Seth Borenstein

Reporter for The Associated Press

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52 Articles

Simon Stiell, U.N. climate chief, speaks during a closing plenary session at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

UN climate boss says climate talks didn't progress much, but could have ended up worse

Given an energy crisis in Europe and progress made in helping climate victims, the new climate chief for the United Nations said he'll settle for a lack of new emissions-cutting action coming out of the now-concluded climate talks in Egypt.

News | November 22nd 2022

Samela Satere Mawe, center, Indigenous Leadership from the Brazilian Amazon, waits for the arrival of Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit, on Nov. 17, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.(AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Lines in the sand need redrawing for countries to reach climate deal

As international climate talks in the Egyptian desert go into their final days, negotiators are trying to move key countries’ lines in the sand on multiple issues, including compensation for climate disasters, phasing down all fossil fuel use and additional financial help for poor nations.

News, Politics | November 17th 2022

Attendees walk at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit at sunset on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

US, China climate envoys to 'meet later' for discussions at UN summit

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry indicated on Tuesday, November 15, 2022, he'll be in talks with his Chinese counterpart at annual United Nations climate talks underway in Egypt, in the latest sign of improving relations between the world's top two polluters after a meeting between the two nations' leaders Monday.

News, Politics | November 15th 2022

Why do small degrees of warming matter? (AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

Why small degrees of warming matter

On a thermometer, a tenth of a degree seems tiny, barely noticeable. But small changes in average temperature can reverberate in a global climate to turn into big disasters as weather gets wilder and more extreme in a warmer world.

News | October 19th 2022

People navigate through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rains, in Nasirabad, a district of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, on Aug. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Zahid Hussain, File)

Global heating just one factor that worsened Pakistan floods

Climate change likely juiced rainfall by up to 50% late last month in two southern Pakistan provinces, but global warming wasn’t the biggest cause of the country’s catastrophic flooding that has killed more than 1,500 people, a new scientific analysis finds.

News | September 16th 2022

Tekosha Seals, a tourist visiting from Georgia, walks with a tower over her head at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, Sept. 6, 2022, during a heat wave. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

Prescient extreme weather warning was issued 10 years ago

The 594-page report’s 20-page summary highlighted five case studies of climate risks from worsening extreme weather that scientists said will be more of a problem and how governments could deal with them.

News | September 13th 2022

Pakistani men receive food, distributed by Pakistani Army troops in a flood-hit area in Rajanpur, district of Punjab, Pakistan, on Aug. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Asim Tanveer, File)

Pakistan fatal flooding has familiar hallmark of climate change

The familiar ingredients of a warming world were in place: searing temperatures, hotter air holding more moisture, extreme weather getting wilder, melting glaciers, people living in harm’s way, and poverty. They combined in vulnerable Pakistan to create unrelenting rain and deadly flooding.

News | August 30th 2022

People rest in the shade of a tree on a hot afternoon in Lucknow in the central Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on April 28, 2022. AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh

Brutal heat waves predicted to hit three times more often in future

In much of Earth's wealthy mid-latitudes, spiking temperatures and humidity that feel like 39.4 C or higher — now an occasional summer shock — statistically should happen 20 to 50 times a year by mid-century, a new study warns.

Race to a Safer World

News | August 25th 2022

Wind turbines work in Livermore, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, File)

New US climate law expected to reduce warming

Massive incentives for clean energy in the U.S. law signed on Tuesday, August 16, 2022, by President Joe Biden should reduce future global warming “not a lot, but not insignificantly either,” according to a climate scientist who led an independent analysis of the package.

News, US News | August 17th 2022

Wind turbines work in Livermore, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

New climate bill pushes U.S. toward cheap, clean energy

After decades of inaction in the face of escalating natural disasters and sustained global warming, Congress hopes to make clean energy so cheap in all aspects of life that it’s nearly irresistible. The House is poised to pass a transformative bill on Friday, August 12, 2022, that would provide the most spending to fight climate change by any one nation ever in a single push.

News, US News, Politics | August 12th 2022