Los Angeles officials and partners launched a low-carbon transportation plan that's aimed, among other things, at having electric vehicles account for 80% of vehicles sold and 30% of vehicles on the road in 2028.
Why it matters: The "roadmap" unveiled last week is the latest effort among major cities to move toward more climate-friendly transit options.
COP25, a big United Nations climate summit, opens Monday in Madrid, Spain.
Why it matters: It follows fresh reports in recent days showing how the world is far off track from even beginning the steep emissions cuts needed to meet the Paris agreement's goals.
OPEC and Russia — among other allied producers — will gather in Vienna late this week to decide the future of their supply-limiting deal.
Why it matters: The OPEC+ group is struggling to prop up prices amid growing supplies from the U.S. and elsewhere, as well as rather soft demand and trade conflicts.
Forget renewable energy for a moment. To really fight climate change, the world needs to focus far more on cutting its use of oil, natural gas and coal.
The big picture: Like adding salad to your pasta doesn’t help you lose weight, adding cleaner energy to a world run on fossil fuels won’t cut greenhouse gas emissions. Yet that’s what we’re doing now.
A trans-continental winter storm moving into the Northeast Sunday is tormenting travelers and being blamed for multiple deaths, AP reports.
What's happening: The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for upstate New York and New England, where nearly a foot of snow was expected to fall. Ice accumulations were forecast for parts of Pennsylvania and California was also under a storm warning, with the Bay Area bracing for "a foot of total rainfall between Saturday and Wednesday morning," per the Los Angeles Times.
A combination of population growth and global urbanization is straining a crucial, often overlooked material: sand.
Why it matters: The explosive growth of cities around the world is driving an unprecedented demand for sand. The global rush to fill that demand has triggered a host of consequences, including environmental disasters and organized crime.
Millions of travelers whose Thanksgiving holiday plans were thrown into disarray by two powerful storm systems now have to deal with another coast-to-coast winter storm system on the way home, per the National Weather Service.
The latest: Motorists face heavy snow "from parts of California to the northern Midwest and drenches other areas with rain," AP reports. Over 1,300 flights were delayed and 300 canceled Saturday, according to FlightAware.
Officials warned people who live near a southeast Texas petrochemical plant Saturday "not to touch" debris from fires still burning from a series of explosions on Thanksgiving's eve because of possible asbestos exposure, ABC reports.
What's new: Officials said the fires at the TPC facility in Port Neches had been contained, enabling 50,000 evacuated residents to return home, per CBC News, which notes "plumes of smoke" could still be seen at the plant but the air quality was found to be safe.
