Environment & Health Archives - Inside Climate News

At COP28, the United States Will Stress an End to Fossil Emissions, Not Fuels

By Marianne Lavelle — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 22:37:37 +0000

The Biden administration faces increasing international and domestic political pressure to endorse near-term cuts in coal, oil and natural gas.

By Marianne Lavelle

President Joe Biden will not attend the climate talks that commence this week in Dubai, but the conflict that has come to define his policy on the planetary crisis will be front and center.

“Carbon Cowboys” Chasing Emissions Offsets in the Amazon Keep Forest-Dwelling Communities in the Dark

By Sam Schramski and Cícero Pedrosa Neto — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Indigenous and traditional groups in the forest are rarely consulted about carbon credit projects they see as the latest gold rush on their lands, and question the community and climate benefits the projects promise.

By Sam Schramski and Cícero Pedrosa Neto

“The first time I heard about carbon credits, I didn’t understand what they were about at all,” says Queila Couto, a lawyer, while staring into the Itacuruçá River in the Brazilian state of Pará, “and it was bad.”

A New Law Regulating the Cosmetics Industry Expands the FDA’s Power But Fails to Ban Toxic Chemicals in Beauty Products

By Victoria St. Martin — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 10:00:00 +0000

The Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act empowers the FDA to recall harmful cosmetics. Advocates want to know why manufacturers still don’t have to prove their products are safe before they’re sold to millions of consumers.

By Victoria St. Martin

Dereliction of Beauty: Second in a series on how lax regulation of beauty care products victimizes women of color.

Black Women Face Disproportionate Risks From Largely Unregulated Toxic Substances in Beauty and Personal Care Products

By Victoria St. Martin — Sun, 26 Nov 2023 10:00:00 +0000

The FDA has finally proposed a ban on formaldehyde in hair straighteners, and new regulations on the cosmetics industry take effect next month. But one activist called them “a floor, not a ceiling.”

By Victoria St. Martin

Dereliction of Beauty: First in a series on how lax regulation of beauty care products victimizes women of color.

As New York Officials Push Clean Hydrogen Project, Indigenous Nation Sees a Threat to Its Land

By Nicholas Kusnetz — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 10:00:00 +0000

The Tonawanda Seneca see the industrial development next door as a threat to the woods they depend on for game and medicines, and the failure of the company and permitting agencies to consult them as another assault on their treaty rights.

By Nicholas Kusnetz

When Chief Roger Hill speaks about the clean energy project going up along the border of the Tonawanda Indian Reservation, he turns quickly to the past. Hill’s Seneca ancestors once controlled a large territory across the rolling, wooded hills in what is now western New York, but most of their lands were taken through a series of treaties that shrank the reservation to its current size.

Corruption and Rights Abuses Are Flourishing in Lithium Mining Across Africa, a New Report Finds

By Katie Surma — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 10:00:00 +0000

The global clean energy transition could be a game changer for Africa, but exploitation of miners continues as many foreign mining companies ignore local opposition.

By Katie Surma

On a Sunday afternoon in March 2023, Darlington Vito was shot in the head outside an industrial lithium mine in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe.

Report Charts Climate Change’s Growing Impact in the US, While Stressing Benefits of Action

By Marianne Lavelle, Katie Surma, Kiley Price, Nicholas Kusnetz — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 10:15:00 +0000

The National Climate Assessment sees sea level rise of 11 inches by 2050 and says the transition to wind and solar energy must go two to 10 times faster to meet U.S. goals for reducing greenhouse gases.

By Marianne Lavelle, Katie Surma, Kiley Price, Nicholas Kusnetz

WASHINGTON—In a sprawling, multimedia report that stresses it is not too late to act, the Biden administration on Tuesday delivered a sobering catalog of climate change’s impacts in every corner of the United States—from battered coasts to parched cornfields to blazing forests. It measures the human toll, including at least 700 people dying of heat-related illness each year, in a nation warming 60 percent more quickly than the world as a whole.

Environmental Justice a Key Theme Throughout Biden’s National Climate Assessment

By Kristoffer Tigue, Georgina Gustin, Liza Gross, Victoria St. Martin — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 10:00:00 +0000

The report finds that societal factors, including historic racism, have shaped the climate reality for many communities of color. It also details the impacts of climate change on Indigenous people, public health and agriculture.

By Kristoffer Tigue, Georgina Gustin, Liza Gross, Victoria St. Martin

WASHINGTON—Whether it’s the likelihood of living in a flood zone, lacking access to parks or having fewer resources to recover from a destructive storm, the consequences of climate change are not experienced equally in the United States. That’s a key message from some of the nation’s leading climate scientists, public health experts and economists in a landmark federal report released Tuesday.

This Week in Nairobi, Nations Gather for a Third Round of Talks on an International Plastics Treaty, Focusing on Its Scope and Ambition

By James Bruggers — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Led by the EU, some nations are pushing for binding provisions to restrain and reduce the consumption and production of plastics. The U.S. has staked out a middle ground, calling for provisions to reduce plastic pollution while embracing industry’s call for advanced plastics recycling.

By James Bruggers

Delegates from more than 175 countries are gathered in Nairobi to advance a potential diplomatic solution to a global plastic pollution crisis amid a growing awareness of the effect of plastic on the environment and human health.

Oil or Water? Midland Says Disposal Wells Could Threaten Water Supply

By Martha Pskowski — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 10:00:00 +0000

As oil and gas companies struggle to dispose of their wastewater in the Permian Basin, the city of Midland is challenging applications for disposal wells near one of its drinking water sources.

By Martha Pskowski

Attorneys for the city of Midland, the oil capital of Texas, made an unusual request to regulators this year: Could they please be allowed to challenge drilling permits?