The Parker Solar Probe has become the first spacecraft to fly through the Sun's upper atmosphere or corona, NASA announced. In April, it passed within 15 solar radii (around 6.5 million miles) from the Sun's surface in a region where magnetic fields dominate solar conditions. "Parker Solar Probe 'touching the Sun' is a monumental moment for solar science and a truly remarkable feat," said NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen.
The Sun has a superheated atmosphere called the corona (visible from Earth only during a solar eclipse) that's bound to it by gravity and magnetic fields. At a certain limit called the Alfvén critical surface, materials are able to escape those forces and become part of the solar wind, permanently severing their connection to the Sun.
Scientists have estimated that the corona is between 10 to 20 solar radii from the Sun's surface, or around 4.3 to 8.6 million miles. The Parker Solar probe detected the specific magnetic and particle conditions required for the corona at around 18.8 solar radii, or around 8.1 million miles. It passed in and out of the boundary several times, proving that the Alfvén critical surface has spikes and valleys and isn't shaped like a smooth ball.
Inside that region, the probe encountered features called pseudostreamers, or massive structures rising above the Sun's surface visible during solar eclipses. Flying through the objects was like "flying into the eye of the storm" because of the quieter conditions and slowing particles, NASA said.
It also made observations that may helped scientists figure out where "switchbacks," or kinks in the solar wind form. It detected bursts of switchbacks as it passed closer to the sun, and scientists were able to trace those back to the visible surface. Specifically, they found that some types of "fast" switchbacks form in the magnetic funnels created between convection cells on the sun's surface.
The probe has not only made the closest-ever pass by the sun, it's traveling at the greatest speed of any manmade object ever, currently around 430,000 MPH. The next close pass will happen in January 2022, when scientists will try to determine exactly how switchbacks and other solar phenomena form. "Such measurements from the corona will be critical for understanding and forecasting extreme space weather events that can disrupt telecommunications and damage satellites around Earth," NASA wrote.
Working with Intel, Dell has created a new laptop called Concept Luna with the aim of making future PCs easier to repair, reuse and recycle. Dell said that if it incorporated all the design ideas, it could reduce a computer's carbon footprint by up to 50 percent compared to current laptop models.
A key feature of Concept Luna is the redesigned components and a new, more efficient layout. To start with, the motherboard is 75 percent smaller at just 5,580 square millimeters and has a 20 percent lower component count. Everything is rearranged, with the motherboard close to the top cover to expose it to a larger cooling area. It's also separated from the battery charging unit in the base, allowing better passive cooling that could eliminate the need for a fan.
Dell
The extra efficiencies also reduce power requirements, allowing the designers to use a smaller battery with deep-cycle cells that offer a "long charge that can be maintained across many years of use, increasing refurbishment and reuse beyond the first product life it services," Dell said.
On top of making the design more power efficient, Dell designers used less energy-intensive materials that are easier to recycle. The aluminum body, for instance, was processed using hydro power and a more efficient stamped construction. Dell also reduced the number of screws by tenfold, "with just four needed to access internal components." That not only reduces material count, but repair time (to disassemble, repair and reassemble key components) by around 1.5 hours.
Dell
Other features include a palm rest that's easy to repair and reuse, a keyboard mechanism that can be easily separated for replacement and recycling, and a bio-based printed circuit board (PCB) made with flax fiber in the base and water-soluble polymer as glue. "What's notable here is that the flax fiber replaces traditional plastic laminates... [and] the water-soluble polymer can 'dissolve,'" making for easier recycling.
Concept Luna is far from the first green laptop concept. Framework, for example, recently demonstrated an easy-to-repair laptop with features like removable ports and components that are labeled so you can repair it yourself.
Dell might not be the most-loved PC company in terms of customer service, but it frequently tops corporate charts for environmentally-friendly initiatives. Creating a concept that points the way to easy-to-fix, more recyclable PCs is a solid step toward reducing plastic waste and pollution in the PC industry. Now, Dell plans to take the best ideas from Concept Luna "and evaluate which have the greatest potential to scale across our product portfolio," the company wrote.
Tornadoes ripped through six states on Friday, killing dozens. Among the dead were six workers at an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, IL, which collapsed while they sheltered inside. The incident is now the subject of an OSHA investigation.
