Author: Camellia Moors ’22
Welcome to a post-midterm edition of Good News Friday! We hope some happy environmental news can help you destress after a hectic week. With the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) coming up later this month in Glasgow, we’re covering some recent big commitments by nations towards fighting climate change.
- U.S. to expand offshore wind: Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced that her agency will “begin to identify, demarcate and hope to eventually lease federal waters… to wind power developers” in the Gulf of Mexico and along both coasts by 2025. This came several months after the Biden administration approved the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm in May. This development is particularly promising due to the massive potential of American offshore wind: according to the Department of Energy, “U.S. offshore wind has a technical resource potential of more than 2,000 GW of capacity, or 7,200 TWh of generation per year… nearly double the nation’s current electricity use.”
2. France invests in decarbonization: French President Emmanuel Macron announced his country will invest approximately $34.6 billion over the next five years into nuclear reactors and other decarbonizing technologies. French law currently aims for a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.
3. Global commitments to reducing methane emissions: In a sign that political leaders around the globe are increasingly targeting the nuances of climate change, 33 countries (including the U.S.) pledged to cut their methane emissions by 30% by 2030. The move constitutes an acknowledgement of a United Nations report on how cutting methane emissions–in addition to carbon emissions–is critical to climate change mitigation efforts.
That’s all for this week! Enjoy your fall break, and as always, we welcome you to check out our previous editions of Good News Friday and to contact us if you have any positive environmental news to share!