It is crucial to keep up the momentum on climate policy and continue to apply pressure on our elected leaders to equitably confront climate change.

Written by Moms Clean Air Force

Moms Clean Air Force’s Almeta Cooper, Elizabeth Brandt, Sam Schmitz, and Cynthia Palmer joined environmental justice activists from "Cancer Alley" in front of the White House. The funeral procession signified mourning the many lives lost in Louisiana’s St. James Parish and “Cancer Alley.”

Just transition leader Mandy Rambharos will advance work on global climate cooperation and carbon markets

As the weather begins to cool down in Louisiana, there is no better time to talk about everyone’s favorite dish: a nice warm bowl of gumbo. Whether your favorite is seafood or chicken and sausage, several steps go into perfecting a gumbo recipe. “Coastal restoration” might not immediately come to mind when you think about a perfect gumbo. But in reality, perfecting the operation of Louisiana’s sediment diversions is a lot like getting a classic gumbo recipe tried, true, and ...

Read The Full Story

The post Getting the Recipe Right: How Adaptive Management Can Help Optimize Diversions appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

As the weather begins to cool down in Louisiana, there is no better time to talk about everyone’s favorite dish: a nice warm bowl of gumbo. Whether your favorite is seafood or chicken and sausage, several steps go into perfecting a gumbo recipe. “Coastal restoration” might not immediately come to mind when you think about a perfect gumbo. But in reality, perfecting the operation of Louisiana’s sediment diversions is a lot like getting a classic gumbo recipe tried, true, and ...

Read The Full Story

The post Getting the Recipe Right: How Adaptive Management Can Help Optimize Diversions appeared first on Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

Natural climate solutions, such as reforestation and wetland restoration, can help slow climate change and increase resilience in the face of climate impacts we can’t avoid.

These approaches have substantial and growing support from bipartisan lawmakers, the private sector and environmental nonprofits. However, big questions remain: Where are these strategies most effective? To what extent can they meaningfully remove and reduce greenhouse gases? How will increased drought, fire and pest outbreaks impact their ability to stave off climate change?

The post New report provides a science roadmap for natural climate solutions first appeared on Growing Returns.

Natural climate solutions, such as reforestation and wetland restoration, can help slow climate change and increase resilience in the face of climate impacts we can’t avoid.

These approaches have substantial and growing support from bipartisan lawmakers, the private sector and environmental nonprofits. However, big questions remain: Where are these strategies most effective? To what extent can they meaningfully remove and reduce greenhouse gases? How will increased drought, fire and pest outbreaks impact their ability to stave off climate change?

The post New report provides a science roadmap for natural climate solutions first appeared on Growing Returns.

What’s a nice environmental group like you doing in a place like this?

As we have since 1995, EDF will be at the United Nations climate talks in Egypt next week, pushing governments for stronger action to meet the urgent goals in the Paris Climate Agreement. Before that, we’ll be making our presence felt at another event — one you’ve likely never heard of, in a place environmentalists are rarely seen.

This year we’re mounting our first significant presence at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC), possibly the largest professional gathering of the global oil and gas sector.

Over 150,000 people from across the industry are expected at the four-day event, which is held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of The United Arab Emirates.

While strong policies are always a centerpiece of our work, EDF also has a long history of principled, effective engagement with energy companies of all kinds, identifying and elevating best practices so that they become standard practices.

What makes ADIPEC a new frontier for us is the national oil and gas companies (NOCs) that are heavily represented here.

An essential part of the climate conversation

These are very different from the companies whose names you know. The seven top “supermajors” — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies — are all publicly-traded companies, all headquartered in the United States or Europe. And that’s where most of the talk about climate and the energy transition has been centered.

By contrast, ADIPEC attendees are not the people we meet in Washington or Brussels — or Houston, for that matter. Nearly three-quarters will be coming from Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East.

That’s important, because NOCs from these regions produce fully half of the world’s oil and gas today, and hold 67% of global reserves. Some are known for wealth, but citizens of their governments are often among the most likely to suffer the effects of a warming planet, with the fewest resources to cope. That makes them an essential part of the conversation.

NOCs are rarely subject to the shareholder and public pressure that have been instrumental in driving progress with the publicly traded supermajors. With a few exceptions they have lagged on efforts to address greenhouse pollution or rethinking business models to suit the needs of a decarbonizing marketplace. We think the conversation is long overdue.

Creating new openings to engage in real solutions

Once you push past the lobbyists and public relations gatekeepers, we’ve found time and again that there are people throughout the industry who do, in fact, understand the climate threat as well as anyone. And we expect that will be true at ADIPEC, too.

We don’t expect to turn these companies into climate warriors. Rather, we want to create new openings for them to engage in real solutions by expanding their thinking about crucial opportunities like methane, and potential problems with an emerging hydrogen economy that could make the climate crisis worse if it is not managed carefully.

Case in point: Oil and gas companies worldwide currently waste billions and billions of dollars of methane every year through leaks, flaring and other emissions. That’s gas we’re already taking out of the ground that could be used to meet the immediate energy needs in Europe and elsewhere.

Concerted global action using existing technologies could cut methane pollution in half by 2030, slowing the rate of warming by as much as 30%. The International Energy Agency says the industry could cut its methane emissions 75% using technologies available today — much of that at no net cost.

Together, EDF and our subsidiary MethaneSAT are appearing on almost 20 panels at ADIPEC. We will be having hundreds of conversations in the hallways. At our booth on the tradeshow floor, we will be showing off an early version of the MethaneSAT data product for the first time, giving companies a fresh sense of the revolution in robust and fully transparent emissions data that is coming their way.

