Stories: Climate, Energy & Transport

This morning, Vice President Al Gore challenged the United States to achieve a carbon-free electricity supply within the next 10 years. Here is the statement of WRI President Jonathan Lash on Gore’s challenge:

“Climate change and energy security are not just threats—they are opportunities. Vice President Gore has issued an audacious and timely challenge: imagine our future and our children’s future if we seize the moment. We need to change the debate in this country from what we can’t do to what we can do. America has led every major technological shift in the last 100 years, and we can lead the next one as well. The problem is not technology, it is political will.”

WHAT: Nobody wants to admit that the United States has only made slow progress when it comes to improving on-road fuel efficiency.

A New Climate for the Forest Products Industry

The forest products sector holds an enormous stake in the coming economy defined by resource constraints, climate change policies, and shifting consumer values.

A new study by WRI and other researchers finds that much of the world’s deforestation is isolated in a handful of “hotspots,” not spread out over many nations and many locations.

Mapping Ecosystems and Climate Change in Africa

Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report, uses more than 300 satellite images to tell the story of Africa’s environmental transformation.

How We Move: Sustainable Transport Around the World

When it comes to urban transportation, ingenuity is the key to cleaner, greener, and smarter cities.

Making High Gas Prices Less Painful

Learn more about three long-term, sustainable policy solutions that would help ease the pain of high gas prices.

With Global Warming, Delay is Not An Option

WRI’s Debbie Boger responds to Bjorn Lomborg’s faulty global warming conclusions.

Can Capturing Carbon Become a Reality?

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is both hailed as a “silver bullet” for the coal industry, and reviled as a pipe dream. The reality is that the U.S. needs CCS, and a comprehensive policy framework for rapid development and deployment.

Today a majority of the Senate sent a message to Americans and the rest of the world that they believe the time is now to confront climate change.