Climate Change in 2021

The year was the second-costliest on record for drought. It also had three mega-disasters costing at least $20 billion, plus a heat wave that killed over 40,000 people in Europe.

NRDC has been hard at work with our partners in New York State. New York has, for years, taken strong positions on climate, and the strides made this past year will continue this critical leadership.…

President Biden seized on climate change as a core priority when he took office, saying days after his inauguration, “We’ve already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis, and we can’t wait any…

In our January Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we forecast that rising electricity generation from renewable energy resources such as solar and wind will reduce generation from fossil fuel-fired power plants over the next two years.…

The climate data for 2021 is now mostly in, and it has proved to be another noteworthy year across the oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere and surface temperature of the planet.

After two consecutive years (2019 and 2020) that ranked among the top three warmest on record, Earth was a slightly cooler planet in 2021. But not by much.

A new analysis, published Tuesday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, showed that oceans contained the most heat energy in 2021 since measurements began six decades ago — accelerating at a rate only possible…

In 2021, the contiguous U.S. saw its second-highest number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Andrew writes.

As climate-fueled extreme weather intensified last year, more than 80 percent of Americans experienced a heat wave. The impacts of fires and severe storms also spread.

I love the holidays because they offer a chance to mingle with old friends and family members who don’t think about the clean energy transition every day. I get to ask questions like, ​“Does the…

The weather wasn't just wild, it was also incredibly hot across large parts of the Lower 48, leading to what is likely a new national record.

The election of a Democratic president intent on addressing climate change through federal policy drove some of the biggest utility stories of the past year.

When pondering resolutions for a new year, it can be helpful to review the year gone by. In the case of 2021, one of the most striking realizations is that we’ve clearly entered an era…

It’s been an awfully long year for everyone—and that includes climate reporters. The world’s biggest story kept getting bigger in 2021, finding its way into every corner of our lives.

Which is to say, we’re seeing truly unimaginable weather events, clear evidence that “stopping global warming” is no longer on the menu, and that holding it to a level that allows civilizational continuity may be…

From the climate crisis to systemic racism to the never-ending pandemic, challenges abound, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But across the food system, people and communities are thinking creatively and acting boldly to address…