Climate Change News Digest for 3/25/22

This digest provides a selection of recent news articles relating to climate change and other environmental issues. Click on the title to read the full article from its original source.

SEC Proposes Landmark Rule Requiring Companies to Tell Investors of Risks Posed by Climate Change

By Georgina Gustin (Inside Climate News)

Public companies will have to report their greenhouse gas emissions and inform investors about the dangers that climate change poses to their businesses under a highly anticipated proposal unveiled Monday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Publicly traded companies would also have to report greenhouse gas emissions from their business operations and the energy they consume.

Extremes of 40C above normal: what’s causing ‘extraordinary’ heating in polar regions?

By Donna Lu (The Guardian)

Unusually high temperatures in both Antarctica and the Arctic in recent days have shocked researchers, who warn that extremes will become more common as a result of the climate crisis. How unusual are they? What are the consequences?

Could Ukraine war help end west’s reliance on hydrocarbons?

By Fiona Harvey (The Guardian)

The Guardian’s environment correspondent Fiona Harvey examines whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could boost efforts to move away from fossil fuels in western countries. She says: “In an optimistic analysis, if the Ukraine war accelerates the shift to renewable energy in the EU, the UK and the US, it could mark a turning point for the world’s efforts to decarbonise. Campaigners warn the opposite could also be true, and an expanded role for fossil fuels could push the goal of staying within 1.5C of global heating out of reach.”

How the World’s Richest People Are Driving Global Warming

By Eric Roston, Leslie Kaufman and Hayley Warren (Bloomberg Green)

After a generation of poorly distributed gains from globalization, it turns out that personal wealth does more than national wealth to explain the sources of emissions. Climate progress means first curbing the carbon output of the wealthier among us. The richest 1% (the more than 60 million people earning $109,000 a year) are by far the fastest-growing source of emissions. They live all over the world, with about 37% in the U.S. and more than 4.5% each in Brazil and China.

The world’s forests do more than just store carbon, new research finds

By Nina Lakhani (The Guardian)

The role of forests as carbon sponges is well established. But comprehensive new data suggests that forests deliver climate benefits well beyond just storing carbon, helping to keep air near and far cool and moist due to the way they physically transform energy and water.

About the Digest: Articles included here are selected from several organizations which consolidate climate change related news from many sources around the world. These organizations include Carbon Brief and Inside Climate News. Accessing the full articles from the links provided here may sometimes not be possible due to access restrictions of the originating publications.