Just to keep things in perspective, the AP reports that the increase in the global average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was the largest one-year rise since measurements began in 1957. Despite the great acceleration in the adoption of renewable energy, CO2 concentrations increased by 3.5 ppm from 2023 to 2024. Ominously, there was relatively little change in fossil-fuel emissions, with scientists attributing the increasing CO2 to wildfire emissions and a slowing of CO2 uptake by ecosystems. The Earth may have reached a tipping point where rising temperatures will cause CO2 emissions to accelerate despite human efforts to constrain them.

Carbon Brief reviews nine potential climate tipping points. The Guardian describes a new assessment which finds that a global tipping point has been passed for coral reefs. Without a reduction in the average temperature of the planet, the authors conclude that tropical coral reefs will die out. While 80% of the coral reefs on the planet are showing signs of damage from heat stress, some analysts think reefs will be more resilient than the new report suggests.

Reuters notes that a recent report from McKinsey suggesting that fossil fuels will continue to supply over half of our electricity in mid-century as demand outstrips supply from renewable sources. This projection is driven by a 17-25% growth in electrical demand from data centers.

The New York Times reports that, as the EPA moves ahead to eliminate the endangerment finding using tortured scientific and policy arguments, ‟carmakers, electric utilities and even the oil and gas industry have asked the E.P.A. to tread carefully.” These industries are concerned that the EPA’s proposed action will clear the way for states to establish their own rules, invigorate scientifically-based lawsuits against fossil-fuel companies by environmental groups and strengthen suits from municipalities seeking damages due to past emissions. This will produce more uncertainty for businesses, complicating (and slowing) capital investment plans. An op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle notes that the Trump Administration is undertaking ‟a deliberate effort to replace evidence-based policy with politically driven narratives.” This is eroding the global scientific leadership the U.S. has enjoyed, while ‟China, Singapore, South Korea, and, increasingly, Hong Kong, are building world-class institutions that attract global talent.”

The New York Times reports that the Trump Administration plans to “relax a Biden-era rule that requires grocery stores, air-conditioning companies, semiconductor plants and others to sharply and rapidly reduce some powerful greenhouse gases used in cooling equipment.” These chemicals, HFCs, ‟are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet,” and phasing them out would prevent almost half a degree centigrade of warming by the end of the century. The vice-president of public affairs at the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute pushed back on Trump’s plan, noting that the industry opposed the proposal as it had ‟already retooled production and built supply chains around the current schedule.” The Food Industry Association, however, supports the change, calling the previous compliance schedule ‟unreasonable.”

Adding to the chronicles of anti-scientific moves by the EPA, the Times reports that the EPA has also proposed to ‟stop requiring thousands of polluting facilities to report the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases that they release into the air. The E.P.A. proposal would end requirements for thousands of coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities across the country. The government has been collecting this data since 2010 and it is a key tool to track carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that are driving climate change.” EPA Administrator Zeldin said that ‟The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape.” The Trump Administration requested that NASA decommission two satellites that measure greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Right, no data, no problem…

Hurricane Melissa intensified into the fifth-strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean as it bore down on Jamaica. The New York Times noted that The National Hurricane Center’s latest forecast warned people in the hurricane’s path that this is the “last chance to protect your life.” At the time of this writing, over half a million people were without power in Jamaica, where Melissa came ashore as the most powerful hurricane since record-keeping began in 1851. Washington Post meteorologist Matthew Cappucci describes his flight with hurricane hunters into the heart of Hurricane Melissa. An op-ed in The New York Times by a former NOAA meteorologist states that ‟western Jamaica experienced something near to the worst tropical cyclone impacts our planet can produce.”

Meanwhile, Bill McKibben summarizes how Chinese renewable technology and China’s accompanying international investment is taking over the globe (last year, China invested $72 billion in green manufacturing outside its borders, equivalent to about 40% of China’s total foreign direct investment). He notes that Secretary of the Interior Burgum stated in Europe that ‟We need to worry about the humans that are on the planet today. The real existential threat right now is not one degree of climate change.” McKibben thinks that this statement ‟explains the problem with America in a single sentence. We only care about now — the president has an attention span of three minutes, and corporate executives can’t see past the next quarter. Whereas the Chinese are clearly thinking many decades into the future, which they plan to own.”

The New York Times describes a new study that confirms ‟catastrophic wildfires with both high economic costs and loss of human life are, indeed, happening more often, and that those fires are strongly linked to climate change. The past decade in particular has seen a significant uptick in costly, deadly fires.” The article notes that this trend was not in evidence 10 years ago, when a similar study was conducted, and this demonstrates that climate change continues to accelerate. As one fire scientist noted, ‟This is proof that things are getting worse. We need to adapt to live with fire. This is our reality, and it’s not going anywhere.”

The Guardian examines how Boston, one of the U.S. cities most vulnerable to sea level rise, is building resilience to this threat. Due to extensive subsidence, sea level is rising very fast in the coastal parts of Boston. The article notes that, despite the denialism from Trump and Republicans, American society is becoming increasingly aware of the threat. In Boston, “there is not a developer worth their salt that can attract a tenant by ignoring coastal resilience. It just can’t happen, regardless of government policy. Any major tenant who’s going to be occupying a building in the downtown, or in the Seaport, who’s being asked to sign a 10-year lease, is saying, ‘All right: and how are you prepared for Boston’s changing climate?’ It is now a market-driven force.”

RealClimate describes the faulty reasoning underlying a new paper that claims sea level rise is not accelerating. This is just the latest example of a regular occurrence in climate science, where one faulty paper published in an obscure journal is quickly vaulted into prominence by climate deniers and their collaborators on the Internet. This injects uncertainty into the public discussion, and by the time the actual scientists have documented the errors in the new paper and published rebuttals, the debate has moved on.

Politico visits Iowa, where Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks is facing a tough re-election bid, and her vote for Trump’s energy policy that damages the wind industry could drag down her campaign. Iowa gets more of its electricity from wind than any other state, ‟and more than 50 companies are part of its wind industry, which has drawn $22 billion in total investments in the past three decades. Despite Trump’s and (Energy Secretary) Wright’s claims that wind power makes electricity more expensive and unreliable, Iowa’s power costs are among the lowest in the nation and its grid is among the most stable… Wind farms are the top taxpayer in a third of Iowa counties, contributing up to 55 percent of property taxes, and they provide $91.4 million in annual lease payments to farmers.”

Anthropocene Magazine describes new research, which uses ‟natural compounds that they extract from tea leaves to regenerate lithium-ion battery electrode materials.” Polyphenols taken from tea could be much more efficient and economical than the traditional metallurgical techniques used for battery recycling. The Magazine also reports on another area of research that ‟found a way to recover toxic arsenic from groundwater and repurpose it into a valuable material for solar cells, closing the loop on a global pollution problem.”

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