‘All Hands on Deck’: Cities Respond to Landmark IPCC Report

António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, called the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “code red for humanity”.

The Sixth Assessment Report on climate science says it is “unequivocal” that human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways. It warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and that temperatures are on course to rise by 1.5°C or more above pre-industrial levels within the next two decades, breaching the ambition of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles and Chair of the C40 Cities climate action network, said: “The evidence laid out in these pages confirms what we are all witnessing each and every day.”

The Energy Future is Smart: Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Energy released a National Roadmap for grid-interactive efficient buildings, or GEBs. These ultra-smart buildings combine energy efficiency and demand flexibility with technologies and communications that enable greater affordability, comfort, productivity and high performance to our homes and commercial buildings.

In July, the LABBC was joined by roadmap authors Andy Satchwell of Berkeley Lab and Ryan Hledik of Brattle Group, alongside David Jacot of the LA Department of Water and Power and Kevin Powell of the GSA’s Green Proving Ground program.

Far-Reaching Study Spells Out How to Drastically Cut the Energy Footprint of Buildings

When it comes to climate action, buildings are the elephant in the room. In the U.S., they consume about 75 percent of all electricity produced. Yet this energy use is difficult to measure on a large scale, which makes it difficult to manage.

A new study aims to change that by detailing exactly what can be done to make buildings more energy efficient and by how much, breaking down this analysis across different regions in the country as well as across time scales.

A Hotter Future is Certain, Climate Panel Warns. But How Hot is Up to Us.

Nations have delayed curbing their fossil-fuel emissions for so long that they can no longer stop global warming from intensifying over the next 30 years, though there is still a short window to prevent the most harrowing future, a major new United Nations scientific report has concluded.

How to Cut Carbon Emissions While Advancing Environmental Justice in the US West

Cutting carbon emissions is a must to combat climate change. But policies aimed at cutting carbon emissions as quickly as possible aren’t always aligned with those meant to ensure that the people most harmed by existing pollution and facing the direst threats from climate change aren’t hurt in the process.

This risk of disconnecting carbon reduction from energy equity is informing the debate over climate change policy in Washington, D.C. and in state legislatures across the country. This week, a set of new reports from nonprofit group Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy focus on the implications for three Western states in the midst of setting their own climate and energy goals for the coming decades: Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

Cities Are Using an Emerging Model to Boost Renewables, but What About Energy Efficiency?

Across the United States, more local governments are adopting a utility alternative for providing customers with electricity that boosts use of renewable energy. Yet most taking this option—known as community choice aggregation (CCA)—do not yet pursue energy-saving initiatives that can help meet climate goals, according to the first report ever to assess the role of energy efficiency in CCA.