The mass casualty event is likely Kentucky's "deadliest tornado system in state history," according to ABC. The twisters also touched down in December, well outside the normal tornado season. While this may have been an unusually extreme weather event for many reasons, Amazon's decision to schedule its workers during potentially deadly conditions isn't. Reportedly, at the time the cyclone touched down in warehouse's parking lot — producing winds estimated at 155 miles per hour — the facility was not only operating, but undergoing a shift change.
Amazon operates a staggering number of fulfillment, sortation and delivery centers across the country, and as a result, some of them are bound to be taken by surprise by the forces of nature. Excessive snow on the roof of one warehouse in Pennsylvania resulted in an evacuation when workers noticed the it buckling. Two contractors were killed by a collapsing wall when a tornado touched down without warning in Baltimore.
But the National Weather Service had been warning of possible tornadoes 36 hours ahead of the deaths in Edwardsville; the morning before the storms it cautioned of the "likely threat" of "damaging winds in excess of 60 mph." Edwardsville is in what FEMA categorizes as Wind Zone IV, the part of the country at the greatest risk of tornadoes.
Amazon is perhaps better known in media coverage for its punishing productivitygoals. But its operating standards have produced a pattern of incidents where workers were expected to clock in during extreme weather events. Warehouses stayed open during tropical depression Ida in September, the torrential rains of which caused widespread flooding and led to 14 deaths in New York. Some of Amazon's drivers told me they were delivering packages through the floodwaters of hurricane Irma back in 2017.
The Camp Fire of 2018 was the deadliest and costliest wildfire in California's history. Smoke from the destruction also briefly made Sacramento the most polluted city on earth. Despite air quality warnings being issued for the city on November 8th, an Amazon warehouse there did not send its workers home until the afternoon of the 10th.
By far, however, the most pervasive issue across Amazon's warehouses has been extreme heat. Workers in the Pacific Northwest were expected to report for duty during a historic heatwave this past summer which was eventually deemed a mass casualty event. Specifically, a worker complained that some areas of a warehouse in Kent lacked fans, and estimated temperature inside hit 90 degrees. New York warehouse workers also reported fainting and excessive heat around the same time. In May of this year, excessive heat led to a death inside the company's Bessemer, Alabama warehouse.
These are only some of the most recent examples. Workers have been lodging similar complaints for at least a decade about dangerous temperatures inside Amazon's facilities in Chicago, Portland and Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, among others. Even when immediate symptoms like fainting, vomiting or heat stroke are not present, long term heat exposure can exacerbate existing health problems such as heart conditions and asthma.
None of this speaks to criticisms of Amazon's safety measures related to COVID-19, or its objectively sky-high injury rate compared to other warehousing operations.
What's concerning is that, according to the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, severe winds, rain and heat are likely to get worse due to man-made climate change. Amazon, however, has not offered a satisfactory explanation for why it continues to schedule shifts during potentially deadly weather, nor would it provide Engadget with any details of the extreme weather plan in effect at the Edwardsville facility.
“We’re deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville, IL," an Amazon spokesperson told Engadget. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their loved ones, and everyone impacted by the tornado. We also want to thank all the first responders for their ongoing efforts on scene. We’re continuing to provide support to our employees and partners in the area.”
America has always been a nation segregated into haves and have-nots with rampant inequity a seemingly natural aspect of our social order — the motif impacting towns and cities just as starkly as the people who live in them. But it doesn't have to be this way, argue authors UC Davis Professor, Stephen Wheeler, and Temple University Associate Professor, Christina Rosan.
In their new book, Reimagining Sustainable Cities: Strategies for Designing Greener, Healthier and More Equitable Communities, Wheeler and Rosan examine the steps municipalities across the country have taken in recent years in response to climate change, as well as their social and sustainability shortcomings, offering community-based solutions to ensure that urban development in the 21st century equitably raises the standard of living for all residents, not just for the rich.
In the excerpt below, the authors take a look at the myriad trials faced by residents of eastern Kentucky, a once thriving pastoral region ravaged by the intractable march towards modernization and distillation of wealth to the select few.
While this book is about reimagining sustainable cities, we pause here to connect sustainable cities with the larger national and international context in terms of spatial inequality. We live in a world that is deeply interconnected. If we want sustainable cities, we need to work on reducing spatial disparities between cities and rural areas, and between different regions worldwide. Linkages between communities need to be recognized, and resources shared and equalized. Situations must be ended in which some regions exploit others by giving them the unwanted by-products of production, such as pollution, waste, and labor exploitation, while simultaneously moving resources and profits from poor regions to rich ones.
