Environment

Joe Biden and heads of state for many of the top polluting countries — China, India, and Russia, and the UK — were missing at the UN Climate Ambition Summit, where the ticket to participate was a more ambition climate plan. “The rich countries that have historically driven the climate crisis and are continuing to expand fossil fuels were given an opportunity ... to demonstrate their commitment to the 1.5°C global warming limit. Instead, we saw cowardice and a staggering failure of climate leadership,” Romain Ioualalen of Oil Change International said in a statement.

During the UN climate summit today, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced that Brazil will recommit to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 48 percent by 2025. The country initially pledged to do that under the Paris agreement, but former president Jair Bolsonaro reversed course.

Deforestation in Brazil has also dropped by 48 percent this year, Lula said. Under Bolsonaro, deforestation created 122 percent more carbon dioxide emissions in two years than the average recorded between 2010 and 2018.

The Paris agreement, while committing countries to limit global warming, doesn’t actually use the term “fossil fuel.” The world needs a treaty on the non-proliferation of fossil fuels, Lidy Nacpil of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development said during the opening plenary of the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit taking place today. The non-proliferation treaty’s supporters based it on the same principles as the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Amazon says that all devices it announces today will have their carbon footprint published in product sustainability fact sheets. Almost every device announced today will come in 100% recycled packaging in the US.

Amazon also announced that they’ve contracted enough renewable energy capacity through new wind and solar farms to equal the expected energy use of those devices.

A civilian climate corps was a key ask youth climate activists had of Biden while he was still on the campaign trail in 2020. Today, during NYC’s Climate Week, the Biden administration announced that it’s launching a new American Climate Corps, a job training program for careers in clean energy and conservation.

We’re still waiting for more details on how the program will work and where the funds will come from. But starting today, people can sign up to “learn more” about the Corps, according to White House officials.

The Verge saw NYPD fill at least three police vans with protesters who marched through NYC’s financial district to end fossil fuels. Demonstrators are still blocking entrances to the bank, and there are more arrests going down.

Edward Norton, Jane Fonda, Mark Ruffalo, Rosario Dawson, Alyssa Milano, Marisa Tomei, and Alicia Silverstone are among the actors who joined some 700 activists and organizations that signed a letter urging President Joe Biden to phase out fossil fuels. The letter comes ahead of a ‘March to End Fossil Fuels’ and a United Nations Climate Ambition Summit in New York City next week. “You have the executive authority to stop approving fossil fuel projects, phase out fossil fuel production on federal lands, and halt oil and gas exports,” the letter says.

Exxon kept trying to mislead people on climate change even after finally admitting publicly in 2006 that fossil fuels are to blame, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. Exxon continued to support research that questioned mainstream climate science after pledging to stop funding climate denial, according to the report. Before that, Exxon had already spent decades studying climate change while sowing doubt about the risks of burning fossil fuels.

Dominic Tinio started cleaning up after the Burners in 2000. He has a month to clean up after the festival before the Bureau of Land Management inspects the site.

Black Rock City’s around 3,600 acres—3,600 football fields, we’ll say. 157 million square feet. So that’s a lot of territory to cover. But we cover it. I’m going to have somewhere between 175 and 200 people out here doing a line sweep. Everybody lines up and we, block for block, walk the desert.

The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus will have a USB-C port so that Apple can comply with a European Union rule requiring a universal charger. The EU’s rule is supposed to cut down e-waste, although Apple has argued that ditching Lightning chargers could do the opposite. The Verge spoke with e-waste experts last year about the change, and the environmental impact depends on a couple wild cards: consumer behavior, and whether standardization makes it easier to recycle discarded chargers.

If you’re thinking about upgrading to one of the new line of iPhone 15s, you’re not going to need your old Lightning cables. In fact, you may have lots of other outdated tech sitting around the house that you’re not using. We’ve put together a rundown of how you can responsibly get rid of old tech, clothing, books, and other clutter.

You can head to the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY to check out a prototype of SimEnvironment, a never-released game of pollution simulation. Or you can dive into Maddie Stone’s investigation into why this game is even a thing — if it ever really existed at all.

The bill would make it mandatory for big companies doing business in California to share how much greenhouse gas emissions they’re creating. The SEC is weighing a similar federal mandate, but has faced steep industry pushback. California could beat the SEC to the punch; its bill is expected to be voted on by September 14th.

The last three months have been the hottest on record for the planet, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Heatwaves in North America and Europe in July (the hottest month on record) would have been virtually impossible without climate change, research found. The extreme heat stressed power grids across the world and led to spikes in emergency room visits in the US and heat-related deaths in India.

Cable TV and telephone lines overburdened poles, causing them to lean or snap, lawyers allege. Residents affected by the historic fires last month and Maui County have already filed lawsuits against utility Hawaiian Electric, saying downed power lines caused the fires. Now, lawyers for Maui residents want to add telecommunications companies as defendants. “Our investigation thus far shows a constellation of many serious failures that together led to this horrible tragedy,” attorney MaryBeth LippSmith told the Associated Press.

Google announced that it would the service in the US and parts of Europe earlier this year. Now the alerts are available in some 200 countries, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The company worked with extreme weather and public health experts to share important information with Google Search users about heatwaves in their area and steps they can take to avoid heat-related illness.

Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau authorized grid operator Luma to build the new Virtual Power Plant (VPP), Electrek reports. A VPP harnesses the collective strength of a fleet of batteries, usually from electric vehicles or residential solar setups. Together, they can act as a backup power source during an emergency or energy shortage — problems Puerto Rico is no stranger to, especially after Hurricane Maria decimated its power grid.

Hurricane Idalia made landfall in the Florida Big Bend this morning as a dangerous Category 3 storm. Governor Ron DeSantis said the state has deployed hundreds of Starlink units to affected areas to help emergency responders connect to the internet. Starlink also stepped in during relief efforts after the Maui wildfires this month and volcano eruption near Tonga in 2021, but Starlink has also been called out for promoting itself to communities reeling from disaster.

Flames have consumed at least 81,000 hectares (200,155 acres) in Greece’s Alexandroupolis region in the past couple weeks. The devastation officially marks the largest wildfire in the European Union since record keeping started in 2000, according to the European Commission.