Following the historic fires in Maui, Hawaii, climate activists and lawmakers ramped up a plea to President Biden to declare a national climate emergency. Such a declaration would allow the president to take more actions aimed at reducing the toll and destruction of climate-driven disasters. “Tomorrow, you could wake up and your whole community could be ashes,” Kaniela Ing, a Maui resident and the national director of the Green New Deal Network, a climate justice organization, told Politico amid the Maui fire disaster. “That’s the urgency we’re operating under, so if there was ever a moment to declare a climate…

On April 4, the Obama Administration released Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. The report was developed over three years by climate change and public health experts from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Agriculture, U.S. Geological Survey, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. According to a White House fact sheet, the assessment: “… reinforces that climate change is a significant threat to the health of the…

On November 11, during his visit to China, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping jointly announced a landmark agreement on climate change that sets ambitious carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction targets for each country. Under the agreement, the United States will double its current pollution reduction, which so far has seen CO2 emissions fall roughly 10 percent below 2005 levels. The new target will be a reduction of 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. China has pledged to reach peak CO2 emissions “around 2030” and to “increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption…