Looking ahead, April shows continued above normal risks in the Southeast and the Southwestern United States.

Climate-change driven heat, drought drive risk

Across much of the country, March brought above-normal temperatures—including an alarming, record-breaking early heatwave in the western US (and other parts of the country)—virtually impossible without climate change. Drought has also spread, with a third of the country now in severe or extreme drought. As of the end of March, 60 percent of the country was in some stage of drought. And precipitation was also below normal in many parts of the country, including “snow drought” conditions in the West. In addition, the March heatwave triggered a much earlier melt-off of snowpack—in some cases as much as 4 to 6 weeks earlier than the previously recorded earliest melt-off dates, according to the latest wildland fire outlook. Reductions in snowpack have been linked to more severe wildfire, while earlier snowmelt increases the timeframe for large wildfire activity by allowing vegetation to dry out for longer periods.

Together, these hotter, drier conditions bear the classic fingerprints of climate change, and they’re setting up dangerous risks for wildfires later this year, moving westward as the season progresses. These background conditions mean that, should a fire break out due to lightning or human ignition sources, the chances of it growing in intensity and size are much greater.

Multi-year risk factors are also critical to monitor. For example, the latest Fuels and Fire Behavior Advisory for the Central and Southern Great Plains shows that above-normal rainfall in 2025 led to vegetation growth that has now turned exceptionally dry with the rainfall deficit and drought in the first part of 2026. These exceptional grass loads are volatile tinder for this year’s wildfire season. According to the report, “Oklahoma Forestry Services reported extreme fire behavior and high resistance to control as a grassland fire spread to junipers on the Cedar Canyon Fire in late March, and similar conditions have been reported elsewhere in the region.” Similarly, the report for the Northern and Central Great Plains notes that: “Historically dry fuels are leading to extreme rates of fire spread and fire behavior not typically seen in March.“

By July, much of the western US—including northern California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado Idaho, and Utah—will experience high fire risk, along with the south-central US, barring major rainfall events that can help blunt risks.

Climate change is one major part of the picture. Other factors—such as the proximity of wildfires to communities, homes and critical infrastructure—can raise the risks and harms to people’s safety, health, livelihoods, local economies and critical ecosystems.

A wildfire-driven insurance crisis

Worsening wildfire seasons are also contributing to a growing challenge in the property insurance market, especially in California. Many residents in wildfire-prone areas—and even in areas with lower risk—can no longer find affordable insurance on the open market. Insurance companies have been raising rates, dropping policies, and even retreating from risk-prone areas.

An increasing number of homeowners have been forced to purchase “last resort” policies from California’s state FAIR plan, one indicator of the problem. These bare-bones policies provide limited, expensive coverage—and the premiums vary widely by zip code. Data show that the number of policies in force under the California FAIR plan has risen 146% between 2022 and the end of 2025. The FAIR plan, which is under financial strain, is now seeking to raise its rates and is asking for a 35.8% average rate hike this spring.

The insurance market is in a precarious state and, were California to experience another costly fire season, things could get even more dire for homeowners. Despite all of this, insurance companies are continuing to insure fossil fuel projects and infrastructure—which are the underlying cause of the climate crisis! As UCS research shows, major fossil fuel producers bear a huge responsibility for the emissions that are fueling worsening western wildfire seasons—and it’s only fair that they should pay for their share of the impacts and costs.

Policy responses (or lack thereof)

Even as the nation faces another potentially dangerous fire season, the US Forest Service (USFS)—which plays a major role in managing wildland fires—is undergoing a chaotic and disruptive reorganization by the Trump administration. Separately, last year, President Trump issued an executive order directing a consolidation of federal firefighting resources across the Department of the Interior and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA, within which USFS sits) and other changes to limit and respond to wildfires. The DOI has published a plan to establish a joint US Wildland Fire Service.

While consolidation could have benefits, there are good reasons to be skeptical about the Trump administration’s approach and actual intentions. For example, a recent report from the USDA Office of the Inspector General shows that the USFS lost 16% of its staff (5,860 employees) since the end of 2024—which is largely due to Trump administration actions. And among the moves announced last week is a closure of research stations that study wildfire risk. Without robust science, staffing, expertise, and resources, as well as fair pay for wildland firefighters, the job of tackling worsening wildfire seasons will be much harder—and that could put people in greater danger.

All these changes are happening against a backdrop of a broadside assault by the Trump administration against federal agencies. Staff and budget cuts, dismantling of programs that serve the public, and politicization of disaster aid have been an ongoing challenge with this administration. All while spreading disinformation about climate science. Moreover, the administration is gutting climate and clean energy policies that could help curtail the heat-trapping emissions driving climate change and help communities build resilience to climate-fueled disasters.

Congress must ensure that crucial public priorities—including support for the science, staffing and resources needed to understand and address the growing threats and impacts of wildfires—are robustly funded in the next appropriations cycle. Investments in community resilience and risk mitigation measures to protect against wildfires, as well as for the management and protection of healthy forest ecosystems, are also vital.

At the same time, policymakers and regulators at the state and federal level must seriously grapple with the spiraling insurance crisis which is also contributing to the housing affordability crisis affecting millions of people. Data transparency and better oversight and regulation of the insurance market are urgently needed to better understand where, why and by how much insurers are raising rates (and if they are using discriminatory metrics like people’s credit scores to do so). Consumers need regulators and policymakers to help ensure they are treated fairly, especially in their worst moments after disaster strikes.

Catastrophic wildfires are now a reality for all too many communities. As a nation, we have to do much more to help people prepare, withstand and recover from these fires, while also sharply cutting the heat-trapping emissions that are burning up our world.

The second Trump administration is taking its hostility to climate science to new levels. In addition to its rhetoric dismissing climate change as a con or scam, recently released government documents show how the administration is seeking to replace scientific facts with propaganda and disinformation.

The Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists recently won a court case against the administration which forced it to release of a trove of government documents related to a secretive “Climate Working Group” illegally convened by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. These documents show that the Trump administration secretly enlisted a handpicked group of climate contrarians to write a biased climate report specifically designed to undermine the EPA’s Endangerment Finding. This science-based finding establishes the known harms to human health and well-being from global warming pollution, facts that were clear in 2009 and even more so today, as affirmed by a recent National Academies report.

The EPA finalized the rule overturning the Endangerment Finding last month. Although the EPA claimed not to rely on the enormously flawed Climate Working Group report, key aspects of the final action continue to reflect a serious and unlawful disregard of foundational science. The recently released documents also reveal that the administration discussed enlisting those same climate contrarians to produce the next National Climate Assessment.

These actions are not just attacks on science; they also put people across the nation in danger. As the deadly and costly impacts of climate change worsen, we need policymakers to rely on the best available science to help inform policies to limit climate change and protect communities. The Trump administration is instead intent on boosting fossil fuels and trying to corrupt scientific evidence to justify their actions.

Last August, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists filed a case against the Trump administration for violating the Federal Advisory Committee Act by forming the Climate Working Group in secret and keeping its work hidden from the public.

The Act was passed in 1972, in the wake of inappropriate industry influence on government, and has a clear and important goal: When presidents or federal agencies rely on external experts to provide policy recommendations, they must do so in an open and transparent manner to protect against undue influence that is not in the public interest. The law’s provisions include ensuring that federal advisory committees have balanced membership in terms of viewpoints, that they establish a formal charter for their work, that all their meetings are open to the public, and that any materials related to their work be made publicly available.

The Climate Working Group violated this law in several ways: It was formed in secret and was neither open nor transparent. And the members of the group—John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Koonin, Ross McKitrick, and Roy Spencer—are all known climate contrarians with fringe views on climate science, so it was hardly a balanced committee.

On January 30, Judge William G. Young of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a ruling that found the Trump administration had indeed violated the law. The Trump administration did not even contest that it violated the law (although it did disband the working group after the lawsuit was filed and tried unsuccessfully to claim the lawsuit was moot). The court’s judgment states that the “violations are now established as a matter of law” with regard to the Energy Department, Secretary Wright, and the Climate Working Group pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

The judge also ordered the government to release all its documents related to the formation of the Climate Working Group and its work. The Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists have now released all 100,000+ documents in full to the public. Unfortunately, the debunked and illegally drafted Climate Working Group report remains available on government websites which risks its continued use to inform policymaking, a grave disservice to the public interest.

One major new revelation in the documents is the Trump administration’s explicit effort to subvert the process of drafting a credible, transparent, scientifically-sound National Climate Assessment. Emails show that the members of the Climate Working Group were being drafted into a process to critique the Fifth National Climate Assessment and come up with a proposal to “reform” the NCA process. Throughout these documents, it is clear that the intent is to weaken and misrepresent the latest science, and interfere with trusted, credible scientific processes, in an attempt to erode the factual basis for taking action to address climate change.

The National Climate Assessment, overseen by the US Global Change Research Program, is a Congressionally mandated climate science report that has been regularly produced across multiple US administrations since 2000. It is a requirement set in law by the 1990 Global Change Research Act, which established the interagency US Global Change Research Program and calls for a periodic report that “analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity.” It is not a policy-prescriptive document. The information in these assessments is crucial for state and local governments, communities, and private sector decisionmakers, among others, who must contend with climate risks and rely on this science to make decisions.

The most recent report, NCA5, was released in 2023. It was prepared by hundreds of scientific experts, relying on thousands of research articles, and underwent a rigorous, multi-step peer review process. It was reviewed by multiple federal agency scientists and the National Academies, as well as opened for public comment, in line with the process for previous assessments. Yet, in these recently released documents, government officials and Climate Working Group members make baseless, cherry-picked attacks against it and seek to overemphasize uncertainties as a means to deny the realities of climate change and its impact on people and the economy.

Last April, the Trump administration disbanded the author team for the Sixth National Climate Assessment and fired the Global Change Research Program staff. It also took down the program’s website, along with all the previous NCAs. It has yet to announce how it intends to comply with the law, but in these government records we see ominous signs of yet another effort to rig the science. In one email exchange last May, Travis Fisher, a Department of Energy political appointee who acted as a liaison between the administration and the Climate Working Group members, writes: “Finally, start thinking about whether you want to be involved in the next NCA. If I had to bet on it, I’d say each of you will be asked to help, if not join, the USGCRP and contribute to NCA 6.”

Calling on the same climate contrarians to work on the National Climate Assessment will only lead to equally poor outcomes as the Climate Working Group report, which was roundly rejected by scientists for being rife with inaccuracies, cherry-picking data, misrepresenting scientific findings, and echoing the long-standing disinformation tactics of the fossil fuel industry.

Propaganda and disinformation about climate science are now the official position of the US government. Meanwhile, scientists confirm that the world is on the verge of overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming within the next few years. Costly and deadly climate impacts—extreme heatwaves, record-breaking floods, intensified storms, catastrophic wildfires—are worsening, and the risks of irreversible, multi-century harms are growing. And yet this deeply anti-science administration continues to prop up fossil fuel interests rather than protecting people’s safety and the health of the planet.

The successful Federal Advisory Committee Act lawsuit has resulted in some crucial wins, including shining a light on the Trump administration’s deceptive tactics to undermine climate science. And the administration’s harmful actions will continue to be challenged in court. The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund, together with many other groups, have recently joined a lawsuit challenging the unlawful repeal of the endangerment finding. Try as it might, this administration cannot bury the evidence of climate harms so readily apparent to communities across the nation. The American people deserve genuine solutions to the climate crisis, not more self-serving lies.

Fair warning, this blogpost covers some pretty grim ground. But stick with me, please. Documenting the harms and injustices perpetuated by this administration now, as they occur, ensures we bear witness and that the hard work that made prior progress possible is not erased. Let’s make sure we don’t forget the important details as we fight to build a better, brighter future beyond this dark time.  A healthier, safer, and more equitable future is ours to create, as UCS President Gretchen Goldman says. 

Annus horribilis for people in the United States

From Day One, it was clear that this deeply anti-science administration was intent on blatantly furthering a fossil fuel agenda—people’s health and welfare be damned. President Trump has assembled around him an extremely unqualified, obsequious cabinet and set of advisors, most of whom have no dedication to the public interest and are instead devoted to doing his every bidding.

This increasingly authoritarian regime has operated with impunity to tear up climate and clean energy policies, lie about the scientific realities of climate change and the facts on renewable energy, and ram through measures to boost fossil fuels and the profits of polluters. They have attacked the federal scientific enterprise built up over decades through taxpayer investments, fired or forced out agency experts, and cut funding for critical science. And a compliant Congress has enabled this destructive agenda, including by rubberstamping some of the President’s illegal actions and by failing to exercise its constitutional powers to check his tyrannical power grabs. The passage of the OBBBA, with its multiple provisions directly aimed at undermining clean energy—including wind, solar, batteries, grid infrastructure, and energy efficiency—at the  President’s behest was a particularly egregious example of this.

The Sabin Center’s Climate Backtracker shows that, as of January 14, 2026, the Trump administration has taken nearly 300 actions to scale back or halt climate and clean energy progress. UCS’s six-month report on the Trump administration summarized many of the attacks on science and democracy as of July 2025. Many of these actions were previewed in the Project 2025 manifesto, but the magnitude of the harms, and the speed and intensity of the attacks, are shocking, and the impacts have been mounting.

Early destructive actions were taken by DOGE, spearheaded by Elon Musk, taking a hatchet to federal agencies tasked with protecting the public interest and advancing science and innovation. Subsequently,  Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025, has taken a personal and vicious role in many of these attacks (see here and here, for example).

And unfortunately, the full weight of the impacts on people and our economy are only going to become clearer this year, as words and cuts are translated into lived realities for communities across the country. At the same time, many of the administration’s unlawful actions are being challenged in court, and it has lost many of these cases, putting some brakes on some of its worst excesses.

Before diving further into details, it’s important to note two key themes: The Trump administration’s destructive actions are a direct threat to our health, our economic well-being, and to our nation’s ability to build a thriving, fair, innovative economy. These actions demonstrate an utterly corrupt government hell-bent on prioritizing the interests of polluters and billionaires over the needs of ordinary people.

While far from exhaustive, here are some of the major assaults on climate and clean energy from the Trump administration that we’ve seen in the last year:

1. Attacking agencies and organizations engaged in life-saving climate science research, data collection and monitoring

This has included threats to dismantle NOAA and NSF-NCAR; disbanding the author team for the sixth National Climate Assessment; taking down the US Global Change Research Program’s website, which includes all previous National Climate Assessments; and halting US federal scientists’ engagement with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). NOAA, the nation’s foremost climate science agency, has faced reckless firing of staff, budget cuts, and slashed resources for climate research, satellite programs, data, and modeling.

Under Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s watch, the agency’s weather forecasting and climate monitoring capabilities are being undermined and many National Weather Service offices have been dangerously understaffed—undercutting critical resources that communities, first responders, farmers, mariners, businesses, and local decisionmakers rely on to protect lives, infrastructure, and economic activity. It’s crucial that the forthcoming Congressional appropriations process rejects the Trump administration’s budget proposals and restores healthy funding levels for federal science agencies.

2. Clawing back renewable energy funding and attacking clean energy projects

The administration has illegally frozen and clawed back billions in funding for climate and cutting-edge clean energy investments, including Department of Energy (DOE) grants and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. These actions have been challenged in court, and just this week a court has ruled that the Trump administration’s cancellation of some grants based on which states grantees are in violates the law.

DOE Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly attacked clean energy, rolled back energy efficiency standards, overseen mass staff cuts at the agency, and renamed the world-renowned National Renewable Energy Laboratory to strike “renewable energy” from its name.

