Biden’s Climate Plan Blocked by 1 Senator


The most powerful piece of President Biden’s climate agenda – his program to rapidly replace the nation’s coal and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear power – Removed from pending budget bill in CongressAfter Democratic Senator Joe Manchin III from coal-rich West Virginia told the White House that he was strongly opposed to the program.

Mr. Manchin’s vote is crucial to the adoption of the broader budget bill that Democrats are trying to pass with an extremely thin majority in both houses of Congress.

As a result of their demands, White House and Congress employees are no longer rewrite legislation without this climate provisionand they are trying to put together a mix of other policies that could also reduce emissions.

But that move comes less than two weeks before President Biden leaves for a major climate change conference in Glasgow. It is an ambitious target to reduce emissions by 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

Without a clean electricity program, this goal will be extremely difficult to achieve – although not completely impossible according to experts. In Glasgow, Mr Biden is expected to point to climate provisions still in the package, including about $300 billion in tax credits for clean energy programmes. He is expected to promise to use his executive power to enact tough new federal regulations regarding emissions from cars, coal plants and coal plants. methane spills from oil and gas wells, a powerful planet-warming pollutant. But these policies also come with risks: they can be rejected by a conservative Supreme Court or undone by a future Republican president.

Mr Manchin expressed concern that the clean electricity program could harm the West Virginia economy, but said little about the economic damage from inaction on climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels heat the air, allowing it to hold more moisture, resulting in more frequent and heavy rainfall.

In fact, no state in the contiguous United States, Suffers more flood damage than West Virginia, according to data released last week. Sixty-one percent of West Virginia’s power plants are at risk of flooding, which is the highest nationwide and more than twice the average. West Virginia is also the leader in the share of roads at risk of flooding, with 46 percent.


Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief of The New York Times.

Russia struggles to retain the wealth and power that comes from selling fossil fuels to the world, yet the Kremlin is increasingly recognizing climate change as a man-made crisis, and the country has more to address.

Last week, President Vladimir V. Putin said that Russia will stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2060. It has been a remarkable turnaround for Mr. Putin’s long disregard for climate science and for many in his country to see international efforts to combat global warming as part of global warming. A Western plan to weaken Russia. His announcement came two weeks before world leaders met in Glasgow. important UN climate summit.

On Wednesday, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said: would not go to Scotland for the summit and did not announce the decision. Peskov emphasized that climate change continues to be at the top of Russia’s agenda. “The issues to be discussed in Glasgow right now are one of the priorities of our foreign policy,” he said.

You can read how fires, disasters and external pressure have affected Mr. Putin’s approach to global warming over the years. in my article earlier this week.


The United Nations global warming conference, which will begin in Glasgow on 31 October, is considered a pivotal moment for efforts to address the threat of climate change.

About 20,000 heads of state, diplomats and activists are expected to meet in person to set new targets for reducing emissions from planet-warming coal, oil and gas. The conference is held every year, but this year is critical because scientists say nations must make an urgent and sharp turn from fossil fuels if they are to hope to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change. Here are some important facts you should know before you go.

Join us at The New York Times Climate Center to explore one of the most pressing questions of our time: How do we adapt and succeed on a changing planet? tickets nyclimatehub.com. Climate Fwd: newsletter subscribers can redeem codes CF-50 will save 50 percent on tickets to attend personal events.


The most urgent task for businesses and governments is to bridge the gap between commitment and action on climate change. How can the underlying systemic risk posed by climate change encourage a new kind of solution? Join The Times and the experts on October 21 at 13:30 for the discussion. RSVP online here.


California’s Dixie fire has won many brutal takedowns. It is the largest fire burning in the United States this year and the second largest in California’s recorded history.

Now we can add one more: the “most prolific producer” of fiery storms.

Since it began in July when a small cluster of flames was discovered near downed power lines, intense fire destroyed nearly one million acres of land in northeastern California. The wildfire triggered mass evacuations and destroyed thousands of homes, businesses and other structures. Most of the city of Greenville.

Along the way, it got so strong that it created its own weather systems, producing towering storm clouds, lightning bolts, and at least one swirl of fire, a swirling swirl of flame.

Dixie’s storms weren’t just impressive sights. They created dangerous conditions for firefighters and helped the fire feed its own expansion.

A new special project A team of Times journalists and technologists gives you a close-up view of one of Dixie’s storms in 3D for the first time.

But Dixie was not alone. There has been extreme fire weather in the West this year.

Partly because the record of these events is still relatively short, it is not yet clear whether there is a long-term trend towards more fire-fed storms. But supplies for firestorm activity — drier terrain that supports larger, more intense fires; greater atmospheric instability, which helps storms develop; or both – it’s becoming more common in many parts of the world as human-induced climate change raises temperatures.

quotation: “We create an environment that supports this positive feedback that the fire is making itself worse,” said Neil Lareau, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. “It shows the balance between a fire that could have been an ordinary fire in the past years and a fire that could turn into a megafire.”


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