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Latest climate stories

‘There’s no way to sugarcoat it.’ The state’s first climate report card is out, and the grades are mixed.

There is a long, potholed road ahead to get to the state’s near-term targets for the years 2025 and 2030.

Top world leaders talk of climate crisis at UN summit. They say they must act on fossil fuels and war.

International climate talks turned to a power game on Friday as world leaders took turns bemoaning the pain of an overheating planet, but two of the most powerful men — President Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping — were glaringly absent.

Massive clock projection at MIT uses local twist to track climate crisis

During COP28, the MIT Climate Clock Team will project a countdown to the projected date and time that Earth will have warmed 1.5 degrees Celsius — a limit on global temperature increase that the planet is projected to hit in May 2024.

On first day, UN climate conference sets up fund for countries hit by disasters like flood and drought

Nearly all the world’s nations on Thursday finalized the creation of a fund to help compensate countries struggling to cope with loss and damage caused by climate change, seen as a major first-day breakthrough at this year’s UN climate conference.

Pressure builds to eliminate fossil fuel use as oil executive, under fire, takes over climate talks

Pressure to phase out fossil fuels mounted Thursday on the oil company chief who took over fragile international climate negotiations that opened in Dubai amid concerns about what some say are contradictory dual roles.

Featured projects

As Earth’s temperature rises, Massachusetts residents’ sense of urgency on climate change declines

Despite increasingly urgent international warnings, fewer Massachusetts residents see the climate crisis as a very serious concern than they did in 2019, a new poll from MassINC and the Boston Globe shows.
The Lobster Trap: Part 1

The lobster trap

The plentiful catch that brought wealth to fishing families is at risk, as climate change warms the Gulf of Maine. A way of life is on the line, but lobstermen can't, or won't, imagine another.
Climate change on Cape Cod

At the edge of a warming world

The flexed arm of Cape Cod has challenged the power of the sea for centuries, but the contest has escalated. Climate change is altering our vacation paradise in myriad ways, perhaps forever. The message in the sand is clear — if only we will look.

Accountability

Massive clock projection at MIT uses local twist to track climate crisis

During COP28, the MIT Climate Clock Team will project a countdown to the projected date and time that Earth will have warmed 1.5 degrees Celsius — a limit on global temperature increase that the planet is projected to hit in May 2024.

What is COP28 and why is it important?

World leaders are due to gather for annual climate change talks in Dubai this week. On the agenda: the phase-down of fossil fuels, a global goal to help the world adapt to extreme weather events, standards for trading carbon emissions, and a new fund to pay for the damage wreaked by global warming.

As Dubai prepares for COP28, some world leaders signal they won’t attend climate talks

Dubai prepared to host the COP28 climate talks Tuesday as world leaders, including US President Biden, signaled they would not be attending the negotiations that come during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war roiling the wider Middle East.

UN report says world is racing to well past warming limit as carbon emissions rise instead of plunge

The globe is speeding to 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius of global warming since pre-industrial times, set to blow well past the agreed-upon international climate threshold, a United Nations report calculated.

Climate Science

Can trees save the climate? Experts say ‘smart’ forestry is one place to start.
By sustainably cutting trees, the New England Forestry Foundation believes it can make more productive forests.

Climate scientist Saleemul Huq, who emphasized helping poor nations adapt to warming, dies at 71

RISD joins effort started by King Charles to put climate, people at center of business

Politics and Policy

Harris heads to Dubai to tackle delicate tasks of talking climate and Israel-Hamas war

Vice President Kamala Harris will try to demonstrate environmental leadership despite President Biden‘s absence from an annual summit on climate change and she’ll work to nudge forward fragile efforts to shape the next phase of the Israel-Hamas war.

Cities must replace harmful lead pipes within 10 years under new Biden administration plan

It is the strongest overhaul of lead rules in more than three decades and will cost billions of dollars. Pulling it off will require overcoming enormous practical and financial obstacles.
innovation economy

Could climate tech be the next biotech for the Massachusetts economy?