In addition to the major harms to clean energy inflicted by the OBBBA, the administration has also repeatedly and arbitrarily intervened in the leasing and permitting of a huge range of renewable energy projects, including pausing offshore wind, onshore wind, and solar projects. Wind and solar developers have just sued the Department of the Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers for “pursuing a concerted and illegal strategy to choke the ability of private developers’ ability to build new and much-needed energy generation projects.” Numerous attacks have been lobbed at offshore wind projects—including projects that were nearly completed—most recently by citing bogus “national security” considerations. The administration just suffered a major setback in a case brought by Revolution Wind, a project of Ørsted, a Danish offshore wind developer. These attacks on renewable energy have been accompanied by a raft of disinformation spouted by the President and his administration, contrary to the facts about the tremendous economic and health benefits of renewable energy, including solar and wind.

3. Gutting pollution standards and boosting fossil fuels

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin has launched an all-out assault on regulations, guidance, and scientific research aimed at protecting public health and the environment.  This has included weakening, rescinding, or delaying EPA regulations to limit heat-trapping pollution from power plants, vehicles and the oil and gas industry, as well as giving exemptions to polluters causing toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources.

The agency is also in the final stages of a process to overturn the science-based Endangerment Finding, a bedrock legal determination establishing the health-harming impacts of heat-trapping emissions. And in a major departure from precedent and long-standing best practice, EPA is also moving away from quantifying the public health impacts— including lives lost or saved—associated with agency rulemakings, debuting this egregious practice in a just-released rule for NOx pollution standards for new gas turbines. This alarming action is a complete capitulation to polluter interests and upends the agency’s mission to protect public health and the environment.

They’ve also taken unprecedented steps to cut the public out of the process of weighing in by eliminating the customary notice-and-comment period for regulations they arbitrarily designate ‘unlawful,’ and a sweeping executive order essentially allows agencies to wipe off whatever regulations they want to—as well as enforcement of those regulations in the time between.

The administration has also launched multiple direct attempts to boost coal, oil, and gas use under the guise of a spurious “national energy emergency.” DOE Secretary Chris Wright and Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum—both with deep fossil fuel industry ties—have aggressively embraced the president’s fossil fuel agenda. Burgum’s actions have included expanding oil and gas leases on public lands, rescinding requirements for environmental impact statements, and fast-tracking permits for fossil fuel energy, all while repeatedly interfering to stop deployment of renewables. The administration’s latest shocking move in this vein is its imperial and illegal grab for Venezuelan oil.

4. Attacking FEMA’s disaster response capabilities and investments in climate resilience

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has overseen the firing and forcing out of more than 20 percent of FEMA’s staff already, with further steep cuts to FEMA’s “Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees” (CORE) expected imminently. At various points last year, Secretary Noem and President Trump went as far as calling for FEMA’s abolition! The agency has faced unending turmoil and dysfunction, with a series of unqualified acting chiefs quitting or being fired only to be replaced by yet another poor choice. This chaos led to major gaps in responding to disasters like the Texas flash flood last year. As the GAO points out, staffing shortages at FEMA have serious consequences for the agency’s ability to do its job to help communities hit by disasters.

The Trump administration also illegally cancelled FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program grants for states, which a coalition of twenty states took the administration to court over, and recently won their lawsuit. The Trump administration has taken actions that will leave communities less prepared and more at risk from worsening climate impacts, including rescinding the science-informed federal flood risk management standard, disbanding expert advisory councils, and politicizing and delaying disaster aid for states. My colleague Shana Udvardy has been carefully tracking the attacks on FEMA, including the recent last-minute cancellation of a recent FEMA Review Council meeting where they were supposed to release a report with recommendations, which has been under threat of interference from Secretary Noem.

5. Taking down or altering climate-related websites and datasets

This includes taking down the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) website and all the previous National Climate Assessments; taking down climate.gov, a free public portal for essential information on climate science and impacts (some of the information is now being curated at climate.us); removing climate science information from the EPA website; proposing to discontinue the GHG Reporting Program and datasets (like NOAA’s billion-dollar weather and climate-related disasters dataset, and its snow and ice data products); and failing to release the EPA’s Annual GHG Inventory for the United States (which the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) successfully retrieved via a FOIA filing).

6. Lying about the facts on climate science

The most egregious example of this is the sham DOE “climate” report, which weaponized disinformation and uncertainty to downplay the risks of climate change and was invoked by EPA as part of its motivation for proposing to overturn the Endangerment Finding. This mirrors a classic strategy of employing disinformation and deception long practiced by the fossil fuel industry, now dangerously being adopted by the US government.

The Environmental Defense Fund and UCS have filed a lawsuit against the administration citing its violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in the secret, illegal preparation of this report by five handpicked climate contrarians forming the Climate Working Group (CWG). The court has held that the CWG was an advisory committee subject to FACA and had ordered the administration to release all records related to its work. Other examples of this strategy include zeroing out the social cost of carbon (widely used as a measure of the monetary costs of climate damages caused by an additional ton of carbon emissions), directly ignoring the steep and mounting costs of climate change driven by fossil fuel emissions.

7. Withdrawing from international climate agreements and organizations

The most notable examples include withdrawing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Paris Agreement. The administration also single-handedly prevented the adoption of a major global agreement on reducing emissions from shipping, negotiated in the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Over 100 nations were on the verge of signing, but using bullying tactics—including direct threats to other nations—the administration succeeded in blocking and delaying this agreement.

Together, these actions underscore that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people’s well-being and destabilize global cooperation. But forward-looking US states and the rest of the world recognize that devastating and costly climate impacts are mounting rapidly, and collective global action remains the only viable path to secure a livable future for our children and grandchildren. Withdrawal from global climate agreements and venues will only serve to further isolate the United States and diminish its standing in the world following a spate of deplorable actions that have already sent our nation’s credibility plummeting, jeopardized ties with some of our closest historical allies, and made the world far more unsafe.

As important as these individual attacks are, it’s crucial to also see the administration’s destructive strategy: They are trying to bury the evidence on climate change to advance a pro-fossil fuel agenda that delivers huge profits for a select few while the rest of us suffer the health and economic costs. And we can’t let them because the stakes are too high, for people today and for future generations. The stakes are especially dire for communities that have long been marginalized and discriminated against, those that bear the brunt of health-harming pollution and climate impacts and lack access to affordable clean energy and climate-resilient homes, here in the United States and around the world.

Looking back and fighting for a brighter future

Why look back on such a painful year? Because it’s a way to acknowledge and honor the people who were directly and harshly affected by the actions of this administration, including federal government scientists and frontline communities. Because remembering our shared history is how we build solidarity for the inevitable fights ahead. Because adversity teaches lessons. Because I believe the seeds of the destruction of this administration’s ill-conceived policies lie in their cruel overreach. Because we can take courage and inspiration from all the ways people across the nation showed up for our democracy, for science, for their communities.

This year has also brought extraordinary efforts to expose and fight back against the worst excesses of this unhinged administration. UCS has fought alongside many others by taking the Trump administration to court; advocating with members of Congress to stand up to the administration; filing technical comments with agencies; shining a light on the latest climate science and facts about clean energy; galvanizing the scientific community to get organized, join sign-on letters and call their elected representatives; uplifting the work of environmental justice experts; securing wins in states; joining nationwide demonstrations; and using our voice loudly in every venue we can to speak truth to power. 

And as we face down another tough year under the anti-science, authoritarian Trump administration, we’re fired up to keep up the fight for science and for our democracy. We hope you’ll join us—because despite it all, that future is ours to build.

On this day, I am reminding myself of the feeling of incredible relief and hope that I and so many others had back in 2015. I am remembering the tears of joy on many of our faces when the gavel came down on the Paris Agreement. Despite stiff political obstacles from the “big powers,” because of the moral courage of small island nations and unrelenting pressure from civil society climate justice advocates, 190+ countries agreed to a strong framework to work together to tackle the climate crisis.  

But even then, we weren’t naïve about what it would take to actually implement this hard-won agreement. We knew we would have to fight back at home in every country to get the policies and investments that would make the Paris agreement’s goals come alive. We knew the malign opposition we would face from well-funded fossil fuel interests.  

