John Kerry, President Biden's special climate envoy, is expected to travel to China next week for meetings with officials aimed at boosting collaboration, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
Why it matters: China is the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter and the U.S. is second-largest.
More tropical storms and hurricanes will take place during an "average" Atlantic hurricane season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Friday in its new guidelines.
Why it matters: NOAA attributed the uptick in hurricanes to better reconnaissance technology and climate change warming the oceans and atmosphere, which may make the storms more common and destructive.
After co-piloting President Obama's efforts to fight climate change as vice president, Joe Biden is having his second go, releasing a broad infrastructure proposal his administration hopes will lead to meaningful legislation and investment into stemming U.S. greenhouse emissions.
The big picture: Though there are no concrete programs yet — Congress will have to formulate those — many in venture capital are hopeful such programs will provide new opportunities for startups tackling climate change.
President Biden's first budget request to Congress contains large increases in climate-change-related spending, on the order of $14 billion above the prior year's levels, according to a White House summary.
Why it matters: It provides details on how the White House hopes to translate its vow to act aggressively on global warming, both at home and abroad, into specific funding levels and agency-by-agency plans.
A volcano on the northern tip of the main island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines that had been dormant for decades erupted Friday after showing signs of activity in late December, the New York Times reports.
Why it matters: La Soufrière's eruption came hours after the Caribbean country evacuated around 20,000 people from near the volcano. There were no immediate reports of casualties, according to AP.
Climate change will lead to a less secure, more crisis-prone world that will strain global institutions, according to a major national security assessment released Thursday.
Driving the news: The “Global Trends Report,” produced every four years by the National Intelligence Council, spotlights climate change among the main structural forces shaping the next two decades.
A successful global effort to slash carbon emissions demands huge investments to finance the unprecedented transformation of energy systems and related infrastructure — and it's a capital shift that's already well underway.
Why it matters: Private investment is already ramping up, and President Biden wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars. Independent experts say the spending that will be needed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 — a goal now embraced by the U.S. and many other countries — would be on the scale of the Industrial Revolution.
