The last three years (2023-2025) were the hottest years in recorded human history. The Washington Post puts those years in recent context to note that the rate of warming has been rising on the planet: ‟For about 40 years — from 1970 to 2010 — global warming proceeded at a fairly steady rate. As humans continued to pump massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world warmed at about 0.19 degrees Celsius per decade, or around 0.34 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, that rate began to shift. The warming rate ticked up a notch. Temperatures over the past decade have increased by close to 0.27 degrees C per decade — about a 42 percent increase. Those data — combined with the last few years of record heat — have convinced many researchers that the world is seeing a decisive shift in how temperatures are rising. The last 11 years have been the warmest years on record; according to an analysis by Berkeley Earth, if we assume a constant rate of warming since the 1970s, the last three years have a less than 1-in-100 chance of occurring solely due to natural variability.”

Ironically, one likely reason for the acceleration is pollution controls on sulfur, which form sunlight-reflecting aerosols in the atmosphere. In addition, countries are shifting from fossil fuels to renewables, and these two factors have reduced global sulfur-dioxide emissions by about 40% since the mid-2000s. But natural variability and aerosol decreases cannot explain completely the recent acceleration in temperatures. A recent paper ‟found that the planet’s low-lying cloud cover had decreased — and because low-lying clouds tend to reflect the sun’s rays, that decrease warmed the planet.”

The Trump Administration is responding to this reality with cowardice and short-sighted profiteering, presented with self-righteous bombast. The New York Times reports that Trump’s EPA has rescinded the endangerment finding, made pursuant to the Clean Air Act in 2009, which concludes that greenhouse gases are pollutants that threaten public health and welfare. Rescinding the endangerment finding will end the EPA’s ability to regulate car fleets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The Trump Administration claims that this will lower the price of new vehicles, but provides few details of how this is supposed to happen. A professor at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, notes that ‟It’s hard to find any math in their assessment that doesn’t seem, frankly, a little bit ridiculous.”

The New York Times describes how the EPA did not actually challenge the scientific rationale for the endangerment finding, but instead resorted to legal arguments (the legal details are discussed in many places, including the latest episode of the Shift Key podcast). This way they abandoned reliance on a recent Department of Energy report that downplayed the threat of climate change, a report that is riddled with errors. A well-respected analyst noted that the EPA is in essence concluding that ‟no one sector of an economy in the United States, like transportation, does enough by itself to deal with this massive problem. So we have no authority to do anything at all. That’s absurd.”

Trump’s efforts to reverse the endangerment finding likely abandoned the DOE report because a federal judge ruled that the Department of Energy ‟violated the law when Secretary Chris Wright handpicked five researchers who reject the scientific consensus on climate change to work in secret on a sweeping government report on global warming.” The New York Times describes the ruling, which resulted from a lawsuit by Environmental Defense and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) that claimed violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The Act does ‟not allow agencies to recruit or rely on secret groups for the purposes of policymaking.” A statement from the UCS includes the history of this lawsuit.

The New York Times reviews what has been accomplished (or not) 10 years after the Paris Climate Accord. Every signatory of the Accord remains committed to its goals, except the United States. Among other accomplishments, emissions are not rising as fast as they were, although none of the major emitters have reached their reduction targets. And while solar power is growing much faster than previously projected, and EVs are now widespread, the last 10 years have been the hottest on record. Forests are absorbing less carbon from the atmosphere, and coral reefs are bleaching much more frequently. Grist examines the implications of the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accord, as ‟many countries have begun reorganizing their diplomatic and economic relationships in ways that no longer assume American leadership.”

There is no doubt that sea level will continue to rise well into the next century, or longer if we do not stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. What we don’t know is how fast this rise will occur. One way to learn about that is to study rates of ice loss in the past. The Washington Post reports on the results of a recent project to study the rocks under the Greenland Ice Sheet, as scientific measurements can determine how long ago the rocks were exposed to sunlight (getting these samples in such forbidding conditions is very difficult; scientists actually have more samples of rocks from the moon). While researchers were hoping these measurements would show that the ice sheet had covered the rocks for over 100,000 years, they determined that the rocks at their drilling site were exposed to sunlight only 7,100 years ago. This suggests that ice loss in Greenland can occur quickly in response to changing conditions, which means sea level could rise faster than we would like.

