas</a>, and crude-oil production <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/us-oil-crude-production-record-opec-cuts-russia-saudi-arabia-2024-3">has set records</a> for six years in a row. American oil-and-gas companies <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/exxon-shell-big-oil-221-billion-profit-record-biden-outrageous-2023-2">also earned record profits</a> in 2022 following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which scrambled global energy markets.</p><p>Maibach said it was distressing that conservative leaders and media pundits went negative on renewable energy and EVs, especially because investing in them is key to making America economically competitive with China, which dominates supply chains for green technology like solar panels, batteries, and critical minerals.</p><p>But Alec Tyson, an associate director of research at Pew, told Business Insider that in such a polarized political climate, a candidate's stance on any one issue won't be enough to sway voters anyway.</p><p>"We saw no change in Biden's ratings on climate before and after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, including among Democrats," Tyson said. "What that suggests is in this polarized environment where many folks have strong feelings about either Joe Biden or Donald Trump, it's very hard to change attitudes based on a single policy or issue."</p>

What Americans say they want on climate versus what Biden and Trump are offering 

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mystery-solved-nasa-to-try-perseverance-rover-sample-collection-again-2021-8">NASA</a> astronaut <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-astronauts-megan-mcarthur-bob-behnken-2021-4">Megan McArthur</a> says she's "saddened" to see <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wildfire-fires-ancient-olympia-the-olympic-games-birthplace-2021-8">wildfires</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wildfire-smoke-could-turn-full-buck-moon-blood-red-2021-7">burning</a> across the globe.</li><li><keyword id="73998" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronauts">Astronauts</keyword> on the <keyword id="6382020" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="international-space-station">International Space Station</keyword> can see the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oregon-bootleg-fire-creating-fire-clouds-pyrocumulonimbus-storms-2021-7">extreme weather</a> caused by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-impacts-to-last-millennia-ipcc-report-2021-8">climate change</a>.</li><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/still-time-to-address-climate-change-ipcc-scientists-report-2021-8">new UN report</a> on <keyword id="6361617" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change">climate change</keyword> is "a warning for the entire global community," McArthur said.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronauts-held-first-space-olympics-on-space-station-2021-8">Astronauts</a> have a better view of Earth than anybody, but lately it's a discouraging one.</p><p>"We've been very saddened to see fires over huge sections of the Earth, not just the United States," <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> astronaut <keyword id="1270813" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Megan-McArthur">Megan McArthur</keyword> told Insider on a recent call from the space station.</p><p><keyword id="394841" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="wildfires">Wildfires</keyword> are raging across the US, Canada, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Algeria, and Siberia. McArthur's crewmate, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, has posted photos of those blazes from above on Twitter.</p><p>Wildfires are one of the most visible hallmarks of the climate crisis. This summer, they've come alongside historic heat waves and the western US's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/western-us-extreme-heat-drought-leads-to-wildfires-power-failures-2021-6">worst drought</a> in the 20-year history of the US Drought Monitor.</p><p>A new report from the UN's <keyword id="60781" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Intergovernmental-Panel-on-Climate-Change">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</keyword> (<keyword id="6941656" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="IPCC">IPCC</keyword>) warns that "fire weather" will probably increase by 2050 in North America, Central America, parts of South America, the Mediterranean, southern Africa, north Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. That means more days where conditions are warm, dry, and windy enough to trigger and sustain wildfires.</p><p>The amount of fuel available to burn in those places - dry vegetation - is also likely to increase as rising temperatures cause the air to absorb more moisture and bring about more droughts.</p><p>The IPCC report, released Monday, is the first part of the group's sixth assessment, which recruits hundreds of experts to analyze years of scientific research on climate change. Those experts determined that global temperatures will almost certainly rise <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-ipcc-report-temperature-rise-20-years-15-degrees-2021-8">at least 1.5 degrees Celsius</a> above the preindustrial average by 2040.</p><p>That may sound small, but it brings about huge changes across the planet, including further melting of glaciers and polar ice caps. This contributes to sea-level rise, and water expands as it heats up, so it is virtually certain that oceans will continue rising through the end of this century. In the best case scenario, the IPCC authors said, oceans will rise by nearly a foot over the next 80 years.</p><p>But <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/still-time-to-address-climate-change-ipcc-scientists-report-2021-8">there is still time to prevent 2 degrees Celsius of warming</a> and the even more catastrophic changes that would bring, the report said.</p><p>"Over many years, scientists around the world have been sounding this alarm bell," McArthur said. "This is a warning for the entire global community. It's going to take the entire global community to face this and to work through these challenges."</p><h2>Astronauts can see the climate crisis unfolding across the planet</h2><div type="image" title="hurricane laura ISS" height="2730" width="3641" msid="85328262" hostid="261"></div><p>Astronauts can see other signs of the changing climate, too: "Big tropical storms - those are always coming, and potentially the flooding that comes after them," McArthur said. "We can see all of those effects from up here."</p><p>Future astronauts will probably observe even more of that. The IPCC report found that combinations of extreme events like heavy rainfall and hurricane-caused storm surge, paired with rising seas, will continue to make flooding more likely in coming decades.</p><p>Other <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/satellite-images-show-california-mega-drought-drying-up-lakes-forest-2021-7">satellites can also see signs of drought</a>, like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/take-a-look-at-lakes-that-dried-up-california-drought-2021-6">dried-up reservoirs</a> across California.</p><p>"The other thing that we can see, of course, is the very thin lens of atmosphere," McArthur said. "That is what protects our Earth and everything on it. And we see how fragile that is, and we know how important it is."</p><div type="image" title="thin atmosphere glowing orange against space stars above nighttime earth city lights" height="1188" width="1584" msid="85328263" hostid="261"></div><p>The burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil is drastically changing that thin atmosphere by filling it with heat-trapping gas.</p><p>In 2019, the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere was higher than at any time in at least 2 million years, according to the IPCC report. Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide - more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide - were higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.</p><div type="image" title="smoke plumes dixie fire as seen from space" height="2784" width="3712" msid="85328267" hostid="261"></div><p>As those gases fill the atmosphere, they prevent more and more heat from the sun from bouncing back into space. That's what's causing global temperatures to rise and bringing about the extreme weather that astronauts are watching in horror.</p><p>"That is the place that we need to be able to live. So it's important that we take ownership of whatever we can do to help maintain it," NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei told Insider.</p>

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