The US government will be a net zero contributor to the climate crisis by 2050 by slashing the planet-heating emissions from its operations and transitioning to an all-electric fleet of cars and trucks, according to a new executive order signed by Joe Biden.The federal government is the largest land owner, energy consumer and employer in the US and it will “lead by example in tackling the climate crisis”, the White House said, by eliminating greenhouse gases from its activities.Under the order signed by Biden on Wednesday, the government will cut its emissions by 65% by the end of this decade, before reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.The government’s fleet of 600,000 cars and trucks will be transformed, with all acquisitions of vehicles from 2035 being zero emission versio...

The Government of Canada announced that it will provide up to $200 million over the next five years to fund projects focused on nature-based solutions to addressing climate change.Nature-based solutions, according to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), are “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural and modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.” The solutions are one of the key tools to help meet global decarbonization goals, with projects that are typically included in the definition encompassing those focused on redeveloping forests or wetlands, which protect or transform land, improve biodiversity, and enable nature to absorb CO2 from the en...

Pharmaceutical, MedTech and consumer healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (J&J) announced today new Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) that will enable the company to source renewable electricity sufficient to power its U.S., Canada and Europe operations by 2023.The deals form a major step towards the company’s goals to fully power operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2025, and to achieve carbon neutrality across global operations by 2030. At the end of 2020, 54% of J&J’s global electricity came from renewable sources.Paulette Frank, Chief Sustainability Officer, Johnson & Johnson, said:“Last year we announced our most ambitious climate goals to date, including an accelerated renewable electricity goal. We are wasting no time making progress because we know there ...

A swathe of England’s biggest land owners and managers have signed a joint pact committing them to large-scale habitat restorations and a major tree-planting programme across a portfolio of 10.5 million acres, to help boost biodiversity and tackle the worsening climate crisis.The effort, coordinated by the National Trust, includes groups such as the RSPB, National Parks, Soil Association, The Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, Church Commissioners for England and the Duchy of Cornwall, which together own around a third of the land in England.The organisations have said they will work together to protect and regenerate environments such as peat bogs, woodland and rivers, to help draw down carbon and provide functioning ecosystems in order to help the ...

The government’s green homes grant scheme underperformed badly and risks damaging future efforts to deliver net zero, the public accounts committee (PAC) said.Hailed by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, as a key plank in his green industrial revolution, the grants only upgraded about 47,500 homes out of the 600,000 originally planned. They also delivered a small fraction of the expected jobs.The grants were intended to support the public in England to make their homes more energy efficient and move away from fossil fuel heating by installing heat pumps and solar energy.But the PAC said the scheme unveiled in 2020 by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), was poorly designed and had a troubled implementation. The Guardian previously revealed the grants w...