In the developing world, oil and gas are seen as a critical path to social and economic improvement for countries struggling with poverty. EDF takes these aspirations seriously. The companies that sovereign governments in these countries have entrusted to with the development of their national energy resources have an important place in an equitable energy transition.

That is why we are excited to be engaging with these stakeholders in this new and unfamiliar place. We hope it’s the start of something big.

Methane: A crucial opportunity in the climate fight Act when it matters most

Every day more than 60 people sign up for news and alerts, to find out when their support helps most. Will you join them? (Read our privacy statement.)

Donate to support this work $35 $50 mmelendez October 31, 2022 - 08:59

What’s a nice environmental group like you doing in a place like this?

As we have since 1995, EDF will be at the United Nations climate talks in Egypt next week, pushing governments for stronger action to meet the urgent goals in the Paris Climate Agreement. Before that, we’ll be making our presence felt at another event — one you’ve likely never heard of, in a place environmentalists are rarely seen.

This year we’re mounting our first significant presence at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC), possibly the largest professional gathering of the global oil and gas sector.

Over 150,000 people from across the industry are expected at the four-day event, which is held under the patronage of Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of The United Arab Emirates.

While strong policies are always a centerpiece of our work, EDF also has a long history of principled, effective engagement with energy companies of all kinds, identifying and elevating best practices so that they become standard practices.

What makes ADIPEC a new frontier for us is the national oil and gas companies (NOCs) that are heavily represented here.

An essential part of the climate conversation

These are very different from the companies whose names you know. The seven top “supermajors” — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies — are all publicly-traded companies, all headquartered in the United States or Europe. And that’s where most of the talk about climate and the energy transition has been centered.

By contrast, ADIPEC attendees are not the people we meet in Washington or Brussels — or Houston, for that matter. Nearly three-quarters will be coming from Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East.

That’s important, because NOCs from these regions produce fully half of the world’s oil and gas today, and hold 67% of global reserves. Some are known for wealth, but citizens of their governments are often among the most likely to suffer the effects of a warming planet, with the fewest resources to cope. That makes them an essential part of the conversation.

NOCs are rarely subject to the shareholder and public pressure that have been instrumental in driving progress with the publicly traded supermajors. With a few exceptions they have lagged on efforts to address greenhouse pollution or rethinking business models to suit the needs of a decarbonizing marketplace. We think the conversation is long overdue.

Creating new openings to engage in real solutions

Once you push past the lobbyists and public relations gatekeepers, we’ve found time and again that there are people throughout the industry who do, in fact, understand the climate threat as well as anyone. And we expect that will be true at ADIPEC, too.

We don’t expect to turn these companies into climate warriors. Rather, we want to create new openings for them to engage in real solutions by expanding their thinking about crucial opportunities like methane, and potential problems with an emerging hydrogen economy that could make the climate crisis worse if it is not managed carefully.

Case in point: Oil and gas companies worldwide currently waste billions and billions of dollars of methane every year through leaks, flaring and other emissions. That’s gas we’re already taking out of the ground that could be used to meet the immediate energy needs in Europe and elsewhere.

Concerted global action using existing technologies could cut methane pollution in half by 2030, slowing the rate of warming by as much as 30%. The International Energy Agency says the industry could cut its methane emissions 75% using technologies available today — much of that at no net cost.

Together, EDF and our subsidiary MethaneSAT are appearing on almost 20 panels at ADIPEC. We will be having hundreds of conversations in the hallways. At our booth on the tradeshow floor, we will be showing off an early version of the MethaneSAT data product for the first time, giving companies a fresh sense of the revolution in robust and fully transparent emissions data that is coming their way.

In the developing world, oil and gas are seen as a critical path to social and economic improvement for countries struggling with poverty. EDF takes these aspirations seriously. The companies that sovereign governments in these countries have entrusted to with the development of their national energy resources have an important place in an equitable energy transition.

That is why we are excited to be engaging with these stakeholders in this new and unfamiliar place. We hope it’s the start of something big.

Methane: A crucial opportunity in the climate fight Act when it matters most

Every day more than 60 people sign up for news and alerts, to find out when their support helps most. Will you join them? (Read our privacy statement.)

Donate to support this work $35 $50 mmelendez October 31, 2022 - 08:59

Written by Elizabeth Bechard

In this year's Lancet Countdown report, the authors pull no punches in naming that our collective addiction to fossil fuels is driving the climate crisis, and that governments and companies are failing to act with the urgency and scale needed to prevent locking in devastating levels of climate warming.

  In the fall of 2021, after much effort by EDF and other stakeholders, Congress included $4.7 billion in funding as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to close as many “orphan” wells as possible, with a focus on leaky wells near communities. Last week, the first of these wells was plugged […]

The post First “orphan” well plugged as federal program gains momentum, more to be done appeared first on Energy Exchange.

  In the fall of 2021, after much effort by EDF and other stakeholders, Congress included $4.7 billion in funding as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to close as many “orphan” wells as possible, with a focus on leaky wells near communities. Last week, the first of these wells was plugged […]

The post First “orphan” well plugged as federal program gains momentum, more to be done appeared first on Energy Exchange.

  In the fall of 2021, after much effort by EDF and other stakeholders, Congress included $4.7 billion in funding as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to close as many “orphan” wells as possible, with a focus on leaky wells near communities. Last week, the first of these wells was plugged […]

Written by Molly Rauch

This week, EPA announced nearly $1 billion in awards to local school districts to transition to clean school buses. This is great news for our kids and our climate!

Statement from Texas House Transportation Chair and EDF Texas