Local and Virginia Climate News
Because of the growth of power-hungry data centers, Virginia now imports more electricity than any other state. The electricity imported from neighboring states is both more expensive and more dependent on fossil fuels.
Charlottesville is giving out 25 e-bike vouchers each worth $1,000, every four months. The city’s Office of Sustainability had a hand in formatting the program with the aim of reducing carbon emissions and improving lives.
The Virginia Commission on Electric Utility Regulation recommended that the General Assembly consider creating a new board to give the state more control over approval of large solar projects. Under the proposed legislation, a local government that rejects a solar proposal that the new board recommends would have to explain why.
Officials in the Virginia wind industry aren’t overly concerned about president Trump’s promise to implement “a policy where no windmills are being built.” That is because funding has already been allocated for projects like Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin used his annual State of the Commonwealth address to promote Virginia as the “data center capital of the world.” He argued that lawmakers should not overrule localities regarding land-use for those centers or use the “growing economy and growing need for power as an excuse to end local control of solar project siting.”
A bipartisan legislative effort seeks to regulate data center construction in Virginia. Speaking about the proposed legislation, the lawmakers defined its “four pillars”: protecting families and businesses who live near data centers, enhancing the companies’ transparency, managing resources responsibly and providing incentives for energy efficiency.
The Virginia Department of Energy received $10 million in federal funding to build 392 electric vehicle charging ports in urban and rural tourist destinations. More than half of the charging ports are set to be installed in disadvantaged communities.
Various bills in the Virginia General Assembly seek to address our climate crisis through resilience, adaptation and education. One bill would require flood risk disclosure to potential buyers. Another would create a methodology and criteria for coastal storm risk management projects.
Our Climate Crisis
Last year saw the biggest one-year jump in carbon dioxide levels on record. Even record-high emissions from fossil fuels cannot fully explain the surge. Scientists note that increasingly severe heat and drought prevents trees and grasses from drawing down as much carbon as in the past. Parched soils are also releasing more carbon back into the atmosphere.
Our planet’s warming climate is intensifying the global water cycle, triggering deadly storms, flooding and droughts that displaced millions and caused over $550 billion in damages in 2024. With climate forecasts predicting worsening extremes, stronger mitigation and adaptation efforts are urgently needed.
Rising temperatures in the Arctic are weakening weather systems that normally trap the cold around the poles, making winter weather more chaotic. The recent record snowfall across the Gulf Coast was just the latest incident where frigid air that normally swirls above the North Pole is transported to places much farther south.
Santa Ana winds, drought and a hotter planet have helped exacerbate the Los Angeles wildfires. Our climate crisis is making such blazes more common and devastating. Researchers have calculated that global warming has contributed to a 172% increase in California’s burned areas since the 1970s, with a further spread expected in the decades ahead.
Insurance companies are dropping policies for homeowners in communities affected by climate change. It’s not just happening in California. Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina all posted nonrenewal rates higher than California in 2023.
Politics and Policy
In his first day in office, President Trump signed executive orders withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and declaring a national energy emergency, expanding drilling in Alaska and pausing offshore wind projects.
The incoming Trump administration has ordered federal agencies to freeze the disbursement of funds under the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure law. This throws tens of billions of dollars of lawfully designated clean energy funding into uncertainty and is likely to face challenges in court.
Disinformation about climate science soon could spread more rapidly online, experts say, after tech giant Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that it would no longer use fact-checkers to moderate content on its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
Analysts expect global sales of 15.1 million EVs in 2025, which would mark a 30% jump. EVs are expected to make up 16.7% of the market share for light vehicles. Uncertainty over the Trump administration’s electric vehicle policies, however, clouds the 2025 forecast for automakers.
Energy
DeepSeek, a recently released chatbot from a Chinese company, claims it uses far less computing power and energy than American rivals like ChatGPT, but still churns out comparable results. If true, it could upend the AI industry and reduce AI’s energy usage.
The myth of a green energy transition hides the troubling truth that fossil fuels still provide 82% of global energy despite renewable growth. Green energy often only adds new sources rather than replacing old ones, accelerating overall consumption. Relying on green energy without addressing consumption may actually intensify climate impacts.