What lessons have we learned in the last decade and how can we use them to inform what comes next? Here are some that I see as critical: 

1. Solving a huge global problem like climate change requires cooperation from countries. Zero-sum competitive thinking and harmful trade wars directly undermine cooperation, pit one country’s clean transition against the other, and will set back climate progress. Instead, countries must work together in a fair way to rapidly deploy cheap renewable energy everywhere, bringing down people’s energy costs, cutting health-harming pollution, and closing the energy poverty gap for millions who don’t have access to modern forms of energy today.  
2. Tackling climate change requires rapidly scaling up clean technologies and practices AND simultaneously phasing out fossil fuels. Both/and. Cheap renewable energy is already expanding rapidly across the world, and we have to accelerate that momentum. But there is no credible pathway of meeting climate goals without also advancing a fast, fair transition away from fossil fuels.   
3. Climate change is inherently a problem of equity and justice. Richer nations have already consumed the lion’s share of the rapidly dwindling carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5°C or even 2°C. Their emissions are primarily responsible for the catastrophic climate impacts being experienced today. Taking responsibility for their role in creating the climate crisis is essential to advancing just solutions to address it.
4. The most important climate solution that gets the least attention: climate finance from wealthier nations for lower income countries to cut their emissions, adapt to climate change and cope with climate loss and damage. Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement is clear on this: Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention. Yet, year after year, richer countries continue to evade this responsibility and force inequitable outcomes.  
5. We must accelerate climate progress in every venue we can and at all scales—from the local to the national and international—and that includes seeking justice in the courts. 
6. Let’s be appropriately skeptical of the lure of magic bullet solutions, the siren song of the latest new tech “fix” that keeps us still hooked on polluting fossil fuels. If we’re serious about solving a problem, we have to address its root causes.  

I’m sometimes asked if the current dire reality of the climate crisis proves that the Paris Agreement has failed. No, I don’t think so at all. The Paris agreement—and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty under which it was negotiated—has all the ingredients needed to address climate change. And every country, but one, that signed the agreement is still committed to it, as we saw recently at COP30 in Belém, Brazil.  

Many forward-leaning businesses too have embraced the economic opportunity created by a clean energy transition, and global investments in clean energy have surged tremendously over the last ten years. 

The monumental failure here is that world leaders, especially those from richer countries, have reneged on the promises they made under the Paris Agreement. They have allowed fossil fuel interests to continue to dictate the world’s energy policies. They have ignored their obligations to poorer, less well-resourced countries. And they may have given lip service to science and the importance of the 1.5°C target, but they are actively undermining it in practice by continuing to expand fossil fuel production.  

Where we go from here depends on our ability to hold our political leaders and the fossil fuel industry accountable. It depends on whether we will heed the blaring alarms from climate science, the terrifying climate impacts we are beginning to unleash on the world, some of which are multi-century, irreversible harms. It depends on our recognition that the climate crisis on our doorstep is magnified and much worse for those with the fewest resources around the world.  

Protecting people from the ravages of climate change is crucial, and that includes guaranteeing human rights protections for those forced to be on the move for their safety. It depends on us embracing a simple daring truth: the world will be unquestionably better off without burning fossil fuels. How can we get to that bright future as quickly as possible?  

Every agreement, every promise is only as good as the word of those who make it. If we, the nations of the world, fail to keep our word, the Paris Agreement won’t save us. But if we are bold enough and brave enough to make those words we pledged in the Paris agreement a reality, the future we leave the world’s children can still be a good one.  

Going into COP30, the Leader’s Summit and the opening plenary set a tone of urgency and constructive engagement. In a powerful speech President Lula called this “the COP of truth.” UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell urged countries to take bold action together because “While climate disasters decimate the lives of millions, when we already have the solutions, this will never, ever be forgiven.” 

So where do things stand at COP30? Here are some of the key issues I’m watching:

1. No fight over the COP30 agenda, but will that harmony last? COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago deftly managed to avoid a fight over the COP agenda, which could have stalled proceedings straight out of the gate. Nations had requested additions to the provisional agenda, a common occurrence at COPs. Instead, he moved those issues into parallel consultations on four key topics. An initial stocktake plenary on Wednesday ended in less that 5 minutes, with the President indicating that negotiators need more time to make progress. Another stocktake plenary is slated for Saturday. This one will be a critical check on whether countries are actually able to close gaps and are moving toward areas of agreement. Pressure is building for some breakthroughs, otherwise the agenda fight may not have been avoided but rather punted further into the COP proceedings.
   
2. How will the ambition gap in NDCs be addressed? Coming into COP30, multiple reports—including the NDC Synthesis Report and the UNEP Emissions Gap Report—showed that countries’ collective emission reduction commitments were well short of what’s necessary to meet the Paris Agreement goals. This COP must deliver an outcome that clearly recognizes that shortfall and creates an actionable process for countries, on a voluntary basis (as always, under the Paris Agreement), to revisit and revise their NDCs rather than waiting another five years for greater ambition. The world is on track to breach 1.5°C by the early 2030s—there is no time to waste.
   
3. Will there be a strong agreement on adaptation at COP30? Adaptation is one of the burning issues for climate-vulnerable, low-income countries that has long received short shift at the annual climate talks. As extreme climate impacts worsen, they are taking an especially harsh toll in places where people have fewer resources to begin with, setting back economic growth and poverty alleviation efforts. Funding for adaptation has been significantly lagging, as the recent Adaptation Gap report showed. We need a clear outcome on the Global Goal on Adaptation that doesn’t just address metrics, but also provides a tangible path forward on closing the adaptation finance gap. For many countries in the Global South, this will be the key issue to unlock progress in other areas of the negotiations.
   
4. Will there be a just transition package that includes a fast, fair fossil fuel phaseout? The Brazilian government has proposed a road map for a fossil fuel phaseout, which now has the support of over 60 countries. Colombia, which has signed on to the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, has also put forward a declaration on a fossil fuel phaseout. These efforts are well aligned and complementary, with the overall frame of “a just transition away from fossil fuels” gathering momentum here at COP30. A fast, fair fossil fuel phaseout is a crucial component of what it will take to close the NDC ambition gap.
   
   It will require finance for developing countries to accelerate access to affordable clean energy, assistance for workers currently dependent on fossil fuels, and support for communities suffering from fossil fuel pollution. Getting these details right is very important, as the Belem Action Mechanism describes—because how we make this transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy will determine whether the transition is going to serve the needs of people, or whether this is, once more, going to be controlled by the fossil fuel industry as they try to extract as much profit as they can on the way out. Of course, securing an ambitious outcome will mean standing up to fossil fuel interests that are attending these COPs in ever larger numbers.
   
5. How will the long-festering climate finance issue be addressed? Last year’s COP29 at Baku, which was focused on finance, ended on a sour note with an appallingly low finance figure agreed. Earlier this month, the COP Presidencies of Azerbaijan and Brazil released the Baku to Belem Roadmap outlining a path to meet a climate finance goal of at least $1.3 trillion by 2035. This week, the Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance—which has supported the finance negotiations since 2021—delivered its 4^th report on climate finance, focused on pathways to deliver on that roadmap. This funding would come from a mix of domestic sources, public finance (from multilateral, bilateral and concessional sources of funding), and private finance.
   
   The funding is needed for a clean energy transition; adaptation and resilience measures; loss and damage; conserving forests, oceans and biodiversity; and for a just transition away from fossil fuels in developing countries. Of course, it will take concerted commitments and actions from countries, multilateral development banks and private sector actors to deliver on this necessary scale of funding. However, richer nations have repeatedly shirked their responsibilities despite being the primary contributors to global warming emissions. Pivoting to a primary dependence on uncertain private sector funds or loans leaves lower income nations exposed to further economic risks and debts, rather than delivering the climate justice they deserve. Will countries take forward concrete proposals and ideas to enhance the delivery of high-quality finance—or will they fall short again, which would further erode trust between developed and developing countries?
   
