The Paris Agreement, which calls on the world's nations to keep global warming significantly below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), will enter into force in the first week of November. Participating countries, including the United States, have submitted written pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, by transitioning to cleaner energy sources and by promoting energy efficiency.

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On April 29, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final rules to reduce dangerous methane leakages from new and modified sources in the oil and gas industry. The new standards should prevent 510,000 short tons of methane emissions in 2025 (that is the equivalent of 11 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, or taking 2.3 million cars off the road). The new rules should save Americans $690 million in 2025 by reducing methane and toxic pollution (that is 30 percent more than the $530 million the rules will cost to implement in 2025).

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"A very important new milestone has been reached in the fight against climate change. The agreement reached in Paris this Saturday, after two weeks of talks under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is a strong deal that should be welcomed as an impetus to do even more. Our challenge is to keep up the momentum!" says Carol Werner, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute's Executive Director.

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The signatories of the Montreal Protocol agreed on November 5, after seven years of discussion, to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of chemicals that can warm the atmosphere up to 12,000 times more than comparable amounts of carbon dioxide. Eliminating HFCs should prevent 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming (0.9 Fahrenheit), a significant amount as the world community seeks to keep global warming below 2 Celsius.

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EESI welcomes the Obama Administration’s more ambitious Clean Power Plan, whose final version will be unveiled today according to a White House press release. Drafts of the plans called for reducing carbon emissions by at least 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The final plan sets the reductions goal at 32 percent. "This is a very big deal," said Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) Executive Director Carol Werner. "An extra 2 points may not sound like much, but they lead to a 6.7 percent more ambitious target. The Administration is clearly trying to push other countries to be similarly ambitious in their carbon reduction goals ahead of the climate change talks in Paris at the end of this year. That’s excellent news.”

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On April 7, the White House announced a series of actions to protect communities from the health impacts of climate change. "Many excellent reports, apps, data gathering and educational initiatives were announced,” said Laura Small, a Policy Associate at the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. "We’re pleased to see the President taking action to gather more data about the public health impacts of climate change, and we're particularly excited about the decision to educate new healthcare professionals about climate change health risks. However, we hope the Administration will announce direct actions to shore up the health sector's ability to deal with climate change exacerbated vector-borne diseases, mental health issues, decreased air quality, and physical threats from wildfires and other extreme weather.”

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In a sign that the Obama Administration takes an international climate deal seriously, the White House met the March 31 deadline to submit its plan to cut domestic greenhouse gases, known in U.N. jargon as its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), to the United Nations Forum Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The U.S. plan represents a critical step in crafting an ambitious, global deal to stop climate change.

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The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) salutes the climate change agreement reached by the leaders of the United States and China. According to EESI Executive Director Carol Werner, "This climate agreement represents what many Members of Congress said was an essential precondition for stronger U.S. commitment on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The onus is now on Congress to support climate change action.”

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The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) salutes the imminent release of the 'Summary for Policymakers,' the culmination of five years of work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading authority on climate change. The 'Summary for Policymakers,' expected to be unveiled on Sunday, November 2, 2014, is a synthesis of three IPCC reports released over the past year, which covered the science of climate change, our vulnerability to it, and what options are available to mitigate it.

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