From ship-cleaning robots, to plant-based meat, to paints that better regulate humidity and heat, firms around the state are meeting the challenge of climate change with a range of innovations.
RI COURTS

Shell Oil’s waterfront facility in R.I. is ‘unprepared for climate risks,’ says environmental group

Conservation Law Foundation demands Shell Oil answer questions about “high-level” involvement of the company in the management of its Providence terminal.

An interactive look into climate change

How Massachusetts feels about climate change in 12 graphics

The percentage of Massachusetts residents who believe climate change is as a very serious concern has decreased since 2019. That’s just one finding from a new poll conducted by MassINC Polling Group for the Boston Globe.

Maps: These parts of Boston, Revere, and Quincy are vulnerable to rising sea levels

One measure of a warming planet and human-caused climate change is rising sea levels, which Massachusetts’ coastal towns are increasingly grappling with.

Boston’s ‘heat islands’ turn lower-income neighborhoods from hot to insufferable

In a recent city report, officials noted that temperatures in leafier neighborhoods are often significantly lower than in more densely populated areas.

Into the Red: How the Globe will cover climate change

To report on the most pressing issue of our time, the Globe’s climate team is expanding and rethinking its coverage.

The Globe's climate team wants to hear from you

Share your thoughts and questions about the impact of climate change in your community.

How-Tos

FOOD & DINING NEWSLETTER

Coffee has a serious carbon footprint. One R.I. brand is trying to do things differently.

INNOVATOR Q&A

In Pawtucket, a refill station for beauty and cleaning products helps the planet

No Mow May: What to know about the campaign to help your garden become a pollinator’s paradise

More Climate stories

UN weather agency says 2023 is the hottest year on record, warns of further climate extremes ahead

The UN weather agency says 2023 is all but certain to be the hottest year on record, and warning of worrying trends that suggest increasing floods, forest fires, glacier melt, and heat waves in the future.

In oil-rich Dubai, public health takes the stage at global climate talks

This year, public health experts, including a coalition from Boston, will get a chance to make their case too, that air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels — namely oil, gas, and coal — is also a massive problem that can no longer be overlooked.

US moves to protect wolverines as climate change melts their mountain refuges, threatens extinction

The North American wolverine will receive long-delayed federal protections under a Biden administration proposal released Wednesday in response to scientists warning that climate change will likely melt away the rare species’ snowy mountain refuges.

What is COP28 and why is it important?

Massachusetts will be well-represented at this year’s climate summit in Dubai, and leaders from around the world are at the center of the action.

What is COP28 and why is it important?

World leaders are due to gather for annual climate change talks in Dubai this week. On the agenda: the phase-down of fossil fuels, a global goal to help the world adapt to extreme weather events, standards for trading carbon emissions, and a new fund to pay for the damage wreaked by global warming.

Kamala Harris will attend the COP28 climate summit in Dubai

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to join Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other high-ranking American officials at the two-week event that begins Thursday.

As Dubai prepares for COP28, some world leaders signal they won’t attend climate talks

Dubai prepared to host the COP28 climate talks Tuesday as world leaders, including US President Biden, signaled they would not be attending the negotiations that come during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war roiling the wider Middle East.

Governor Healey unveils plan to protect Mass. coastline from climate change

Governor Maura Healey laid out a new regional approach to collaborate with 78 coastal communities to protect the state's shoreline from the impacts of climate change.

Opinion

IDEAS | JENNIFER NASH

A flock of birds gripped my hand — and pulled me back into the fight against climate change

After devoting my career to the environment, I began to hide from bad news about it. I had to learn to feel all over again.
Leila Philip

Let beavers get busy fighting fires — and climate change

Carroll Muffett

The world can’t recycle its way out of the plastics crisis

Michael E. Mann and Wanjira Mathai

UN IPCC report can lead governments to the climate action door, but they must walk through

Ko Barrett

Humans are responsible for climate change and humans have the capacity to solve it