6. The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) launches call for proposals. Earlier this week, the FRLD launched its first-ever call for proposals for funding requests to address loss and damage, a welcome and long-awaited step in operationalizing the Fund. The recent devastating climate-change-fueled typhoons and hurricanes harming people in the Philippines, Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti are just the latest examples underscoring the critical need for rapidly increasing this funding in a fair and transparent way. Breaching 1.5°C has enormous consequences for climate Loss and Damage, as poorer nations on the frontlines of the climate crisis endure a steepening toll resulting primarily from richer nations’ failure to adequately curtail their heat-trapping emissions. The initial $250 million in funds currently available are nowhere near enough, and countries most responsible for the climate crisis must lead the scaling up of funding for loss and damage.
   
7. Will the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), launched at COP30, be a success? This is a key initiative championed by Brazil though. funding support for it has been underwhelming thus far. And it remains to be seen if the TFFF can be structured in a way that delivers durable protections for tropical forests and biodiversity while prioritizing the rights of Indigenous people who live in these forests and have long defended them.

More sobering data on global CO₂ emissions

At COP30, scientists presented new data from the Global Carbon Project released yesterday, which shows global carbon emissions continuing to rise, hitting a record high in 2025. According to the report, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations will hit 425.7 ppm in 2025, which is 52% above pre-industrial levels. The most sobering data are related to the rapidly dwindling remaining carbon budget—the amount of carbon emissions the world can still emit to stay below specific temperature thresholds. According to the Global Carbon Project: The remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5°C , 1.7°C and 2°C is 170 GtCO₂, 525 GtCO₂, and 1055 GtCO₂ respectively, equivalent to 4, 12 and 25 years from 2026. A total of 2770 GtCO₂ has been emitted since 1850.

Source: IPCC AR6 WG1; Forster et al., 2023; Friedlingstein et al 2025; Global Carbon Project 2025

The United States is still here, even if the White House is missing in action

The Trump administration did not send an official delegation to COP30, the first time this has happened for the United States. No surprise, given the administration’s deep hostility toward climate science, clean energy policies and multilateral diplomacy. And frankly, their presence here would just have been destructive anyway—so perhaps better not to have them here.

In contrast, it has been incredibly heartening to see California Governor Newsom, US Senator Whitehouse, and many more representatives from US states, cities, Tribal nations, educational institutions, and businesses here at COP30, showing the world that many people in the US are still very committed to climate action. These forward-looking leaders know that addressing climate change is in our nation’s self-interest, in addition to being in the collective global interest. People in the US too are feeling the pain of the rapidly worsening climate crisis and are eager to reap the health and economic benefits of a clean energy transition. As these subnational efforts gather momentum, it’ll be important to remember that the US also has a responsibility to meet its climate finance commitments to lower income nations, even as it pursues efforts at home.

Looking ahead to week two

Negotiations on Saturday, including the plenary stocktake, will be key barometers of progress as negotiators head into week two and country ministers arrive in Brazil. We should soon start to see the outlines of a ‘COP package,’ if all goes well (and that’s always a big ‘if’ at this stage of COP). Later next week, we will also hear whether COP31 will be held in Australia or Turkey (or some other wild card country?) Both nations are vying for the chance to host next year’s COP.

On Saturday, there will also be a huge Global Day of Action for Climate Justice with a massive march here in the streets of Belém and in cities around the world. Public pressure and calls to action from people protesting in the streets are vital to remind negotiators of the high stakes for the world for this COP to deliver an ambitious outcome!

Stay tuned for more from our team participating in COP30!

Many of the issues are perennial, and they will surface in specific ways at this COP—billed as an ‘implementation’ COP meant to focus on climate actions that need to be taken now not just vague promises of future commitments.

In a previous blogpost, I highlighted some things to watch at this COP, including how countries plan to step up ambition on their emissions reduction commitments, aka nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and the need to simultaneously advance adaptation measures. I also called attention to whether trust can be rebuilt over richer nations’ grossly insufficient climate finance for lower income countries. Of course, the influence of fossil fuel interests that swarm COP is a major threat to ambitious outcomes here.

At the heart of global climate agreements is the recognition that we cannot solve this problem solely as individual countries, regardless of how big or small, but we can succeed if we tackle it together by each doing our fair part.

Synergies between global and domestic climate action

COP can feel remote and arcane, but what’s agreed to here can boost clean energy and climate efforts at home—and what countries do through domestic policies and investments significantly affects the level of ambition at COP. At COP and at home, those actions must include efforts to expand access to cheap, clean, renewable electricity while phasing out polluting fossil fuels; opportunities to protect communities from climate impacts already baked in; and signals to decision makers across the global economy about aligning innovation and investments with climate and human development goals.

Acting together by boosting renewable energy and transitioning away from fossil fuels, we can bend the global emissions curve meaningfully and limit the rise in global average temperatures. At the same time, the emissions building up in the atmosphere come primarily from richer nations—although other major emitters like China are playing a growing role—and are unleashing costly and deadly impacts around the world already. Therefore, every country must also invest in protecting its people, economy and critical ecosystems from these worsening impacts, and richer nations have a responsibility to pay toward those efforts in lower-income nations.

The synergies between domestic policies and global climate ambition are crucial. When they work well, we get a multiplication of collective efforts. The Paris Agreement, secured 10 years ago, led to a crucial acceleration in clean energy deployment around the world and cuts in heat-trapping emissions.

Clean energy was already on the rise, and nations and businesses took the Paris Agreement as a guide to accelerate that momentum through domestic policies and investments. Collectively, that has helped bend the global emissions trajectory and reduce how much global average temperatures will rise over this century (albeit not by nearly enough as we are still on track to overshoot 1.5°C and even 2°C).

But when those synergies fray or break down, the impact can also be felt both at home and on the global stage. Right now, we are at one of those critical junctures, as the Trump administration tears up US clean energy policies and investments, disgracefully steps away from the Paris Agreement, and tries to undermine global climate action. At Belém, it will be crucial for the other 190+ nations to isolate the Trump administration in its deeply harmful actions and anti-science rhetoric and forge ahead to find an ambitious global consensus.

It’s in every nation’s self-interest to limit dangerous climate change and embrace the economic and public health benefits of a clean energy transition—and it’s in the global collective interest. The time for zero sum thinking and hiding behind other countries’ inaction is over as the planet teeters on the brink of overshooting 1.5°C of warming.

Why COP 30 Matters

COP is an opportunity to see the challenges in our daily lives mirrored in struggles around the world, and to seek common ground in addressing them in ways that prioritize regular people, not powerful political interests and the billionaire class. The massive global income inequities, that amplify the harms in the lowest income countries and communities, also come into focus here.  

As I prepare for COP, I’ve been reflecting on how extreme climate-fueled disasters are now a harsh reality for so many people across the United States and the world. The people still reeling from Hurricanes Helene and Milton have something life-altering in common with people in Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba recently hit by Hurricane Melissa.

Also, the people in the Philippines who have just endured Typhoon Kalmeigi and other cyclones this year, on the heels of a record-breaking 2024 cyclone season. Small island nations face looming existential threats from sea level rise that will be familiar to people in coastal Louisiana.

No one chooses to be on the frontlines of these disasters they did not cause, and everyone deserves support in getting back on their feet and being better protected from the next storm, or wildfire, or flood. Meanwhile, the UNEP Adaptation Gap report points out the huge shortfall in current funding for adaptation in lower income nations. This is an issue that will be front and center at this COP.

I’ve also been thinking about how people at home in the United States are struggling to afford their electricity bills, even as the Trump administration and the Republican-led Congress are decimating clean energy policies that would have helped drive down costs, and even as the costs of proliferating data centers are being passed on to all of us consumers.

Meanwhile, around the world millions of people don’t even have access to modern forms of energy and all too many depend on polluting fossil fuels that are taking a steep toll on their health. Massively ramping up renewable energy and energy efficiency (and the infrastructure to enable that)—solutions that are at our fingertips already and that are cheaper than fossil fuels in most cases—is unquestionably the commonsense path forward to tackling many of these challenges.

Being at COP is a fresh reminder that alleviating global poverty and improving people’s lives is directly and intrinsically connected to addressing climate change. Solutions to all these grave and pressing challenges can and should be aligned.