In and around the towns of eastern Kentucky, where Stephen Wheeler’s ancestral family is from, people of English and Scottish descent lived for many generations as self-sufficient farming families. That way of life changed in the second half of the twentieth century. Better roads, electricity, and telecommunications connected Appalachia with the rest of the world. Urban job opportunities lured away the young. Farming families became part of the cash economy and acquired new desires for processed foods, appliances, motor vehicles, and personal accessories. But hill farms didn’t generate enough cash to buy such things, especially with rising federal subsidies for agribusiness in other parts of the country. So the people of eastern Kentucky became designated as poor and came to see themselves that way.
Environmental problems grew as well. Giant bulldozers scraped away hilltops and extracted coal, adding this region to the long list of others worldwide suffering from the “resource curse.” Runoff from coal mining poisoned wells and polluted waterways. Coal jobs left as quickly as they had come, leaving many even poorer.
A new, more globalized retail economy brought first Kmart and then Walmart, putting family-owned stores out of business. Fast-food outlets proliferated. But the new service economy jobs didn’t pay much. To make better money some people began growing marijuana in hard-to-reach locations in the hills. Drug use, alcoholism, and obesity spread. Fundamentalist religion gained adherents and combined with Fox News (starting in the 1990s) to promote reactionary political values. A region that had been Democratic until the late twentieth century now helped elect US Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell in turn played one of the largest roles in thwarting progressive legislation from Barack Obama’s administration, supporting Donald Trump’s presidency and fueling the rise of populism in the US.
If this tale of decline were one isolated example, it might not matter much. But spatial inequality persists and spreads worldwide. Some left-behind communities are rural. Others are urban. Entire countries are stuck in poverty due to the legacy of military or economic colonization. Spatial inequality is a core challenge to the development of more sustainable cities. Every community needs to be able to thrive, not just certain favored ones within a highly unequal global system. Instead of engaging in a zero-sum approach to development, with winners and losers, communities need to support one another so that all improve their quality of life and sustainability.
The so-called winners of today’s global economic competition have their own problems. At the other end of the spectrum from Appalachia is Silicon Valley. This forty-mile corridor in the San Francisco Bay Area is an economic dynamo envied the world over. Covered by orchards and agricultural fields in the 1950s, this beautiful area was known as “Valley of Heart’s Desire.” Now no orchards remain, and the region is a congested sprawl of poorly connected office parks, subdivisions, malls, and commercial strips. Incomes are high, but the price of a home is nearly five times that in the US as a whole. Many residents cannot afford housing near their jobs and so endure lengthy commutes or are housing insecure. Social inequality, traffic congestion, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions expanded greatly during the past fifty years, reducing the quality of life in the region and contributing to global warming.
The Silicon Valley ethic of “move fast and break things” has created dynamic companies, unprecedented technology, and great wealth for a few. But the new gig economy pioneered there often operates at the expense of workers and the environment. It often produces an enormous concentration of wealth that comes from the exploitation of others. One study found that one-fifth of San Francisco Uber and Lyft drivers earned virtually nothing when their full expenses, including things such as health insurance, were accounted for. The tech industry has also been heavily criticized for sexual harassment during the MeToo movement and racism during the Black Lives Matter movement. The combination of individualism, predatory capitalism, toxic masculinity, and lack of concern for the common good that Silicon Valley represents works strongly against a sustainable and equitable future.
Similar problems of unequal development exist in other successful urban areas worldwide, including Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Bangalore, Singapore, Toronto, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Tel Aviv. Though among the world’s economic success stories, on many dimensions of sustainability they are failures. The growing core-periphery disparities that produce left-behind communities and “sacrifice zones” on the one hand and wealthy but unsustainable and highly unequal job centers on the other are at the heart of recent global development patterns.
Let us imagine instead a world where we are not content with the concentration of wealth and opportunity in a small number of global cities; where all communities have affordable housing and provide a decent quality of life; where cities meet the needs of people locally and regionally but do not drain wealth from other parts of the world; where no areas are left behind in the transition to a green economy, their populations increasingly alienated, despairing, and vulnerable to unscrupulous politicians and warlords; and where social dimensions of sustainability are well served everywhere.