US greenhouse gas emissions fell by just 0.2% last year despite a record year for clean energy. That’s because clean energy increases were offset by the rising fossil-fuel demand in the transportation and electric power sectors. The minimal decrease in emissions is far short of the pace needed to meet our climate goals.
Thanks to next-generation technologies, geothermal has the potential to produce more electricity than any clean energy source but solar, according to the International Energy Agency. Companies and research institutions are racing to design new geothermal drilling tools and energy systems that can tap hotter, deeper resources and do so cost-effectively.
The U.S. has made major gains in solar panel and battery cell manufacturing over the last four years, but self-sufficiency remains far away.
Hulking, aging buildings pose a huge climate problem. In the U.S., buildings can account for up to three-quarters or more of a city’s carbon output, mostly from fossil fuels burned for space and water heating. In New York City and St. Louis, innovative laws meant to curb emissions from buildings are kicking in this year. More states and cities will soon follow.
The China State Grid—the nation’s largest electrical power network operator—is gearing up to spend a record $89 billion to strengthen its grid this year. This is an effort to keep pace with surging renewable energy generation in China.
Food and Agriculture
U.S. Reps. Jennifer L. McClellan of Virginia and Mike Lawler of New York introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress that would empower the federal government to support soil carbon sequestration research and monitoring. Carbon sequestration makes farms more resilient to drought, heavy rainfall, and other extreme weather conditions exacerbated by climate change.
The U.S. is nowhere near its goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030. We still generate about 328 pounds of food waste per person annually, the same amount as in 2016. The goal is to reduce the amount of food that ends up in landfills, where it emits greenhouse gases. Best practices are to eat the food that is produced and to compost what is not eaten.
Climate Justice
The disaster-wary Philippines, pounded by six major storms in less than a month last year, is leading the push for climate justice through the United Nations. The country is hosting the Loss and Development Fund board which aims to hold carbon polluters accountable by creating a fund for climate loss and damage victims and linking reparations to corporate responsibility.
A new community solar project in Brooklyn could offer a model for climate justice. The grassroots organization UPROSE is having a 725-kilowatt array installed on the roof of a former military supply base. The project is expected to reduce the energy bills of some 150 participating households in nearby Sunset Park—a mainly working-class neighborhood of Asian, Latino, and immigrant communities.
European countries consider burning biomass as clean energy, which they count toward reaching their international climate targets. Producing wood pellets, shipping them abroad, and burning them in power plants, however, creates carbon pollution greater than that of burning coal. Furthermore, neighbors of large wood-pellet plants in the American Southeast suffer through incessant dust and noise from the facilities.
A community solar project on the campus of a public school in Baltimore provides more than $200 a year in energy savings to low and medium income households. Students’ families, staff, and the wider community can subscribe to the project and take advantage of both clean energy generation and discounted electricity for their homes.
Climate Action
EVgo, the largest electric vehicle charging network in America, plans to more than triple its network of available charging stations across the country over the next four years. This will include adding 7,500 additional fast charging stations.
Brown Avenue Elementary School in Rhode Island switched to new stainless steel trays to carry the lunches children eat. Plastic foam trays, used in schools around the country, are convenient and cheap but also hard to recycle. Switching to a reusable option is better for children’s health, our environment, and often the school’s budget.
Norway is on track to be the first country to go all-electric. Last year electric cars accounted for nine out of 10 new vehicles sold in the country.
Solar microgrids are now powering thousands of homes and businesses across the U.S. This is now possible because the price of solar panels has declined by 90% over the last decade, and the price of power provided by battery storage has fallen by more than 80%.
Americans lead other countries in the amount of trash we throw out, while lagging behind other wealthy countries in recycling and composting. This leaves us with two flawed options for getting rid of waste: burn it or bury it. That’s why Miami-Dade County is planning to build a new $1.5 billion waste-to-energy facility that would generate electricity and pollute less.
Earl Zimmerman is a member of the steering committee of the Climate Action Alliance of the Valley.
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