Misguided calls to pit these priorities against each other are puzzling, wrong and deeply harmful. Unchecked climate change will set back human development and already is in some places suffering from drought, extreme heat, intensified storms, and threats to water and food security. Investing in expanding access to renewable energy, drought-resistant crops, heat health protections for workers, universal healthcare, safe affordable housing, and a human rights-centered framework for people displaced by disasters are crucial both for people’s health and economic well-being, and for addressing worsening climate impacts.

Solving for problems simultaneously is the call of the hour, and it’s a no-brainer. What’s often standing in the way are entrenched interests who are making a lot of money off the current fossil fuel-based economy and are craven enough to weaponize the plight of people who live in poverty to keep the world chained to polluting fossil fuels.

Acting together is the antidote to delay, distractions and lies

Back in 1992, the world adopted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), here in Brazil, recognizing the science on climate change and the imperative to act together based on that science. It’s an almost miraculous global agreement that truly stands the test of time. Here is Article 2 from the UNFCCC, for example:

The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

Despite the clarity and urgency of scientific reports from the IPCC and others in the decades since then, governments have not adopted strong enough policies and the fossil fuel industry still holds far too much sway over the world’s energy choices.

That we are at this sobering moment in the climate fight can be cause for gloom. I am here alongside many smart, committed people—including leaders from US states, cities and businesses, and climate justice advocates from around the world—because the fight still matters. It matters more than ever. We know the causes of climate change, we know the solutions to address it—now let’s get our political leaders to adopt them, using every beneficial tool at our disposal.

COP is by no means the only venue for this fight—although it is an important one, as it’s the only place where every country, no matter how big or small, has a voice. Everyone has a role and place where they can engage in this fight for our future.

Here in the US that could be in your public utility commission proceedings, in state legislatures, through efforts to push back against EPA’s rollback of the Endangerment Finding, or through investments your business makes. It could be through art that provokes and engages more people. It could be through campaigns to save precious forest and coastal ecosystems. And it’s tremendously uplifting to know that like-minded people around the world are also fighting where they can for these same goals and aspirations.

As ever, this is a fight we can only win by acting together, from our backyards to the world.

Political headwinds—including the Trump administration’s attacks on climate science and clean energy policies in the United States—and the fossil fuel industry’s continued deception and obstruction are conspiring to make this a very fraught moment for climate action. Yet, with the mounting economic and human toll of climate disasters and the benefits of affordable, renewable energy so clear and urgent, there is still space for genuine progress and alignment at COP30—and world leaders must seize it!

The significance of a Brazilian COP

The significance of this COP taking place in Brazil, a COP that should forefront the rights of Indigenous communities and the protection of the Amazon forest, cannot be overstated. Across the world, frontline communities bearing a disproportionate toll of climate impacts need solutions that prioritize their needs—not the profits of big polluters and billionaires seeking to evade their responsibility for driving the climate crisis. Unfortunately, the complicated logistics and high accommodation costs for this COP are already creating concerns about inclusivity, especially for those with fewer resources.

The COP Presidency’s Global Mutirão is a bracing call to action. COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago and CEO Ana Toni have laid out a strong vision for a focus on implementation of actions to address climate change, not just a list of future aspirations. They have been engaged in diplomacy all year, bilaterally and multilaterally, to try to lay the groundwork for consensus at COP30 even in the face of geopolitical tensions.

My colleagues and I will be on the ground in Belém, shining a light on the latest science and what it means for decisionmakers, people, and the planet as we fight for climate justice alongside civil society representatives from Brazil and across the world. You can follow along with our blog series on COP30.  

Breaching 1.5°C of global warming is alarming, enraging, and heart-breaking

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ stark remarks on the 1.5°C climate goal, made at the 75^th anniversary of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) last week, hit hard: “…one thing is already clear: we will not be able to contain the global warming below 1.5 degrees in the next few years. The overshooting is now inevitable, which means that we are going to have a period, bigger or smaller, with higher or lower intensity, above 1.5 degrees in the years to come.”

Unfortunately, Secretary General Guterres has simply confirmed what several IPCC scientists, UCS scientists, and many others have been sounding the alarm about since the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report was released.

Ten years after securing the Paris Agreement, the fact that the world is now on the verge of exceeding 1.5°C of warming  on a long-term basis—after already surpassing it temporarily for a full year in 2024—was not inevitable. It is an absolutely enraging, shameful, and heart-breaking consequence of continued delays and obstruction of ambitious action. The fault lies entirely with gutless, self-interested political leaders—especially those from richer, high-emitting nations—and the fossil fuel industry, which has continued to brazenly and shamelessly prioritize its profits over the planet.

Breaching 1.5°C will undoubtedly unleash further damaging and irreversible climate harms on the world, but it is not a cliff edge. Climate impacts unfold and accelerate on a continuum, and even now, at about 1.3°C of global warming, we are— and have been—seeing profound harms to people and the planet.

Our response now—because humans still have agency over this dire problem we have caused—will make a crucial difference in the extent of the harms to come and what we can do to prepare for them. How much past 1.5°C temperatures overshoot, and how long that overshoot lasts, will depend crucially on our emissions choices. Those factors will make a tremendous difference for the magnitude of impacts like climate-driven extreme heat in the future. We must also ramp up our investments in resilience to help prepare people for graver threats as temperatures increase.

But some planetary boundaries, once crossed, can set off feedback loops in Earth systems that we will not be able to control. For example, some impacts, like the further irreversible loss of land-based ice can set off additional multi-century accelerating sea level rise beyond what is currently locked in, and that cannot be turned back once it gets going even if we manage to bring temperatures back down after overshooting 1.5°C.

The choices our political leaders make now—including at COP30—will determine the future we leave to our children and grandchildren. Those choices include prioritizing actions to:

• sharply curtail heat-trapping emissions, phase out fossil fuels and drive toward net negative heat-trapping emissions;
• invest in climate resilience;
• share the burdens and opportunities of climate action equitably;  
• secure justice for people on the frontlines of the climate crisis; and
• demand accountability for fossil fuel companies and others who have contributed the most to the climate crisis.

Source: UNFCCC

Latest science and data show climate action is far off track

Despite all the loud alarm bells, most indicators continue to show a world far off track. Data from a recent report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) show that global CO₂ emissions were at an all-time high in 2024, with the biggest increase from 2023 to 2024 since modern measurements began. In addition to emissions from burning fossil fuels, a strikingly anomalous factor in 2024 was the high levels of emissions from wildfires in North and South America, including in Bolivia, Brazil and Canada. Meanwhile, the Production Gap Report shows that nations’ fossil fuel production plans are on track to be twice as much in 2030 as would be consistent with a 1.5C pathway. And countries’ current emission reduction commitments (aka Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) are collectively well short of Paris Agreement-aligned goals.

The 2025 NDC Synthesis report and the forthcoming 2025 UNEP Emissions Gap report further underscore these realities and highlight the very real risk that without immediate action the world could be on track for a global average temperature increase of more than 2.5°C, even approaching 3°C above pre-industrial levels. A 3°C world would be catastrophic—with unrelenting extreme heatwaves, major coastal cities inundated by rising seas, food and water shortages, loss of coral reefs and die-back of tropical forests, harms to human health and other disastrous impacts. Meanwhile, the forthcoming 2025 Adaptation Gap report, themed ‘Running on Empty,’ will highlight the huge shortfall in investments in resilience to help frontline communities cope with climate impacts already locked in due to heat-trapping emissions primarily from richer nations.

Together, these reports form a dismal assessment of political leaders who are still not acting in line with what science or equity shows is necessary, despite years of high-minded promises and even as people are enduring crushing climate impacts.

Seven things to watch at COP30

While the context for COP30 is daunting, and the process of negotiations ahead is likely to be frustrating, global cooperation is absolutely essential to solve this challenge. There are no shortcuts around that. Every country must have a role, a responsibility, and a voice—no matter how big or small, or how powerful or not they are. That said, richer nations and major emitters of heat-trapping emissions have unique responsibilities to act boldly.