Sources of the Problem
Today’s spatial inequity problems have long historical roots, illuminated by literature in fields such as economic geography, sociology, and environmental history. One starting point is physical geography. Some parts of the world have more fertile soils than others, more abundant mineral resources, more useful plant, animal, and fish species, and/or more benign topography and climate. Other places have been strategically well located to serve as trading centers and market towns or have been easy to defend against attack. Such communities have been able to accumulate modest amounts of wealth and power. The “chessboard” of geographical wealth is constantly shifting and with global warming is likely to shift in even greater ways in the future.
However, in other cases spatial inequities have resulted from military, religious, cultural, political, and/or economic systems that further centralize power and wealth. Typically these have drained resources from the periphery to the core of empires. Many parts of the world still suffer the legacy of colonization. Local traditions and cultures were disrupted, peoples were exploited, racism was institutionalized, ecosystems were harmed, and corrupt, colonizer-friendly governments were installed following independence. The damage has been so profound and long-lasting in many places that reparations may be appropriate. The need for climate justice may likewise call for reparations and repayments.
Twentieth-century economic development philosophies exacerbated spatial inequality on the assumption that economic globalization was to everyone’s long-term benefit. Various versions of “growth pole” theory, originating in the 1950s, sought to focus business development in particular geographical locales within countries on the assumption that this would leverage economic development in other parts. Such wider-scale progress was rare; growth poles instead often channeled resources to local elites, created isolated business enclaves, and harmed the environment.
The municipal economic development practice of chasing branches of multinational corporations has likewise undermined prospects for a more stable long-term economic base in cities worldwide. This “race to the bottom” competition leads suburbs to compete to host the newest shopping mall, central cities to compete for corporate headquarters, and states or countries to lower their environmental and labor standards to attract multinational corporations. However, the resulting businesses often don’t provide the expected number of jobs, pay the decent wages promised, or stay more than a few years. As Margaret Dewar has pointed out in her well-titled article “Why State and Local Economic Development Programs Cause So Little Economic Development,” politicians have an incentive in the short term to appear to be generating jobs by attracting well-known companies but little incentive to take into account long-term economic or environmental sustainabilIty. A recent example of the extreme lengths that municipalities will go to in order to attract development can be seen in the global competition for the second Amazon headquarters.
The Bretton Woods framework of post–World War II development assistance only deepened global spatial disparities, creating what economist Andres Gunder Frank termed “the development of underdevelopment.” Agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund loaned funds to developing countries for megaprojects that created wealth for elites but left others poor and displaced, while countries accumulated enormous debt to lenders in the Global North. National governments focused on what sustainability-oriented NGOs refer to as “extreme infrastructure.” These dams, power plants, industrial zones, and large-scale agricultural projects sought to jump-start an export-oriented form of economic development that was often environmentally harmful and funneled capital created by Third World labor and resources into First World bank accounts.
Yet another source of disparities has been the structural adjustment policies that neoliberal governments in wealthy nations insisted upon as a condition for international assistance during the past forty years. These require developing countries to take actions such as cutting social programs, privatizing public assets such as utilities and railroads, reducing barriers to foreign investment, and lowering taxes on the wealthy. The effect has been to make life harder for the poor while enriching elites and international corporations. It is increasingly clear that structural adjustment policies need to be discontinued and policies that promote spatial equity put in their place.
Finally, the offshoring of manufacturing from wealthy nations to low-cost and less regulated parts of the globe during the past half century has had complex effects on spatial disparities. It has impoverished the US Rust Belt as well as the British Midlands, leading to the growth of right-wing populism in both places. Meanwhile, it has helped fuel the rise of megacities and megaregions in the developing world, leading to massive internal migration and expanding economic disparities between those urban areas and the countryside. Undoubtedly, these global economic shifts have improved quality of life for many. But they have harmed others, disrupted societies, contributed to the climate crisis, and widened the gulf between rich and poor communities (figure 7).
