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Showing posts with the label climate

Food prices are rising as countries limit exports. Blame climate change, Russia's war

Restrictions on food exports are spilling over from rice and wheat to other essentials How do you cook a meal when a staple ingredient is unaffordable? This question is playing out in households around the world as they face shortages of essential foods like rice, cooking oil and onions. That is because countries have imposed restrictions on the food they export to protect their own supplies from the combined effect of the war in Ukraine, El Nino’s threat to food production and increasing damage from climate change. For Caroline Kyalo, a 28-year-old who works in a salon in Kenya's capital of Nairobi, it was a question of trying to figure out how to cook for her two children without onions. Restrictions on the export of the vegetable by neighboring Tanzania has led prices to triple. Kyalo initially tried to use spring onions instead, but those also got too expensive. As did the prices of other necessities, like cooking oil and corn flour. “I just decided to be cooking once a day,” s...

One year old, US climate law is already turbocharging clean energy technology

Excessive heat continues to bear down on sections of the United States, a reminder of the impetus for the The Inflation Reduction Act, the significant climate legislation that turns one year old on August 16 FRANKFORT, Ky. -- On a recent day under the July sun, three men heaved solar panels onto the roof of a roomy, two-story house near the banks of the Kentucky River, a few miles upstream from the state capitol where lawmakers have promoted coal for more than a century. The U.S. climate law that passed one year ago offers a 30% discount off this installation via a tax credit, and that's helping push clean energy even into places where coal still provides cheap electricity. For Heather Baggett’s family in Frankfort, it was a good deal. “For us, it's not politically motivated,” said Baggett. “It really came down to financially, it made sense.” On August 16, after the hottest June ever recorded and a scorching July, America's long-sought response to climate change, the Infl...