Here are seven things I’ll be watching for:

1. Will nations remain steadfast in their commitment to the Paris Agreement? At the UN climate summit in September in New York it was clear that nearly every nation recognizes the utmost importance of the Paris Agreement goals for their self-interest and the global collective interest to limit dangerous climate change. The Trump administration, which has shamefully announced its intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement for the second time, is an isolated rogue actor, acting against the interests of the American people. At COP30, will the BRICS nations, the European Union countries, and others step up to fill the leadership vacuum and drive forward ambitious climate action? Many US states, subnational governments, and businesses also remain committed and will be in Brazil to show the other face of the US.
2. How will countries’ emissions reduction commitments (aka NDCs) stack up collectively? So far, the NDC announcements have been a real mixed bag and collectively the announcements have fallen well short of what’s needed. The UN’s NDC Synthesis Report underscores the huge gap in ambition, with most major emitting countries still far off course in terms of their emissions trajectories, putting the world at risk of over 2.5C of warming. Many countries have yet to even announce their updated NDCs. Closing that ambition gap will require rapid implementation, transparent progress tracking, and stronger accountability mechanisms before 2030.
3. How much progress will be made on transitioning away from fossil fuels, tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency by 2030? Renewable energy progress—especially propelled by China and India, among others—is cause of optimism. Renewable energy is not just ramping up but actually displacing fossil fuels, and now that momentum must be accelerated. However, coal, oil, and gas are simply not being phased out fast enough, despite countries’ commitments to transition away from fossil fuels made at COP28.
4. Will there be any breakthroughs on climate finance?  Last year’s COP in Baku, billed as the climate finance COP, ended in deep disappointment and a breakdown of trust between richer nations and lower income nations because of the paltry finance pledges offered. This year, it will be critical to rebuild that trust, including sending a strong signal about a plan for provision of finance for both cutting emissions and for adaptation—the latter of which has long left behind and is an urgent priority for developing nations.
5. Will there be an ambitious, fair agreement on safeguarding tropical forest ecosystems? Fittingly, this Brazilian COP taking place in the Amazon must prioritize a strong agreement to help protect tropical forests, a crucial aspect of climate action, centering the needs and perspectives of the people and other species who live in and depend on them. Negotiations on the Tropical Forest Forever Facility will be keenly watched as a barometer of success at COP30.
6. Will COP outcomes be protected from interference from fossil fuel interests? Petrostates and increasingly large numbers of fossil fuel company lobbyists have worked behind the scenes and publicly to co-opt the UN COP space and water down global climate agreements that they see as a threat to their profits. Their lies and disinformation about climate science and renewable energy are a significant obstacle to progress and must be called out and resisted.
7. Will civil society voices, especially the voices of Indigenous Peoples, get a fair hearing?  While civil society representatives do not have a seat at the negotiating table, our voices as observer groups in the broader COP space are crucial to remind political leaders of who they are supposed to be serving (not fossil fuel executives and billionaires!) and that they must prioritize fairness and science in their deliberations. Through engagement with country negotiators, side events, press conferences and public demonstrations, we will work to register our views loudly and clearly.

What will it take for COP 30 to be successful?

The ten years since the world secured the historic Paris Agreement have been a time of both incredible progress in renewable energy and worsening climate impacts, illuminating who the real climate champions are and who are the obstacles. COP30’s success depends on whether countries can rise above narrow self-interest and recommit to ambitious action. It depends on whether a shifting world order can unlock progress and leadership from new quarters. It depends on isolating the Trump administration and resisting its anti-science rhetoric and actions, as well as its efforts to upend multi-lateral diplomacy to solve global challenges.

I am going to Brazil in sober mind frame, deeply worried about the increasingly authoritarian Trump administration. But much as the US is an outsize actor on the global stage, this international climate meeting with 190+ countries is also a reminder of the wider world and each country’s vital place in it. The 1.5°C goal is enshrined in the Paris Agreement because of the bravery of small island nations that carried the refrain of ‘1.5 to stay alive’ at COP21 in 2015. Vanuatu and a group of small island nations led a heroic effort to secure a landmark advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice this year, affirming states’ legal obligations to address climate change. Meanwhile, renewable energy is taking off around the world because it is now the cheapest form of electricity in most places. No country—not even the United States—can stop global climate action AND it will take a lot of countries acting together to tackle this problem at the scale and with the urgency required.

In Belém, I know I will find inspiration and courage from the global climate justice movement, from Indigenous Peoples who have stood firm to defend their lands and communities in the face of brutal attacks, and from passionate young people who are the planet’s future. I know I will come back reenergized for the right and necessary fight here at home.

But we can fight back, and we must. On October 18, millions of people across our country will come together in the streets for No Kings rallies to resist the rise of tyranny, to demonstrate our collective power, to show our love and care for each other, and to strive for the “more perfect union” we can build together. Please join if you are able to, and if you feel safe enough to.

Reckoning with the destruction and disorientation

Some of us have had the (dubious?) privilege of being steeped in the news, following every twist and turn of this administration’s destructive actions. It’s a daunting list. Attacks on public health; decimating climate and clean energy progress; boosting fossil fuels (and lying about climate science); creating (and then hiding) more food insecurity; rollbacks of pollution standards; jacking up tariffs that ultimately harm US consumers along with producers, farmers, and taxpayers; unlawful arrests and deportations of people; the installation of ruthless or inept federal agency heads; mass firings of dedicated scientists and staff at agencies; weaponizing the Department of Justice for personal and political vendettas; deploying National Guard troops in US cities under false pretenses and over the objection of local leaders; wresting away Congress’s constitutional power to make decisions about federal government spending; upending decades of multilateral cooperation… the list goes on and on.

For others, the pressures of daily life combined with the administration’s ”flood the zone” strategy have kept them from being able to focus on what, precisely, we are losing. It’s deliberately disorienting and designed to make one feel hopeless and helpless. And that’s why joining together in large numbers to speak up for democratic institutions and rights is an essential part of our path out of this dark time.

What keeps me up at night

My day job, my passion, is fighting for action to address the climate crisis.

I try to keep abreast of the latest science: what it’s showing about the climate impacts we face today. and how much worse they will get if we fail to sharply curtail heat-trapping emissions. I focus on the solutions we have at our fingertips, including renewable energy and climate resilience measures, and how we can get them quickly deployed everywhere. I keep my sights trained on who’s getting in the way (fossil fuel interests, people who reap profit or influence from the status quo). I’m also focused on how we can push forward policies that instead place people’s interests at the forefront, especially the people who live in communities polluted by fossil fuels, the people who live in places around the country and the world on the frontlines of climate disasters, and the people eager for affordable clean energy and all the benefits that it brings.

I thought I had enough to worry about already—certainly enough to keep me up at night, alarmed about where the world seems headed. And I know many people have more compelling and pressing things on their mind as they try to keep food on the table, pay their bills, and keep their kids safe. But what we face now as a nation is a greater, more urgent call to action.

Authoritarianism is here

Those of us living in the United States are undeniably facing the rise of an authoritarian regime. The radical overreach for unlimited presidential power that we now see unfolding puts at risk everything we care about in our constitutional democracy. History shows that allowing the administration’s actions to continue unimpeded will only lead to a further consolidation of its power without any guardrails, and a further erosion of our rights and our democracy.

Right now, we exist in a new dual state, where it seems life can continue as normal for some (maybe even most) of us while we watch the news about others being targeted by vindictive court cases, fired without cause from their jobs, or being violently deported without due process. Make no mistake: the administration and its enablers are coming for the people who are easiest to target first, and that’s reason enough to speak out. AND, all of us are at risk of being targeted eventually if the slide into authoritarianism continues.

I am no expert on authoritarianism. Like many of you, I am trying to stay on top of the news, read deeply, and learn from history. But I think we all know that what is happening is NOT normal. This is not about party politics or differences of opinion about policies or how to implement them. The level of cruelty, the scale of wanton destruction, the blatant violation of the Constitution and rule of law, the violence and grasp for power and money—it’s all well beyond the pale. It puts us all in danger.

