The Obama administration on Friday introduced a new climate change regulation intended to reduce carbon pollution from heavy-duty trucks. “The rule, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department, is the latest in a march of pollution constraints that President Obama has put forth on different sectors of the economy as he seeks to make tackling climate change a cornerstone of his legacy.
The proposed rule is meant to increase the fuel efficiency of the vast rigs that haul goods as varied as steel, timber and oil, as well as packages from Amazon.com. The regulations will also set emissions targets for other types of trucks larger than light-duty pickups, like delivery vehicles, dump trucks and buses.” [The NY Times]
According to a new survey analysis, there could be substantial receptivity to the pope’s climate message among Catholics who are members of the Republican party. “I think the big message is that not only is Pope Francis’s encyclical likely to fall on sensitive ears around the world and within the United States, but even within the Republican Party,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, who directs the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, which released the new data Friday along with its partner group at George Mason University.
Culling information from six national polls taken over the period from 2012 through 2015, the Yale and George Mason teams looked in particular at Catholic Republicans and how their climate views stood out within their own party.” [The Washington Post]
Researchers have claimed Finland could meet all of its energy needs with renewable energy sources in the next 35 years. “Researchers at the Lappeenranta University of Technology say they’ve found ways to make such a transition feasible, both economically and technologically.
However, the researchers involved in the study also came to the conclusion that such a transition wouldn’t be cheap or easy. Still, they say, Finland could revamp its energy infrastructure so that it would become entirely carbon-neutral by the year 2050.” [Alaska Dispatch News]
