The New York Times reports that President Trump has signed an executive order that withdraws the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, established by Treaty in 1992. This treaty, which includes every other nation on Earth and was signed by President George H.W. Bush and ratified unanimously by the U.S. Senate, provides the legal foundation for the 2015 Paris Agreement. The United States also withdrew from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as a host of other major international environmental organizations (International Renewable Energy Association, the International Solar Alliance and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, among others). This action has been criticized around the world, including being called ‟a finger in the eye to the billions of people, including Americans, suffering through intensifying wildfires, storms and droughts.” One climate scientist notes that this is a blow to America’s scientific credibility as ‟it sends the message that the U.S. is not interested in having evidence-based policy.” Grist examines the debate about whether a President actually has the legal authority to withdraw the U.S. from a Senate-ratified treaty.

The Guardian reports on the global outrage and disappointment in this decision. The UN’s climate chief and executive secretary of the UNFCCC, described the move as a “colossal own goal” as it will harm the U.S. economy and make the U.S. less secure. “This is a shortsighted, embarrassing and foolish decision,” said Gina McCarthy, a top climate adviser to the Biden White House and a former EPA Administrator. The Executive Director of the Sierra Club stated it well: ‟On the one-year anniversary of the wildfires that stole dozens of lives, thousands of homes and the sense of safety for millions as it reduced Los Angeles communities to ash, Trump is making it clear he has no interest in protecting Americans from the rapidly increasing impacts on our health and safety of the worsening climate crisis. This is not leadership. It is cowardice.” The U.S. will also be withdrawing from ‟the Carbon Free Energy Compact, the United Nations University, the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the Pan-American Institute for Geography and History, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies and the International Lead and Zinc Study Group.”

USA Today reports on the Trump Administration’s absurd decision to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO. This institution has played a key role in climate research for 60 years, but the Trump Administration is now calling it ‟one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” An op-ed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists describes this decision as ‟short-sighted, ignorant and dangerous.” Noting that NCAR researchers are an integral part of the global brain trust for climate and weather, the action indicates that ‟The Trump administration’s world view is that the United States doesn’t need a climate science brain trust because it doesn’t like what the brains say.”

The Atlantic calls this “meteorological malpractice,” and notes that NCAR ‟now employs more than 800 researchers and makes its facilities available to thousands more each year.” Bill McKibben puts it well: ‟This is stupid — it’s like closing the fire department because it’s a source of ‘fire alarmism’ — but it’s by now an entirely recognizable form of stupid. And it’s also sly: it’s like spray-painting over the surveillance cameras so you can rob the bank without anyone watching. But of course nothing changes with the underlying physics.”

For coastal cities, flooding from sea level rise can be exacerbated by high tides, storm surge and rainfall. This phenomenon, known as compound flooding, was on display in early January in coastal California. The New York Times describes how rainfall combined with the highest tides of the year to flood highways, airports and coastal neighborhoods. ‟Los Angeles had already recorded nearly 13 inches of rain since Oct. 1 — more than three times the amount it would normally receive in that period — and the latest storm was expected to add at least another inch.” The San Francisco Chronicle reviews the flood damage in Marin County. The Santa Barbara airport closed on January 3 due to flooding.

The Trump Administration has once again forced a coal-fired power plant to stay open against the wishes of the stakeholders involved. Inside Climate News describes how the Department of Energy announced “an emergency due to a shortage of electricity” in the state of Washington, and required the operation of a power plant in Centralia, Washington, for another 90 days. ‟The shutdown had been in the works for 15 years and was mandated by state law. It required the Canadian energy company that owns the power plant, TransAlta, to retrain workers and ease the local community’s economic transition.” A joint statement by Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, along with the state’s attorney general and ecology director, stated: ‟Let’s be clear: there’s no emergency here” and explains that ‟the power plant is days away from completing its shutdown — a milestone the company and the state have been working toward since 2011. The workers have moved on. There’s no coal left to burn.”

New Orleans City Business reports some promising news, that ‟First Solar Inc. inaugurated its new $1.1 billion manufacturing facility in Iberia Parish, marking a major expansion of U.S.-based solar production. The plant, which employs more than 700 workers and is expected to reach 826 by year-end, is forecast to add 3.5 gigawatts (GW) of annual production and boost the parish’s GDP by 4.4% in its first full year of operation at capacity.”

Reuters reports that the developer of Sunrise Wind, one of the offshore-wind projects under attack from the Trump Administration, has sued the federal government to prevent its December 22 decision to suspend the company’s lease from taking effect. The project is 45% complete and was scheduled to start generating electricity this fall. The government was also sued again by the developers of Revolution Wind, who had already won a decision that the government’s previous attempt to stop work on the project was ‟arbitrary and capricious.” The New York Times takes a closer look at the impacts of Trump’s war on offshore wind, including anonymous interviews with a number of the individuals involved.

Just as I was finishing this writing, The New York Times reported that a federal judge ruled against the government, allowing Revolution Wind to continue construction because the government’s latest action is, once again, ‟arbitrary and capricious.” The article notes that ‟Revolution Wind is roughly 87 percent complete, with 58 of 65 wind turbines installed. It was scheduled to be fully operational by the second half of this year, delivering power to more than 350,000 homes and businesses in Connecticut and Rhode Island by year’s end.” The developer of the project is responding to the ruling by working quickly to complete the final seven turbines and start generating electricity.

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