UC Press
Although spatial disparities are still expanding in many places, there is hope for the rebirth of left-behind cities and regions. Manchester, UK, the first industrial powerhouse in Europe, lost much of its manufacturing in the middle of the twentieth century but has since rebuilt itself by focusing on culture, education, physical regeneration, and its geographical role as a transportation center. The US steel capital of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after losing 350,000 industrial jobs in the 1980s, reinvented itself as a center of renewable energy, health care, and education. Even the long-declining hulk of Detroit, one of the most hollowed-out American cities, is showing signs of a turnaround. Examples such as these indicate the possibility for left-behind places to rebound. But all of these cities had assets to start with, including a strong identity and an active elite that led revitalization efforts. Other communities and regions don’t have such advantages. And the pervasive problems associated with spatial inequality affect wealthy as well as declining places, necessitating holistic and imaginative solutions at higher levels of governance.
The White House's renewable energy push now includes a transformation of the federal government. President Biden has issued an executive order that would require the government to stop buying combustion engine vehicles by 2035, and to switch all buildings to renewables and other zero-carbon energy sources by 2050. The administration willbuy only carbon-free electricity by 2030, and aims to cut building emissions in half by 2032.
Biden saw the measure as a way to "lead by example" and encourage both a "carbon pollution-free" electricity industry by 2035 and net zero emissions for the entire economy by 2050. The federal government is the largest employer, energy user and land owner in the US, the President said, and its shift to renewables could influence private businesses.
It's a modest goal in some ways. The timeline is very long, for a start. Multiple states will have banned gas-powered car sales by 2035 — why would it take the federal government that long to switch a relatively modest 600,000-vehicle fleet to EVs and other emissions-free machines? The 300,000 buildings are more daunting, but the order gives officials roughly three decades to make the transition.
At the same time, there are plenty of challenges. The feds depend on a wide range of buildings and vehicles across the country, many of them with different requirements. It may take a highly coordinated effort to transition everything to zero-emissions transport and renewable energy, even if the scale is relatively modest. And then there's the question of future administrations. As we've seen before, a new presidency can undo environmental regulations and delay or even thwart emissions reduction plans. The targets offer plenty of opportunities for reversals.
The order is still notable even if there are setbacks. It's an acknowledgment that efforts to limit climate change aren't confined to the private sector, and it could prompt contractors to transition to environmentally friendly products in a bid to win federal deals.
Many car brands are touting recycled parts in their vehicles, but Ford thinks it can claim some extra bragging rights. The badge claims the Bronco Sport is the first vehicle to use parts made entirely of recycled ocean plastic. Ford used plastic from the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean to make wireless harness clips in the SUV. They're as durable as previous petroleum-based clips, but require less energy to make and even cost 10 percent less.
The company has been using some degree of recycled plastic for over two decades, although it has been getting creative as of late. It recently started making F-250 fuel-line clips from 3D printer waste, and used water bottles for the underbody shields on the 2020 Escape.
This move could be an important step toward more sustainable car production. At the same time, it shows just how far Ford has to go. They're small parts in an SUV that's sold exclusively with a combustion engine inside — this would carry more weight if they were larger components in a hybrid or pure electric vehicle. Ford has vowed to further electrify its lineup and explore future uses of ocean plastic. Until that happens, though, this is more a hint of that future than a major milestone.
Sonos is the latest tech company to commit to reducing its environmental impact in the long term. The smart speaker firm has unveiled an inaugural climate plan that will make its "value chain" carbon neutral by 2030, and achieve net zero emissions by 2040. The company will use some carbon offsets (such as a marine ecosystem project in Cambodia), but it also promises to improve both its products and operations.
Many of the product efforts focus on smarter material choices and recycling. All of Sonos' new products will use recycled plastic by the end of the company's fiscal 2023, while all hardware will use "responsibly sourced" paper packaging by fiscal 2025. Fiscal 2023 will also mark the release of Sonos' first devices designed explicitly with recycling and reuse in mind, such as easier-to-remove fasteners in place of glue. All products will have a sleep mode by that year, and the firm will cut idle power draw to 2W starting with portable speakers in fiscal 2022.
The move might not satisfy everyone. Neutrality in 2030 isn't an aggressive target when it includes offsets — Sonos will still produce excess CO2 emissions. The company may also face a significant challenge overcoming its mixed environmental record. While Sonos is known to support its speakers for a long time, its bifurcated support strategy (where older devices can't operate alongside newer ones) and now-dead recycle mode (which bricked haven't instilled confidence in the past.
