Climate scientists brief Secretary Kerry as they cruise the waters off Ilulissat, Greenland. | Credit: U.S. Department of State
Kerry Visits Arctic, Urges Climate Action; Norway Commits to Be Carbon Neutral by 2030
Reuters (6/18) reported on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip to the Arctic, saying the Secretary seemed awed by the pace of glacial melting and urged countries to push forward with the Paris climate agreement.
The Guardian (6/15) said Norway’s parliament approved an accelerated plan to become climate neutral by 2030 – two decades earlier than planned – by curbing its own emissions and using carbon offsets.
The Guardian (6/17) also reported that the year 2016 has featured an unprecedented string of broken climate records, including global temperature highs, vanishing Arctic sea ice, droughts, coral bleaching and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
The Washington Post (6/21) said a White House report on renewable energy stated that new technologies, such as batteries for large-scale energy storage, can ameliorate the problem of wind and solar power variability and lead to higher levels of renewable energy usage.
In a White House factsheet (6/16), the administration announced several new executive actions and 33 state and private sector commitments to accelerate the grid integration and storage of renewable energy.
Reuters (6/17) reported on new figures showing that only a fraction of climate change funding is going to off-grid energy systems – often the fastest way to get power to the world’s poor.
