Carbon

After a week of far-reaching climate promises measured over decades, four of the world’s six largest economies have now proposed ending dates for their carbon emissions.President Xi Jinping’s surprise announcement at the annual United Nations climate meeting this week committed China to reaching carbon neutrality by 2060. That brings the third-biggest economy by nominal GDP…

Environment 23 September 2020 By Adam Vaughan Chinese president Xi Jinping addresses the United Nations general assembly on 22 SeptemberJu Peng/Xinhua/PA Images China surprised the world yesterday when president Xi Jinping told the United Nations general assembly that the country would “achieve carbon neutrality before 2060”. Until now 2020 has been an underwhelming year for…

By Adam Vaughan A wild fire burns on Table Mountain in Cape Town, South AfricaGuy Oliver / Alamy Wildfires and blazes lit by humans have been found to be sending huge amounts of carbon into our oceans via rivers each year. When trees and other vegetation are incompletely burned, they form black carbon, which can…

By Donna Lu We still don’t know exactly how the moon formedNASA/JPL The moon has its own carbon emissions, which changes our understanding of how it may have formed. Using data collected by Japan’s Kaguya lunar orbiter over a year and a half, Shoichiro Yokota at Osaka University in Japan and his colleagues have discovered that…