Look, I know we have a lot of fires to put out right now, but the literal fires from climate change are getting worse. Greenhouse gases have reached a new record despite the Paris climate accords. Via NPR:
Earlier on Wednesday the U.N's climate office said current pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions put the planet on course to blow past the limit for global warming countries agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
It said its latest estimate based on 193 national emissions targets would see temperatures rise to 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial averages by the end of the century, a full degree higher than the ambitious goal set in the Paris pact to limit warming by 1.5 C (2.7 F).
"We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world," the head of the U.N. climate office, Simon Stiell, said in a statement. "To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years."
This is not a coincidence, as you may have guessed:
Oil and gas companies have been among some of the biggest donors to the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund since the beginning of last year, federal campaign disclosures show.
The organizations are closely tied to Republican congressional leaders and, as super political action committees, are able to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for and against candidates, as long as they do not coordinate directly with the candidates or their campaigns.
Republicans are eager to pursue policies favoring the oil and gas industry, including more leasing on federal land and fewer climate restrictions. The GOP also plans to use committee gavels to pressure administration officials against President Joe Biden’s green agenda.
So far, the fossil fuels lobby has spent hundreds of millions of dollars this cycle.