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To our partners:
We’re changing the way CCNow does content sharing. Especially with so many newsrooms stretched to the max with coronavirus coverage, we want to make it easy for partners to share and republish more climate change stories, more often, at no cost. Please consider taking advantage of this new service to remind audiences that the climate crisis continues to accelerate by the day, even amid the pandemic.
Moving forward, all stories available for republication under the CCNow collaboration will be available in a simple, online story library, located here. The stories are organized in date order, but you may also sort by publication, style, length, and language. The library will be updated at least weekly, on Wednesdays.
The link to the library is permanent, so be sure to bookmark it, or you can always find it on our website, along with our guidance for content reuse, here.
At all times—not just during our dedicated weeks of coverage—CCNow partners wishing to make stories available to the group should email links to sharing@coveringclimatenow.org. We’ll review submissions to ensure high journalistic standards and a diversity of content in the library, and they’ll be added to the list. (If you prefer to wait to share a story until 24-48 hours after it first publishes, by all means send the link whenever works for your outlet.)
As always, we thank partners for their generous contributions and leadership! CCNow’s content sharing is rooted in the belief that the climate story is urgent and the larger the audience for the work being done across this collaboration, the better.
**All of the stories listed in today’s Climate Beat—from The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Grist, Mother Jones, The Times of India, and more—are available for republication, consistent with the instructions below.**
- The Trump administration has announced that amid the coronavirus outbreak the Environmental Protection Agency will suspend enforcement of environmental regulations across the US, meaning companies big and small may pollute air and water with impunity, The Guardian, CCNow’s lead media partner, reports. “Polluters will be able to ignore environmental laws as long as they can claim in some way these violations were caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” the paper explains. And “There is no end date set for this dropping of enforcement.” (Also from The Guardian: The coronavirus outbreak is “a clear warning shot” from nature, according to experts including the UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen.)
- In further EPA news, the Trump administration continues to roll back environmental regulations, Mother Jones writes, even amid its pandemic response. Recent changes include a reduction in car emissions standards, restrictions on the science that may be considered by the EPA, and the wide scale offering up of public lands to oil and gas companies. As MJ explains, the roll backs are likely to make Americans less safe, including from the effects of COVID-19. (Also from MJ: Plastic manufacturers and conservative groups have used the virus outbreak to target recent plastic bag bans in cities across the US, suggesting single-use plastics are the safest bet for avoiding disease transmission. The science is shaky, but the groups’ claims seem to be working.)
- The world must fight the climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic simultaneously, Greta Thunberg, who herself has COVID-19 symptoms, tells the UK’s New Scientist. “If one virus can wipe out the entire economy in a matter of weeks and shut down societies, then that is a proof that our societies are not very resilient,” Thunberg says. “It also shows that once we are in an emergency, we can act and we can change our behavior quickly.” (In addition to New Scientist’s written report, video excerpts of the Thunberg interview are available for reuse.)
- Public meetings might be cancelled as a result of the virus outbreak, but “the gears of government are grinding along, adhering to timelines that were laid out before the virus began to spread,” Grist reports. In cases already unfolding, this means the public and activist groups will have little opportunity to push back against projects that might pose a danger to the environment and climate. (Four additional new stories are available from Grist, including on the important environmental research that the virus outbreak has scuttled and the link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate disinformation.)
- As the coronavirus hits Central and South America, Indigenous Peoples in Ecuador have rushed to return to native territories, reports Al Jazeera. There have been no reported cases of COVID-19 in the Ecuadorian Amazon yet, and indigenous leaders say they plan to keep it that way by barring Ecuadorian citizens and tourists from the rainforest and demanding restrictions on companies operating there. An outbreak would not only devastate the community, members say, but the forest and long-term climate outlooks.
- The pandemic has seen a reduction in emissions across the globe, but that’s little cause for celebration, argues Mashable. Indeed, to slow and reverse climate change, world economies will need to implement wide and long-lasting structural changes. “This is not anyone’s idea of a solution to the climate crisis,” one climate scientist tells Mashable.
- Climate skeptics often balk at the cost of proposed climate solutions. Near-term costs to avoid climate breakdown are indeed sizable, but new research from Project Drawdown shows that “keeping global temperatures below the 1.5 degrees C target would result in a global net economic savings of $145 trillion” over the coming decades, writes Yale Climate Connections.
- Aside from transportation emissions in the US and coal use in China, perhaps no single factor influences global temperature rise more than coal use in India. The good news, The Times of India, reports, is that 47.4 gigawatts of coal-fired power projects—roughly 50 conventional-sized power stations—were cancelled in 2019. That’s real progress, even though an additional 8.8 gigawatts of new coal-fired capacity entered construction in the same period, often using public funds.
* When republishing any of the individual stories identified above as available, CCNow outlets are asked to append the CCNow logo, which you can download here, and the following tagline: “This story originally appeared in [insert name of original news outlet, with a link to the outlet’s homepage] and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration to strengthen coverage of the climate story.” Further detailed information on CCNow content sharing, including answers to frequently asked questions by our partners, can be found here.
** If republishing The Guardian’s stories, please read this short licensing agreement. Once you’ve read it, please send a single email to licensing@theguardian.com, and copy sharing@coveringclimatenow.org, indicating which story or stories you intend to republish. No further action is required.
Finally, a reminder to CCNow partners that from April 19-26 we will host a second “week of coverage” focused on Climate Solutions! If you plan to participate but haven’t gotten in touch, please let us know with an email to editors@coveringclimatenow.org. Not a partner? We hope you’ll consider joining our collaboration.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!