Faraday announces $1 billion electric-car factory, Texans rent their roofs for solar power, Paris accord boosts clean-energy stocks, and more news of the week in clean energy solutions 

"If the world were a bank," a French labor leader said in exasperation during the Paris climate negotiations, "it would have been rescued by now!" In this telebriefing, four Northwest climate action leaders share unfiltered ringside observations on the negotiations' final stages. With KC Golden, labor leader Jeff Johnson, clean tech business leader Tim Miller, and Portland sustainability manager Michael Armstrong.

The Paris Agreement sets the stage for the immediate future of coordinated, international climate action. Much of the actual progress will depend on local and regional action; every Northwest oil terminal abandoned, ton of coal left in ground, and solar panel installed, fuels the ambition of the U.S., Canada, and therefore countries around the world to meet and exceed our carbon-reduction goals. 

Today in Portland, five west coast mayors announced aggressive commitments to aggressive action on both climate change and equity. The announcement comes directly after a Paris gathering of international mayors talking climate change; it also closely follows the groundbreaking climate resolutions passed last month in Portland. Here's the story of how those resolutions came to be.

Is the US Senate really preparing to eliminate the ban on crude oil export – threatening our communities and setting back our fight against climate change? And are they really doing so on the same week as the Paris climate conference?

Civil-society climate justice advocates and vulnerable nations may be succeeding in their push for a more aggressive target for limiting global warming. This development shows a shift in power towards the priorities of a massive global climate movement–and it's the news from Paris, as much as the climate agreement text itself.

Global climate pollution bends downward, negotiators lean toward a 1.5˚C warming goal, Financial Standards Board to require that firms disclose their carbon risk, and more news of the week in clean energy solutions.

Cities (or "sub-nationals," in international climate negotiations-speak) are at the vanguard of where real climate solutions are being implemented around the world. That will remain true in the years ahead, no matter how ambitious an agreement emerges from the COP21 climate talks in Paris this month--local and state governments will be shouldering much of the load of creative carbon emissions reduction, of energy efficiency improvements, and of access to renewable energy.

Billionaires unite to boost clean energy R&D, deal in the works to extend federal credits for solar and wind, US public opinion backs climate pact, and more news of the week in clean energy solutions.