Four years ago, The Guardian published a landmark expose that detailed a looming “carbon bomb” of oil and gas projects in the US. Damian Carrington and Matthew Taylor reported that the projects at hand included plans to explore for, drill, frack, refine, and transport enough additional oil and gas to equal 10 years of China’s planet-warming emissions. Quoting the Sixth Assessment Report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s hundreds of scientists, Carrington and Taylor added that if all 195 of the carbon bombs they identified became operational, there would be no chance of securing “a livable and sustainable future for all” by limiting temperature rise to the 1.5 degrees Celsius target of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Now, fresh reporting from Bloomberg Green has revealed a new potential climate bomb — this one financed by Japan but built in the US.
On February 20, Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi and US president Donald Trump announced a new aspect of their trade agreement from last October. The announcement was major news in Japan but got little coverage in the US, crowded out by revelations from the Epstein files and the Supreme Court ruling that deemed Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional. The few stories that did run mostly summarized the two governments’ official statements, leading with the news that, in response to Trump’s tariff threats, Japan will invest $36 billion in three US infrastructure projects: a gas-fired power plant in Ohio, an oil export facility off the Texas coast, and a manufacturing facility in Georgia.
Bloomberg Green’s Aaron Clark and Eric Roston went beyond those official statements to make the climate connection to Japan’s promised investments. Focusing on the $33 billion power plant in Ohio, Clark and Roston noted that its 9.2 gigawatts of generating capacity would make it the biggest power plant in the US, “capable of supplying millions of homes with electricity.” The reporters then cited two estimates — one from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, one from the Rhodium Group — of how much carbon dioxide the plant would emit: between 16.2 million and 19.3 million tons annually. The Ohio plant therefore would rank as “one of the nation’s largest sources of CO2 emissions from electricity generation,” Clark and Roston wrote, roughly equivalent to “3.8 million gas cars over a year of driving.”
Even this might understate the proposed plant’s climate impact. As recently as the 2010s, fossil gas was widely regarded as less damaging to the climate than coal, because gas contains much less CO2. But a growing body of peer-reviewed science, notably a 2024 paper by Robert Howarth of Cornell University, has found that gas is in fact not much better than coal, and liquified gas is far worse. Gas is composed mainly of methane, which leaks throughout the supply chain and is 80 times more potent as a climate pollutant than CO2 over a 20-year period. That 20-year period matters, because it’s during those years that the battle to limit temperature rise to an level our civilization can survive will be won or lost.
“The future must be zero fossil fuels,” Howarth said in an email interview. Given that solar and wind are increasingly the cheapest sources of electricity, “why spend billions investing in gas?”
Like the 195 oil and gas projects identified by The Guardian, the Ohio power plant analyzed by Bloomberg Green is not a done deal. Whether the projects actually come online is an open question for government officials, regulatory bodies, courts, financiers, and citizens. That makes these projects ongoing news stories for journalists to cover and illuminate. The US-Japan trade deal is a reminder that there are climate stories everywhere you look, if only us journalists will venture to tell them.
From Us
WATCH: AI Data Centers & Their Climate and Community Impacts. This week, CCNow hosted a press briefing about how the recent surge in AI is impacting the climate at a community level. Join us next Tuesday, March 3, at 12pm US Eastern Time (17h UTC), for “AI’s Unquenchable Thirst for Water,” the next in our three-part series.
Locally Sourced. The latest edition of our biweekly newsletter for local journalists explores battery storage, including the important role that battery energy storage systems play in the renewable energy transition, sample stories to inspire your work, and reporting tips from New York Times energy correspondent Ivan Penn. Check out the Locally Sourced archive and sign up to get the newsletter every other Tuesday.
Noteworthy Stories
Boulder v. Big Oil. The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear an argument by fossil fuel companies seeking to undercut the legal basis for the wave of lawsuits being brought against those companies by US cities and states. In the suit brought by Boulder, Colo., Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy are arguing that local governments should not be able to sue for climate damages in state courts. By Lesley Clark for Politico’s E&E News…
Win for the people. In Brazil, after a monthlong occupation at the Cargill port by Indigenous peoples from the Tapajós region, the Brazilian government has reversed course on its decree to privatize rivers in the Amazon. By Fábio Bispo, Jullie Pereira, and Samantha Rufino for InfoAmazonia…
- Catch a glimpse of the occupation in a succinct social video by AJ+.
Climate displaced. India’s first so-called “rehabilitation colony” for people displaced by climate change is not equipped to sustain its population of more than 17,000 people. Bagapatia, which became the resettlement home for a cluster of coastal villages that climate change has made nearly uninhabitable, has limited health care and infrastructure and regularly experiences flooding. By Dimple Behal for Dialogue Earth…
Not so fast! More than a dozen climate and environmental groups are suing to prevent the overturn of the “endangerment finding,” the legal foundation for federal climate policy, just days after the Trump administration announced its rollback. By Ella Nilsen for CNN…
- In Columbia Journalism Review, Jem Bartholomew urges journalists not to follow the Trump administration’s lead by turning attention away from climate change and the environment.
NEW from HEATED! Tracy Wholf, a former senior climate producer for CBS News, and Emily Atkins of HEATED have teamed up for a new climate video podcast for the popular climate outlet. Watch the first episode…
Resources & Events
Climate at the SOTU. Carbon Brief has updated its timeline “State of the Union: How climate and energy have featured since 1989” after Trump’s speech on Tuesday night. This year, Trump touted new oil production and cheered US gas production reaching an all-time high.
Spring warming. New analysis from Climate Central, “Spring Warming Driven By Climate Change (1970-2025),” shows that climate change is responsible for 98% of US cities experiencing warmer springs. Climate Central has published downloadable local data and graphics to support your reporting.
SEJ bound? Join CCNow and Solutions Journalism Network for a mini-workshop on Wednesday, April 15. On the schedule, navigate to “Workshop 3 — Mapping The Future of Climate Journalism,” from 1–4pm US Central Time for more details.
Jobs, Etc.
Jobs. The Guardian is hiring a Senior Reporter, Climate Justice (hybrid in either New York, N.Y., or Washington, D.C.). WBHM is hiring an environmental reporter (Birmingham, Ala.). The Committee to Protect Journalists is hiring a Journalist Safety Advisor (remote). Report for America is hiring 70 reporters in newsrooms across the US. Mongabay is hiring for two positions: Production Editor, Global and Contributing Editor, Asia Pacific (remote). The Pulitzer Center is hiring for a number of positions, including Project Manager for Engagement & Education, Social Media Coordinator, and Director of University Programs (remote).
Fellowships. The University of Colorado at Boulder is accepting applications for its Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism; apply by March 1. The Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University is accepting applications for its Energy Journalism Fellows program; apply by March 2.
Grants. The Pulitzer Center is launching a special call for applications for its Environmental Reporting Focusing on Transparency and Governance grant; apply by February 28. The Pulitzer Center is also accepting proposals for stories about health in the Global South; apply by March 30.