The San Francisco Chronicle describes the implications of sea level rise for the wealthy enclave of Stinson Beach, which has one access road that is vulnerable to the rising ocean. The cost to raise the roads in the area is estimated to be $53 million, and it’s not clear who will pay. Billions of dollars of real-estate value is threatened, and homeowners in the region are claiming that the County of Marin will be liable if nothing is done. This caused one analyst to note that the value of the threatened real estate could bankrupt the County if it were to be found liable for losses.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration is ordering coal-fired power plants to stay open because of an ‟emergency.” The New York Times reports that ‟on the ground, however, efforts to halt coal retirements are already causing complications. Two of the coal units that the Energy Department ordered to stay online in December are broken, and it’s unclear when they might be repaired. Some plants that were ordered to keep running had already shuttered their coal mines and stopped maintaining old equipment. Now, utilities and operators are straining to revive them. The costs of extending coal-burning plants are significant, and federal and state regulators are embroiled in disputes over who will ultimately pay.” For example, Consumers Energy in Michigan spent $164 million from May to September to keep a coal plant running, but it generated only $84 million in revenue. ‟Consumers Energy has proposed that the costs be shared by ratepayers in multiple states in the Midwestern regional grid, rather than paid for by its customers alone. But other groups have challenged this proposal.” One analysis suggests that forcing coal plants to stay open over the next three years could cost at least $3 billion per year. Canary Media reports that two utilities in Colorado have filed suit against the government, challenging the forced operation of coal-fired power plants that were scheduled for closure.

To further demonstrate that the President is earning his new nickname from Jimmy Kimmel, ‟Fat King Coal,” Trump signed an executive order requiring the Department of Defense to purchase electricity from coal-fired power plants. A Washington Post editorial observes that ‟There is perhaps no greater sign of the coal industry’s decline than the Trump administration’s demand this week that the Pentagon purchase more energy generated by the fossil fuel. If powering military bases with coal-fired plants was the best option, no edict from the government would be necessary.”

Grist notes that ‟The combination of federal intervention and rising energy demand may have stalled coal’s decline, at least for the moment. Consumption increased 13 percent last year, reversing a long downward slide and causing a bump in domestic carbon emissions.” Many analysts doubt that Trump’s actions can prevent the long-term decline of the industry. As one states: ‟When you have to get the government to step in to put its thumb on the scale in order to help your industry, it’s a sign that you’re not particularly competitive, right?”

Canary Media reports that, with the recent actions of a federal judge, all five of the major offshore-wind projects sabotaged by the Trump Administration have now been authorized to resume construction. ‟The December order had cited ambiguous national security concerns in halting construction of Sunrise Wind and the other offshore wind farms. But Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found this justification insufficient after reviewing the classified report detailing those threats. He granted project developer Ørsted a preliminary injunction that allows work to proceed as the complaint moves through the legal system.” While this wind plant can go forward, the Trump Administration’s assault on the industry has been successful, as ‟only a fraction of what was once planned for the next decade is likely to get built.” Meanwhile, ‟10 European nations banded together to announce a plan to install 100 gigawatts of offshore wind in the North Sea. The agreement was motivated in part by Europe’s desire to forge its own path on energy as it grows less comfortable with relying on natural gas imports from an increasingly erratic and hostile United States.”

Grist describes how Trump’s senseless war against offshore wind has not only caused massive cost overruns and virtually destroyed this industry in the U.S., but it has opened a major hole in future electricity supplies for New England. This region is counting on offshore wind, as it is ‟too cloudy to allow for large-scale solar farms, and other base-load power sources like nuclear will be hard to site, given population density and local opposition.” Offshore wind was also the cornerstone of plans for the decarbonization of the grid in the Northeast. Experts also say that, with federal support, wind could be both the easiest-to-build and the most reliable power source for New England. ‟Furthermore, the region’s winter power needs will increase as more homes switch away from heating oil and begin to use electric heat pumps instead. Offshore wind turbines also fare much better in cold weather than power plants fueled by natural gas and oil.”

Extreme weather continues around the world. Reuters reports on Storm Kristen, which ‟killed at least three people and left over 800,000 residents of central and northern Portugal without electricity on Wednesday, as it toppled trees, damaged homes, and disrupted road and rail traffic before moving inland to Spain.” The Washington Post notes that, in the mountains of southwestern Spain, Grazalema ‟has recorded over 90 inches of rain so far this year, including 78 inches in just the last 20 days alone.” This is more than the historic annual average rainfall for this region.

PV Magazine reports that China has fully commissioned a 1 GW offshore solar array. The plant is located in relatively shallow waters (1 – 4 m) where solar panels cover 1,223 hectares supported by pilings driven into the ocean floor. Total investment is reported at about $1.2 billion. The array will generate a vast amount of clean energy – and it has a fish farm underneath it.

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