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Election 2024: What's at Stake for the Climate

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Emma Merchant

Emma Foehringer Merchant

Contributor

Emma Foehringer Merchant is a journalist who has covered environmental issues ranging from disasters to wonky energy regulations to air pollution. She’s reported on the environment and energy for publications including The Boston Globe Magazine, The New Republic, Vice News, and Grist. Most recently, Emma covered clean energy as a staff writer for Greentech Media and helped alums of that organization form a new publication called Canary Media. She’s attending MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing and holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental analysis from Pomona College, where she lived through a California drought while studying how climate change is impacting the state’s environment and people.

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Sonia Sanchez, a notary in Buttonwillow, California, has helped organize local opposition to a proposed carbon storage project in Kern County. Credit: Joshua Yeager/KVPR

Proposals to Build California’s First Carbon Storage Facilities Face a Key Test

By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Inside Climate News and Joshua Yeager, KVPR

An aerial view of the MCE Solar One community solar farm in Richmond, Calif. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

California Regulators Approve Community Solar Decision Opposed by Solar Advocates

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

A Shell gas station sign displays high prices on Sept. 17, 2023 in Los Angeles. Credit: Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Potential Changes to Alternate-Fuel Standards Could Hike Gas Prices in California. Critics See a ‘Regressive Tax’ on Low-Income Communities

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

In McKittrick, California, high power electrical transmission lines reach over the mountains from the solar farms in California City to the Central Valley. Credit: George Rose/Getty Images

California Votes to Consider Health and Environment in Future Energy Planning

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

Wind turbines and solar panels merge in the desert of Mojave, Calif. Credit: Visions of America/Joe Sohm/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Community Opposition and Grid Challenges Slow the Pace of Renewable Efforts, National Survey of Developers Shows

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

Oil pumpjacks dot the landscape on the outskirts of Taft, Kern County, California. Credit: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

California’s Oil Country Hopes Carbon Management Will Provide Jobs. It May Be Disappointed

By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Joshua Yeager

An oil pumpjack in Kern County, California. Credit: Harika Maddala

California’s Oil Country Faces an ‘Existential’ Threat. Kern County Is Betting on the Carbon Removal Industry to Save It

By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Inside Climate News, and Joshua Yeager, KVPR

A San Joaquin Valley dairy farm is viewed from above on April 13, 2023, in Visalia, Calif. Credit: George Rose/Getty Images

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

An aerial view shows the aftermath of flooding in the Pajaro Valley of Monterey County as atmospheric river storms hit California in March 2023. Credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

In California, Farmers Test a Method to Sink More Water into Underground Stores

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

Scott Hensen, vice president of floor planning for KB Home, points to a battery display panel on a SunPower SunValut storage system inside the garage of a model home during a tour of KB Home microgrid communities in Menifee on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. Credit: Watchara Phomicinda/MediaNews Group/The Press-Enterprise via Getty Images

Study: Microgrids Could Reduce California Power Shutoffs—to a Point

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

A residential grid-tied solar array in installed on a hillside in Malibu, California. Credit: Citizen of the Planet/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.

Noting a Mountain of Delays, California Lawmakers Advance Bills Designed to Speed Grid Connections

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

Long Island Power Authority power lines along Motor Lane in Bethpage, New York on March 8, 2019. Credit: Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty Images

States Test an Unusual Idea: Tying Electric Utilities’ Profit to Performance

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

Two solar workers install solar panels on home in Oak View, Southern California. Credit: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Environmental Groups File Court Challenge on California Rooftop Solar Policy

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

High power electrical transmission lines seen on April 22, 2023, near McKittrick, California. Credit: George Rose/Getty Images

Frustrated by Outdated Grids, Consumers Are Lobbying for Control of Their Electricity

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

A woman and her children cross the street at the intersection of Fruitvale Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard in the Dimond District of Oakland, California, on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. Credit: Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images

As Extreme Fires Multiply, California Scientists Zero In on How Smoke Affects Pregnancy and Children

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

Sunrun installers place solar panels on the roof of a home in Granada Hills, California. Credit: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

California Denies Bid from Home Solar Company to Sell Power as a ‘Micro-Utility’

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

In Mammoth Lakes, California, snow covers roofs next to snowbanks in March piled up from new and past storms in the Sierra Nevada mountains, in the wake of an atmospheric river event. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images.

California Snowpack May Hold Record Amount of Water, With Significant Flooding Possible

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

Westlands Solar Park, near the town of Lemoore in the San Joaquin Valley of California, is the largest solar power plant in the United States and could become one of the largest in the world. Credit: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

In California’s Central Valley, the Plan to Build More Solar Faces a Familiar Constraint: The Need for More Power Lines

By Emma Foehringer Merchant

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