• WATER SECURITYThere’s a Deal to Save the Colorado River — If California Doesn’t Blow It Up

    By Jake Bittle

    After months of tense negotiation, a half-dozen states have reached an agreement to drastically cut their water usage and stabilize the drought-stricken Colorado River — as long as California doesn’t blow up the deal. The plan would cut water use on the river by roughly a quarter, drying up farms and subdivisions across the Southwest.

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGESExxon Disputed Climate Findings for Years. Its Scientists Knew Better.

    By Alice McCarthy

    Projections created internally by ExxonMobil starting in the late 1970s on the impact of fossil fuels on climate change were very accurate, even surpassing those of some academic and governmental scientists. The oil company executives sought to mislead the public about the industry’s role in climate change, contradicting the findings of the company’s own scientists and drawing a growing number of lawsuits by states and cities.

  • COASTAL CHALLENGESHalf of U.S. Coastal Communities Underestimate Sea Level Risks

    Many communities in the United States underestimate how much sea level will rise in their area, according to a new study. In many cases, especially in Southern states, local policymakers rely on one average estimate of sea level rise for their area rather than accounting for more extreme scenarios.

  • COASTAL CHALLENGESSea Change for Hull

    By Louise Walsh

    With a changing climate and rising sea levels putting cities at risk of flooding, it’s crucial for planners to increase their cities’ resilience. A new tool has been developed to help them – and it started with the throwing of a thousand virtual hexagons over Hull.

  • CLIMATE & CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTUREExtreme Storms and Flood Events Cause Damage Worth Billions to Ports – and They Are Most Disruptive to Small Island Developing States

    By Jasper Verschuur

    Shipping ports are crucial for the global economy. But ports, by their nature, are located in coastal areas or on large rivers and are exposed to natural hazards such as storms and floods as a result. Scientists refer to the physical damage caused by natural hazards and the monetary loss associated with port closures and reconstruction as “climate risks”. 1,340 of the world’s largest ports in terms of trade flow are vulnerable to climate risks.

  • EVsEV Transition Will Benefit Most U.S. Vehicle Owners, but Lowest-Income Americans Could Get Left Behind

    More than 90% of vehicle-owning households in the United States would see a reduction in the percentage of income spent on transportation energy—the gasoline or electricity that powers their cars, SUVs and pickups—if they switched to electric vehicles. But more than half of the lowest-income U.S. households (an estimated 8.3 million households) would continue to experience high transportation energy burdens.

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGES2022 Was World’s 6th-Warmest Year on Record

    The planet continued its warming trend in 2022, with last year ranking as the sixth-warmest year on record since 1880. Antarctic sea ice coverage melted to near-record lowsand global ocean heat content (OHC) hit a record high.

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGESCompound Extreme Heat and Drought Will Hit 90% of World Population – Oxford Study

    More than 90% of the world’s population is projected to face increased risks from the compound impacts of extreme heat and drought, potentially widening social inequalities as well as undermining the natural world’s ability to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere - according to a study from Oxford’s School of Geography.

  • CLIMATE & DISASTER INSURANCEInsurance for a Changing Climate

    By Sara Frueh

    Among the many facets of the economy being challenged and changed by warming global temperatures is the insurance industry. Damaging extreme events such as wildfires, hurricanes, and floods are happening with greater frequency and intensity, which leaves insurance companies facing larger financial risks and paying out more in claims — and it also leaves policy holders paying higher prices to insure their homes and businesses.

  • CLIMATE & DISASTER INSURANCECoughing Up Billions of Dollars to Save Florida’s Insurance Market

    By Jake Bittle

    In the three months since Hurricane Ian struck Florida, the state’s fragile property insurance market has been teetering on the brink of collapse. The historic storm caused over $50 billion in damage, and dealt a body blow to an industry that was already struggling to stay standing: Several insurance companies had already collapsed this year even before the hurricane, and major funders are now poised to abandon those that remain.

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGESWhat's the Link Between Global Warming and Extreme Weather?

    By Jan D. Walter and Beatrice Christofaro

    Heavy snowfall und subzero temperatures have wreaked havoc on the United States this holiday season. DW takes a closer look at how this and other types of extreme weather link back to climate change.

  • WATER SECURITYA Water War Is Brewing Over the Dwindling Colorado River

    By Abrahm Lustgarten

    Diminished by climate change and overuse, the river can no longer provide the water states try to take from it.

  • ARGUMENT: CLIMATE & THE ECONOMYWeather Is Again Determining Economic Outcomes

    Europe’s energy crisis has brought the return of weather-based economics. “The crisis is a reminder that, for all their technological sophistication, even rich-world economies must rely on the munificence of nature,” the Economist writes, adding that “in the absence of a transition to green forms of energy the weather would begin to play an even bigger role in economics.”

  • 2022 IN REVIEW: CLIMATE DISASTERS2022’s U.S. Climate Disasters: A Tale of Too Much Rain – and Too Little

    By Shuang-Ye Wu

    The year 2022 will be remembered across the U.S. for its devastating flooding and storms – and also for its extreme heat waves and droughts, including one so severe it briefly shut down traffic on the Mississippi River.

  • DROUGHTSDrought Encouraged Attila’s Huns to Attack the Roman Empire, Tree Rings Suggest

    Hunnic peoples migrated westward across Eurasia, switched between farming and herding, and became violent raiders in response to severe drought in the Danube frontier provinces of the Roman empire.