The U.S. is cutting carbon emissions despite Trump policy

Sep 12, 2018
A coalition of elected officials and business leaders sees progress toward Paris climate agreement targets.
Emissions spew out of a large stack at the coal-fired Morgantown Generating Station in 2014 in Newburg, Maryland.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

U.S. businesses worried over Chinese policy initiative

Apr 16, 2018
"Made in China 2025" aims to make China the technology leader in several sectors.
Security guards walk past the Chinese national flag at the Military Museum of Chinese People's Revolution on March 1, 2008 in Beijing, China. 
China Photos/Getty Images

Top German court gives cities a green light for diesel restrictions

Feb 27, 2018
Germany’s top administrative court today ruled that cities can now ban older diesel vehicles from high-pollution areas. Before Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal a few years ago, more than half of the new cars sold in Europe had diesel engines. They’ve been losing market share ever since, and today’s ruling only hastens the decline of diesel. That’s […]

China is drowning in a sea of cardboard — so is the U.S.

Online shopping comes with a lot of packaging, and that packaging is becoming a problem.
Chinese laborers load cardboard onto a truck to be recycled in the Dong Xiao Kou village in Beijing in 2014.
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The EPA adds sites to its Superfund list, but no budget increase for oversight

Dec 11, 2017
The Environmental Protection Agency has announced 21 new places to be deemed Superfund sites, areas with toxic pollution around the country. Being added to the Superfund list means federal officials oversee the cleanup. Yet the White House budget proposal includes a 30 percent cut for the Superfund program.

New leaders want to add their states to carbon trading program

Nov 9, 2017
As the United Nations climate change talks continue in Germany, the U.S. could see an increase in commitments to the cause — from states, not federal programs. The governors-elect of Virginia and New Jersey want to add their states to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The cap-and-trade program includes nine states already, and the addition […]

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What it's like to drive an electric vehicle

Jul 7, 2017
It's green, but the infrastructure's not all there yet.
There are new breakthroughs in car batteries, but it will be a little while before electric car companies take notice.
STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images

Could California’s cap-and-trade system control other pollution, too?

Apr 20, 2017
Even as the White House rolls back national climate change programs, California is moving forward on a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the Golden State still has some of the highest air pollution in the nation from other pollutants its industrial plants spew. A new bill would use California’s cap-and-trade rules to […]

Executive order will discount the cost of carbon pollution

Mar 28, 2017
The White House says it will try to roll back a host of climate initiatives from the Obama administration. These are rules that apply to power plants and coal mines, for instance. But also look out for a sweeping attempt to undercut the government’s way of measuring climate pollution. Right now, federal agencies have to […]