Environment & Climate Change

With the rapid growth of electric vehicles in China, their benefits should be scientifically identified to support the industry development. Although the life cycle benefits of electric vehicles have been analyzed worldwide, the recycling phase has not been fully studied yet, especially in China. Therefore, this study focuses on the economic and environmental benefits of electric vehicle recycling in China. Based on the technology adopted by leading enterprises, the gross income and reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are calculated to reveal the benefits.

Joel Clement explains the long-standing practice of “compensatory mitigation” and why it has the support of Western-state governors.

Efforts to combat climate change should be pragmatic above all else.

New Haven, Connecticut is a city of about130,000 people—a typical American city in terms of size and challenges. One of the major and growing challenges facing New Haven and other cities is flooding. Increasingly extreme rainstorms and rising sea levels, both caused by climate change, are taxing local drainage systems and destroying vulnerable neighborhoods. An innovative partnership in New Haven is responding by building bioswales, a cost-effective green infrastructure that reduces pollution and urban flooding in a major rainstorm.

As the single largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world and the source of almost 30 percent of the CO2 released into our atmosphere, China faces an enormous challenge in reaching its goal of zero or negative emissions—known as deep decarbonization.

Henry Lee, Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP), and Dan Schrag, Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, head a team of researchers from the U.S. and China who have been examining China’s work in achieving deep decarbonization in the People’s Republic. The team plans to publish its findings in a book to be released in 2019. 

In an interview, John Holdren tells Eos that strong measures still could help avoid the most catastrophic damages from climate change.

In the United States, politicians who refuse to acknowledge the public health consequences of air pollution and drought will soon feel the wrath of voters at the polls.

Robert Stavins describes the progress made on curbing greenhouse-gas emissions at the recent climate conference in Katowice, Poland.

This paper offers a socio-hydrological assessment of water security that compares canal irrigation entitlements with water deliveries using a conjoint analysis of system reliability and equity.