Still, this plan could go a long way toward improving Sonos' reputation. It's not only acknowledging its overall environmental impact, it's designing with longevity and repairability in mind. If things go smoothly, you might keep using Sonos gear well after its original luster has worn off.
The COP26 climate conference has come to an end, but it probably won't satisfy some of its more outspoken critics. Reuters and The Washington Post report that the United Nations-helmed summit has reached a final deal on efforts to accelerate emissions reduction and otherwise keep to a Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5C. There are some areas where the new arrangement (billed by the UN as the Glasgow Climate Pact) may offer significant progress, but there are also concerns it doesn't hold countries to stricter standards — including a move away from coal energy.
In negotiations that extended roughly a day past the original November 12th deadline, representatives from China and India successfully changed language in the COP26 agreement that asked countries to "phase-down" unabated coal use rather than "phase-out." While COP26 president Alok Sharma and numerous countries' delegates wanted the tougher language, Sharma said it was "vital" to protect the deal. However, there are worries this will give coal-dependent countries like China and India an excuse to avoid firmer commitments to emissions reduction.
Previous critics blasted wealthier nations for failing to act on a promise of giving poorer countries $100 billion per year until 2023 to help them deal with climate change. The Glasgow deal only committed to making a new plan in the next three years.
The final pact does include some notable measures. It asks countries "revisit and strengthen" their climate change plans before the end of 2022, as New Scientistnoted. Similarly, there's a strategy to address long-running disputes over global carbon credit markets. Numerous countries promised to reduce methane emissions and stop deforestation, and the agreement called for reduced subsidies on fossil fuels. Separately, the US and China reached a deal to limit climate change in the 2020s, including a new recognition from China that methane had a significant impact on rising temperatures.
Nonetheless, there are fears the COP26 arrangement is generally too soft. It doesn't set many binding targets. The final language only "requests" that countries rethink their plans, for instance. The pact might prompt some countries to step up their environmental initiatives, but others may face relatively few consequences if they fall short.
Tesla may be thriving despite chip shortages, but those shortcomings are apparently making an impact on the cars people get. Electrek has learned numerous Model 3 and Model Y buyers are receiving their electric vehicles without USB-C ports in the center console or rear seating areas. Some customers said they were alerted in advance, but others only found out when they took their EVs home.
Delivery specialists and others at Tesla have pinned the missing USB ports on chip shortages. Some customers have heard Tesla would install the missing connectors in December, but it's not clear if this applies to every affected owner. Tesla has long stopped responding to requests for comment and is believed to have disbanded its PR team.
This isn't the first time brands have shipped cars without parts, including Tesla. BMW recently removed touchscreen features from some models, while that company and Tesla have both removed passenger lumbar support options. And there aren't many great alternatives — automakers have delayed orders, halted production and otherwise asked customers to wait longer than usual.
Even so, this could leave more than a few Tesla buyers upset. The absence of USB ports breaks not only connectivity, but wireless charging. That's a luxury, to be sure, but it's one you'd expect given Tesla's price tags. It might also sour customers worried Tesla might be sacrificing quality to meet its quarterly delivery targets.
The US and China are at odds on many fronts, but climate change might not be one of them. The Washington Postreports the two countries have issued a joint pledge at COP26 to limit global warming during the 2020s. Both nations said they recognized a gap between current actions and the Paris agreement target of keeping that warming below 2C, and ideally no higher than 1.5C.
The exact terms weren't available as of this writing, but US climate envoy John Kerry said China committed to reducing methane emissions and coal use "as fast as is achievable." China wouldn't, however, join a US-Europe initiative to cut methane emissions by a third no later than 2030.
Whether or not this translates to meaningful action is far from clear. China has made some efforts to promote electric vehicles and reduce coal dependence, but it's still the largest contributor to emissions and hasn't radically reduced its harmful output. It also hasn't had much of a presence at COP26, with President Xi Jinping declining to show up where US President Joe Biden was happy to attend.
The US isn't immune to problems, either. While the Biden administration has promised to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and spur EV adoption, there's no guarantee it can pass legislation needed to honor its side of the pledge. That's also assuming the next White House doesn't undo previous environmental efforts.
It's still rare to see the US and China agree on climate change issues, though, and the very existence of the pledge represents progress for China. The country hadn't previously acknowledged the impact of methane on global warming, for instance. That suggests China is at least aware of the scope of the problem, even if there's a long way to go before it addresses that problem.
