"The Canadian government has invoked a decades-old treaty with the United States in its latest bid to save a pipeline that critics warn could be environmentally catastrophic if it were to fail."
"The United Nations event, known as COP26, will be one of the largest international gatherings during the Covid-19 pandemic. Challenges abound."
"Carbon offsets are allowing the world's biggest polluters to forge ahead with business plans that are threatening global climate goals, the head of Greenpeace International said in an interview."
"The Justice Department’s inspector general is investigating former President Trump’s decision to open a probe of U.S. automakers that bucked his vehicle emission standards in favor of California’s stricter ones, a lawmaker said today."
"The White House Council on Environmental Quality has proposed reversing a number of Trump-era changes to the nation’s bedrock environmental permitting law."
"Analysis of the total carbon dioxide emissions of countries since 1850 has revealed the nations with the greatest historical responsibility for the climate emergency. But six of the top 10 have yet to make ambitious new pledges to cut their emissions before the crucial UN Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November."
"Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right bloc sought to win over the environmentalist Greens for a possible coalition Tuesday as the parties that hope for a share of power in Germany wrapped up their first talks on forming a new government."
"In a few weeks, an estimated 20,000 ministers, activists and executives from nearly every country in the world are set to descend on Glasgow to hammer out how to make progress on climate change."
"The governors of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin are joining forces to build a new network for charging electric vehicles. The bipartisan plan aims to improve the region's economy while also reducing toxic emissions from cars and trucks."
It sometimes feels like journalists lurch from one catastrophe (or hurricane, flood, wildfire, heat wave) to the next. But that can mean missing the bigger story: Disasters, increasingly linked to climate extremes, are often interlocking events, in which one system failure causes the next and the next. The latest Backgrounder explores three case studies, and how news media can focus attention on steps toward resilience.
