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MADRID — Spain’s government is slashing energy taxes as part of a package of measures aimed at driving down household electricity costs, which have surged to record highs in recent months and triggered an outcry. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his government wants to curtail what he called energy companies’ “exceptional benefits” under current fiscal and energy regulations. The goal is to shift fiscal benefits to consumers and also head off a potential sharp increase in natural gas prices, Sánchez told public broadcaster RTVE in an interview late Monday. The government says the hikes in electricity bills are driven by...

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s climate czar said Tuesday the 27-nation bloc should ensure that the most vulnerable people won’t pay the heaviest price of the green transition, and pledged measures guaranteeing equal burden-sharing across society, amid a global surge of energy prices. “The one thing we cannot afford is for the social side to be opposed to the climate side. I see this threat very clearly now that we have a discussion about the price hike in the energy sector,” said Frans Timmermans, the European Commission vice president in charge of climate issues. As the global demand for gas...

Ten million people are "likely to die" due to extreme temperatures if world leaders fail to agree significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, a report has warned. Agricultural output could also drop by 30% by 2050 - even as the amount of food needed by growing populations is predicted to rise by 50%, according to international affairs think tank Chatham House. The report produced for governments ahead of COP26, the UN climate meeting in Glasgow this November, said severe impacts of climate change will be "locked in" from 2040 unless greenhouse gas emissions "drastically" decline before 2030. More...

A group of young people are in the third week of a hunger strike in Berlin, claiming Germany's political parties aren't adequately addressing climate change ahead of this month's general election. The protestors - aged from 18 to 27 - have vowed to continue their hunger strike until the three leading candidates vying to replace Angela Merkel agree to meet them. There's a subdued atmosphere among the little tents and hand-painted banners close to the German Chancellery in Berlin. The six young people who've been on hunger strike for more than a fortnight say they're feeling weak. At 27, Jacob...

This was weird. Joe Biden departed Idaho and traveled to California on Monday as part of his tour to the western part of the US to survey wildfire damage. Angry Joe Biden screamed about climate change during a visit to California’s Office of Emergency Services. “We’ve spent over $97 billion because of climate change, and we’re sitting with our thumb under our ear — except here, you’ve been fighting like hell!” Biden awkwardly shouted.

Winter is one of those things that most people have a strong reaction to—either they totally adore it or completely despise it. But some folks, like Ree Drummond, have found themselves on both ends of the seasonal spectrum over the years. "When I was a little girl, winter was my favorite season," Ree says. "I was all about sledding, snowball fights, and snow days." If you're still holding on to some warm and fuzzy feelings about winter, this could be the year that finally changes your mind, too. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, the upcoming season ain't going to...

Colin Moulder-McComb might seem an unlikely climate change refugee. The middle-aged video game developer is a middle-class Midwesterner, not an impoverished resident of a small island nation threatened by sea-level rise. But the resident of Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., an affluent, inner-ring suburb of Detroit where he lives with his wife and two kids, says global warming is destroying his family’s quality of life. In 2016, heavy rains caused their basement to fill with 36 inches of water. “We thought it was a one-and-done, so we refurnished the basement,” he recalled. After all, they had been living in southeast Michigan...

If Australia's allies were worried that the country might cause them problems at upcoming climate talks in Glasgow, the events of the past week should leave little doubt in their minds. It will. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday all but confirmed a report that his country had pressured the UK into dropping key climate commitments from their bilateral trade agreement, showing no sign of regret or embarrassment at being caught out. And on Monday last week, when a senior UN official warned Australia's climate inaction would eventually "wreak havoc" on its economy, Australia's resources minister, Keith Pitt, dismissed...

Oil-rich Norway goes to the polls on Monday in elections dominated by climate change that the ruling Conservative party is widely expected to lose to a Labour-led coalition. Labour Party leader Jonas Gahr Store is hoping to wrest power from centre-right Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who has headed the wealthy Scandinavian nation for eight years. The campaign has largely focused on the future of the oil industry in Norway, western Europe's biggest producer. Norway owes its riches to black gold, enabling it to amass the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund. The country has embraced environmentally-friendly policies to tackle climate change...

