These are the top climate stories of 2021 (they're not all bad).
It feels like we are lurching from one disaster to another: as wildfires blaze across part of the country, a hurricane swamps a different area—and all this happens as a pandemic continues to rage. Costs are steadily mounting, making action to stem the release of greenhouse gases ever more urgent. Hopes on that front remained unfulfilled in 2021, but the year did hold some bright spots—including Washington, D.C.’s U-turn on climate policy after President Joe Biden took office in January.
Another busy U.S. hurricane season—on the heels of the record-breaking one in 2020—also brought flooding to parts of the country. Hurricane Ida slammed into the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 storm in August , after rapidly intensifying. It caused destruction across the state, particularly in low-income communities. Rain from Ida’s remnants went on to trigger deadly floods in parts of the Northeast, including New York City.
The authors also warn that countries’ current commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will still allow global temperature to rise beyond the two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the target limit agreed to under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. On the global stage, Biden held an international summit on Earth Day , pledging the U.S. would cut its carbon emissions in half by 2030. The president subsequently joined with European Union leaders in promising to cut emissions of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.
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