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The gap between the world’s current capacity to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the amount we’ll need to remove to materially address climate change is so large, it's hard to fathom crossing it. Now, a new report warns that the chasm is widening.

The third State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report, published on Tuesday, finds that while carbon removal research and deployment has advanced significantly in the past two years, it is still not growing quickly enough to reach the scale required to support the Paris Agreement temperature limits. Carbon emissions, meanwhile, have continued to rise globally, raising the amount of carbon removal required in turn.

The world currently removes approximately 2.2 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year through intentional human activity, the authors found, which is equivalent to about 5% of annual global carbon dioxide emissions. Nearly all of that carbon removal happens through what the authors deem “conventional” methods, which include planting trees, improved forest management, soil sequestration on farms and grasslands, and coastal wetland restoration. Less than 1% of the 2.2 billion tons comes from “novel” methods such as direct air capture, bioenergy with carbon capture, enhanced weathering, and biochar, the most common method.

“The gap will continue to grow if we do not pursue immediate and ambitious emissions reductions today,” Edwards said. Though the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree goal looks to be receding further out of reach, she stressed that net-zero emissions implies significant carbon removal, regardless of what temperature target you’re aiming for.

Last year some yellowjackets built a nest in my bird feeder; I let them be, but it got me thinking; how could I encourage yellowjackets to nest in a different place? What kind of structures are appealing to them?

Given their fondness for the bird feeder, I'm thinking maybe a white PVC tube with some nails poked through (to give them someplace to hang a nest), under an overhang to shelter them from the elements.

Whether you personally want to provide shelter for wasps on your property is up to you; I've never been stung by one (even when disturbing their nest), and I've found them to be very beneficial to the ecosystem. They're constantly patrolling my plants and picking off pests, and I've seen them pollinating many flowers as well.

I've tried searching for this using all kinds of terms, but all I get is ways to remove wasps and nests, instead of encouraging them! If anyone has any thoughts or insight here, I'd love to hear it.

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr won the Republican Senate primary in Kentucky, making him the favorite to replace retiring former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

That prompted MS NOW columnist Paul Waldman to share this anecdote on Bluesky: In 2019, Barr challenged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over a climate change proposal “and demanded she come to his district to visit a coal mine,” Waldman explained. “She said yes, which he didn't expect, so he withdrew the invitation. Then it turned out there were no working coal mines in his district.”

To be fair to Barr, the U.S. coal industry’s collapse has happened so quickly that most people don’t realize how much has changed. Over the past 15 years, employment in the industry has been dealt grievous blows by automation and competition from natural gas, another climate-warming fossil fuel. Meanwhile, renewable energy hit a new milestone in 2025, when solar and wind met 99% of new global electricity demand.

Today, there are fewer than 40,000 coal miners left in the U.S. In fact, here’s an incomplete list of industries that employ more U.S. residents than coal mining, according to 2021 Census data:

• Bakeries and tortilla manufacturing, excluding retail bakeries (203,726 people)
• Ship and boat building (187,373)
• Offices of optometrists (163,481)
• Jewelry, luggage, and leather goods stores (154,594)
• Newspaper publishers (128,753)
• Florists (87,544)
• Sugar and confectionery products (80,539)
• Miscellaneous nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing (79,880)
• Water transportation (72,272)
• Cutlery and hand tool manufacturing (50,623)

As coal declines, here’s hoping Kentucky’s next senator looks out for the needs of former miners.

– Sara Peach, Editor-in-Chief, Yale Climate Connections

Big news on the “green capitalism” front: Everlane, the much-beloved clothing brand built on a promise to make fashion climate-friendly, is being purchased by Shein, the most-polluting fast fashion brand on Earth.

The prevailing public reaction to this sale (valued at $100 million, first reported by Puck News) has been shock and disappointment that such an ethical, sustainable brand would sell out to such a massive planetary ghoul.

But Everlane was never actually “good” for the planet. It was, however, really good at selling the idea that buying lots of new clothes could be sustainable. And that’s what Shein is actually buying: not an eco-friendly company, but an eco-friendly image.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the quasi-governmental watchdog that monitors the health of the power grids that span the United States and Canada, has issued a rare Level 3 warning.

The alert marks only the third time NERC has put out a notice with that degree of severity in its 58-year history. The warning comes on the heels of reports that data centers abruptly went offline in Virginia and Texas, prompting concerns of potential blackouts.

“Computational loads, such as data centers, could increase exponentially in the next four years,” NERC said in a draft of the alert, adding that “significant risks” to the power network “need to be addressed through immediate industry action.” Lee Shaver, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told E&E News that NERC’s action was a “big deal.”

The U.S. Congress is considering an extreme bill that would make it illegal to sue the fossil fuel industry over the damage they cause to the planet, the economy, and our health.

Last week, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Representative Harriet Hageman (R-WY) introduced a bill called the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026. They framed it as a way to “protect American energy from leftist legal crusades punishing lawful activity.”

What it actually does is give the fossil fuel industry a permanent shield against lawsuits and state laws that seek to hold the industry financially accountable for climate change, and for misleading the public about the catastrophic health, economic and environmental consequences of using their products.

According to the bill, the “energy business” only applies to fossil fuel companies. Solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear companies are not defined as “energy”—which should tell you a lot about what Republicans mean when they use the term.

The bill also bans “energy penalty laws,” defined as any state or local law that requires fossil fuel companies to pay for climate-related harms. That would eliminate “polluter pays” laws, like the climate superfund policies passed in New York and Vermont. These require major polluters to contribute to the cost of climate adaptation.

In summary, the bill says:

• No state or municipality can file a climate lawsuit
• No state or municipality can pass or enforce a law making polluters pay for the consequences of their pollution
• Existing climate cases would all be dismissed
• Existing polluter pay laws would be voided
• Private citizens can never sue fossil fuel companies over climate harm