Each year, the UK government publishes detailed data about the country’s energy consumption and emissions. It reveals an intriguing story: The country now consumes less overall energy tha...
After decades of work, scientists have finally agreed on a (relatively) simple answer to the climate crisis: Achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions as soon as economically possible. Th...
The United Arab Emirates likes breaking world records. Flush with oil money and blessed with plenty of open land, the country has the world’s tallest building, largest mall, largest desal...
“China isn’t building gigafactories,” says Patrick Hurley, chief technology officer of A123, a lithium-ion battery company. “It is building gigacities.”
Thanks to the modern electric grid, you have access to electricity whenever you want. But the grid only works when electricity is generated in the same amounts as it is consumed. That sai...
In 2017, the world deployed an ever-expanding amount of solar and wind power, setting a new record for renewable-power capacity added to the grid. In fact, the money spent on renewable in...
John Tyndall, an Irish physicist, is usually recognized as the first person to prove the greenhouse-gas effect. But some of the credit should have gone to Eunice Foote, an American scient...
The EU now gets more than 30% of its electricity from renewable sources, up from 12% in 2000. At the current rate of growth, the European bloc can increase the proportion of renewables in...
在2015年的巴黎气候大会上，习近平总书记宣布，中国将在两年内建立碳市场。2017年12月19日，中国兑现了她的承诺——全球最大的碳市场即将建成。如果运行正常，世界上最大的温室气体排放国——中国，将实现巴黎协定中定下的目标，阻止毁灭性气候变化事件的发生。
In the lead up to the 2015 Paris climate summit, premier Xi Jinping announced China would launch a carbon market in two years. Today (Dec. 19), Xi delivered on his promise, opening up wha...
There’s a colorless, odorless, and largely benign gas that humanity just can’t get enough of. We produce 40 trillion kg of carbon dioxide each year, and we’re on track to cross a crucial ...
Between 2014 and 2016, global carbon emissions stayed flat. That may have been false hope. New projections suggest that emissions in 2017 are likely to increase, thwarting the drive towar...
One of the biggest criticisms of the renewable-energy industry is that it has been propped up by government subsidies. There is no doubt that without government help, it would have been m...
We’ve found a new solar system, and it threatens to put our own to shame. The star Trappist-1, a mere 39 light years away, has been found to host seven Earth-sized, rocky planets.
Some of the greatest scientific discoveries have been accidental. To that list, Israeli scientists have added one more. They’ve discovered for the first time an instance of viruses leavin...