<p>The world’s biggest direct air capture (DAC) plant is set to come online in Iceland on Wednesday. The moment is an important one in developing new technologies to help suck carbon dioxide out of the air—but raises a whole host of questions on the future of how we’re going to put those technologies to use.</p>

2021’s mild summer has another victim: the humble potato chip. As if the 2021 winter couldn’t get any worse, it’s now hitting us in the chip pocket. Because of 2021’s constant rainfall and general poor weather, Switzerland’s potato harvest is disappointing. When combined with a 30 percent increase in demand due to people sitting at home eating chips rather than going to restaurants, a chip shortage looms in Switzerland. Chips manufacturers do not have enough potatoes — and will need to import at least 20,000 tonnes from abroad. […] “Climate change can generally endanger the availability of agricultural raw materials,”...

Less than 10 years remain before the oft-claimed "tipping point" for the planet, but sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is the highest it's been in nine years, increasing more than 30% from last year, while the Antarctic's level is well above normal. That's according to the Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility's High Latitude Processing Center, pointed out climate-change skeptic Tony Heller. https://realclimatescience.com/2021/08/20-increase-in-arctic-sea-ice-volume/

The world's largest plant that sucks carbon dioxide directly from the air and deposits it underground is due to start operating on Wednesday, the company behind the nascent green technology said. Swiss start-up Climeworks AG, which specialises in capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air, has partnered with Icelandic carbon storage firm Carbfix to develop a plant that sucks out up to 4,000 tons of CO2 per year. That's the equivalent of the annual emissions from about 790 cars. Last year, global CO2-emissions totalled 31.5 billion tonnes, according to the International Energy Agency. Direct air capture is one of the...

The EU Copernicus Climate Change Service announced Tuesday that Europe witnessed its hottest summer on record this year. The record-breaking summer heat comes amid growing warnings from climate scientists that time is running out to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Copernicus found the average temperature from June to August this year was close to 1 degree Celsius above the 1991-2020 average. The service said this summer was the warmest in its dataset, which goes back to 1950. …

Solar energy has the potential to supply up to 40% of the nation’s electricity within 15 years — a 10-fold increase over current solar output, but one that would require massive changes in U.S. policy and billions of dollars in federal investment to modernize the nation’s electric grid, a new federal report says. The report by the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy says the United States would need to quadruple its annual solar capacity — and continue to increase it year by year — as it shifts to a renewable-dominant grid in order to address the...

Researchers who estimate how much of the world’s coal, oil and natural gas reserves should be left unburned to slow the increase in climate-changing gases in the atmosphere say even more of these fossil fuels should be left in the ground.The researchers, from University College London, say earlier estimates, published in 2015, had to be updated.They now calculate that nearly 60% of the world’s oil and gas reserves and 90% of the coal reserves need to stay in the ground by 2050 to meet climate goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.Those limits would give the world a 50-50 chance of...

People with disabilities can be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change — so why shouldn't they be at the forefront of climate activism? When Cecile Lecomte joined the anti-nuclear movement nearly two decades ago, she was a national climbing champion and quickly began to apply her sporting skills to environmental activism with treetop protests. But for the last three years, scaling trees has been a very different endeavor. Lecomte lives with rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic inflammation of the joints. It's a painful, progressive disease with acute flare-ups. "This, of course, makes me see the world a little differently,"...

When you hear the word "shapeshifting" you probably think of a sci-fi or horror film, and not the climate. But that's what scientists say is happening to some animals in response to climate change. Warm-blooded species are evolving to have larger beaks, legs and ears to regulate body temperature as the planet warms up, a new study suggests. The scientists behind the study warn the physiological changes do not mean animals are coping with climate change. "A lot of the time when climate change is discussed, people are asking 'can humans overcome this?' or 'what technology can solve this?'" says...

😬 https://t.co/x4sW6KrQLx— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 7, 2021Biden: “By 2020 [we’re going to] make sure all of our electricity is zero emissions" pic.twitter.com/MkF9MmTY2f— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 7, 2021

....Pointing accusingly at climate change, President Joe Biden toured deadly flood damage in New Jersey and New York City Tuesday and said he was thinking about the all families who suffered “profound” losses.... Biden, like many, is arguing with increasing forcefulness that the threats from wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding and other extreme weather must be dealt with in ways that will mitigate the ever-worsening impacts of climate change. “We can’t turn it back very much, but we can prevent it from getting worse," he said, adding that scientists have been warning for decades this day would come and merits urgent...