As the Trump administration imposes deep cuts on foreign aid and renewable energy programs, the World Bank, one of the most important financiers of energy projects in developing countries, is facing doubts over whether its biggest shareholder, the United States, will stay on board. While the Trump administration has voiced neither support nor antipathy for…
Kelly Brunt wasn’t the only federal employee to be laid off this month while traveling for work. But she was almost certainly the only one whose work trip was in Antarctica. Dr. Brunt was a program director at the National Science Foundation, the $9 billion agency that supports scientific advancement in practically every field apart…
Organic farmers and environmental groups sued the Agriculture Department on Monday over its scrubbing of references to climate change from its website. The department had ordered staff to take down pages focused on climate change on Jan. 30, according to the suit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District…
Let’s buck the trend, a local marine biologist suggested. In 2018, as the Maldives, a nation of nearly 1,200 islands in the Arabian Sea, continued its transformation into a luxury tourist destination, the country’s handbook for resort developers called sea grass meadows in the country’s shallow lagoons “aesthetically unappealing,” suggesting that it was “very important…
A question we get from readers more and more is some version of this: How should the growing risks from climate change affect my decision to buy a house? Or, if I buy a house, where should I buy, and what should I keep in mind? It seems especially urgent now, as insurance costs in…
Greenpeace is set to go on trial on Monday before a North Dakota jury in a bombshell lawsuit that, if successful, could bankrupt the storied group. The Dallas-based company Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace in 2017, accusing it of masterminding raucous protests over the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation…
These should be wonderful times at Finca El Puente, a coffee plantation carved into the mountains of southwestern Honduras. On world markets, the price of ordinary coffee has more than doubled over the past year. The specialty varieties of coffee harvested at the farm have long commanded a hefty premium, reflecting their status as the…
The Trump administration is beginning to unfreeze funding for at least one federal program aimed at reducing the pollution that is driving climate change. Some school districts on Thursday said they were able to access millions of dollars in federal grants to buy electric school buses. That funding, approved by Congress and overseen by the…
A prominent group of chief executives said almost six years ago that making profits for shareholders was only part of their business — and not necessarily the main part. Speaking collectively as the Business Roundtable, C.E.O.s from companies like Johnson & Johnson, FedEx, Wells Fargo and Amazon said that, really, they were devoted to serving…
The fate of $20 billion in federal climate funding that was legally committed months before the election has been thrown into question after a weeklong controversy involving “gold bars,” the right-wing group Project Veritas and two federal agencies. Now, more than 200 planned investments intended to help finance clean energy and environmental projects in underserved…