Resisting together, we are not alone

These are dangerous times because it can feel like all our democratic institutions are fraying. All the checks and balances we took for granted are teetering. Facts are distorted beyond recognition and replaced by propaganda. People in our communities are being arrested, even disappeared, in violation of their rights.

We all have a role to play in what comes next. None of it is preordained.

Federal Judge William Young’s recent splendid defense (so worth reading!) of First Amendment free speech rights ends thus:

I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected. Is he correct?

It’s up to us to answer that with a resounding “No.”

We need all our democratic institutions to stand strong—Congress, the courts, the independent press. Pressure your lawmakers to stand up for people and not give in to the unlawful dictates of this administration. Ordinary people like you and me must show up and be willing to put the collective good above narrow partisan squabbles.

We need big, powerful US companies to do the same—to show that the long-term well-being of our country matters more than bending the knee to boost their quarterly corporate profits. Educational institutions must stand up to attempts to restrict their freedom and independence. Scientists must speak up for facts. Media outlets must refuse efforts to stifle independent journalism. This is what collective resistance to authoritarianism and the rise of tyranny looks like.

These are defining times. These are also frighteningly clarifying times. No one is coming to save us but ourselves. So, if you can, if you feel safe enough, please join a peaceful, powerful No Kings protest near you. UCS will be there too, putting our shoulder to efforts to save science and democracy, neither of which can thrive without the other.

Together, let’s reclaim the people’s rightful power in our democracy.

With the world in turmoil, latest developments in global climate diplomacy are hard to spot. But the urgency in the latest climate science is unmistakable, as is the evidence of costly and deadly climate impacts. Just this year, climate-fueled disasters have included devastating floods in Pakistan, catastrophic wildfires in Spain, and extreme heatwaves across Europe and the United States.

Next week world leaders will have an opportunity to demonstrate that they understand the seriousness of the climate crisis. Alongside the UN General Assembly (UNGA) meetings in New York City, the UN Secretary General will convene a high-level Climate Summit on September 24, and Climate Week will take place September 21-28. 

Can the gap between science and action be narrowed? What does it mean for the world if our leaders fail to rise to the challenge (again!)—and are there reasons for optimism even in these dark times? 

Scientists warn that there is a high likelihood that the world will breach the 1.5°C mark on a long-term basis within the next decade. We already crossed it for a full year in 2024. At the rate we are going, we could be on track for over 3°C of global average temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. That would be unacceptable, unforgivable. 

The next round of countries’ emission reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement—aka nationally determined contributions (NDCs)—are due this year before COP30. We need to see significantly higher ambition to have any chance of keeping 2°C within reach, let alone 1.5°C. And that will also require clear plans to transition away from fossil fuels, including sharp cuts within this decade.

Yet fossil fuel entities and their political allies continue to hold sway over countries’ energy policies and are showing up at the international climate talks in ever larger numbers to directly interfere with the outcomes. With climate impacts mounting, robust investments in climate adaptation are equally urgent.

The reasons for gloom are many and it’s important to be clear-eyed about them. Here in the United States, for example, an increasingly authoritarian and anti-science government is shredding clean energy and climate policies, stymying progress on emissions reductions, and pushing fossil fuels while invoking a fake “energy emergency.” 

True, there is no pathway to meeting global climate goals that doesn’t require serious action from the US. But glimmers of potential new ways forward are also there to see. And they’re all the more necessary and galvanizing because global climate action was already in trouble before the latest Trump administration came along. 

A multipolar world order is upon us, where a few rich and powerful nations such as the United States and the European Union countries will no longer be able to unilaterally dictate the terms on climate negotiations—or trade or security negotiations, for that matter. 

Actions that China takes, or that the BRICS nations take together, will be hugely consequential for the trajectory of the climate crisis. China’s ability to manufacture, quickly deploy, and export clean energy—as well as whether it turns down coal fast enough—will be a huge factor in the global clean energy transition. India’s impressive deployment of solar energy has helped it meet its 2030 target of 50% non-fossil electricity capacity five years early, although it will require significant investment to further accelerate that momentum. Brazil, the host of COP30, is urging countries to follow through on actual implementation of climate commitments, not just vague, empty promises to do something in the future.

For millions of people around the world, their livelihoods, their ability to escape poverty and their right to live in healthy, thriving communities are increasingly threatened by climate change, primarily caused by heat-trapping emissions from richer countries. This is no distant danger but a reality at their doorsteps today, that science shows will only get worse. 

Richer nations’ continued refusal to live up to their responsibilities on climate finance is a festering injustice that directly damages the trust and goodwill needed to reach and deliver on ambitious global agreements. This legacy of inaction in the face of facts and crises will not be forgotten. It’s no surprise that Global South communities and nations are turning to the courts to find justice.   

The headwinds to climate progress can’t be underestimated but the changing world order could unlock progress in unexpected ways. At the UN Climate Summit next week, we need to see world leaders step up with resolve to isolate bad actors and take meaningful actions toward the goals of the Paris Agreement. This time, explicitly with the aim of meeting the needs and aspirations of everyday people across the world, including the global majority—Black, Brown, and Indigenous people—rather than conceding the future of the planet to the dictates of the rich and powerful.

My colleagues and I submitted comments on the report, on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). And, together with the Environmental Defense Fund, UCS has also filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s secretive and biased process for drafting this report, which does not meet the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

Even more problematic, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is using this fatally flawed report as a basis for undoing the 2009 Endangerment Finding, a science-based finding establishing that heat-trapping emissions driving climate change are harmful to human health and well-being. That finding also sets EPA’s authority and obligation to regulate global warming pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources—which is why undermining it is so deeply harmful for efforts to address the climate crisis. 

Key points from UCS comments on DOE report

UCS’s comments made four key points:

• The DOE report perpetuates outright falsehoods. These include complete misrepresentations of Dr. Ben Santer’s climate fingerprinting research (full disclosure, Dr. Santer is a UCS Board member); incorrect citation of data related to sea ice to imply Arctic sea ice has declined by 5% since 1980, when in fact it has decreased by ~40%; and an incorrect statement that the area burned by wildfires in the U.S. has not increased since 2007 when in fact the 10-year average burn rate was approximately 5.86 million acres in 2007 and in 2024, it increased to about 7 million acres.
• The DOE report cherry-picks text, data, and studies that paint an incomplete picture. For example, the report selectively chooses five tidal gauges and vertical land motion measurements to suggest rising sea-levels in the US are only due to land-sinking, ignoring satellite altimetry observations that clearly show the acceleration of sea-level rise due to thermal expansion of oceans and the melting of land-based ice which are linked to climate change. These findings are clear from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC’s) Sixth assessment report and from the U.S. Fifth National Climate Assessment.
• The DOE report employs deceptive framing to downplay climate change harms. As one example of this: The report focuses on absolute numbers of heat vs. cold mortalities, despite risks from heat-related mortalities rapidly rising due to climate change, and the fact that adaptation measures like air-conditioning have clear limitations.
• The DOE report was drafted via an improper process. DOE Secretary Wright hand-picked five known climate contrarians to form a Climate Working Group (CWG) that convened secretly and without any public transparency of their work to draft a report that was designed to deliver a biased outcome. Under FACA, Congress mandated transparency in the establishment and operation of any federal advisory committee, including by requiring that the group’s formation be promptly disclosed and that its meetings, emails, and other records be open to the public. Meanwhile, the very existence of the CWG was not revealed until months into its work and there were no public meetings or records of its work.

As a result of these (and additional) significant flaws in content and process, in our comments we call for the DOE to withdraw this report. We also oppose its use to inform any agency rulemakings, including the EPA’s efforts to repeal the Endangerment Finding. If the DOE and the EPA are genuinely interested in an assessment of the latest climate science, they should turn to credible and trustworthy scientific sources such as the U.S. National Climate Assessments and the reports of the IPCC. The National Academy of Sciences has also launched a fast-track report on the latest climate science that is forthcoming. Finally, we urge the Trump administration to stop its broadside assaults on science and science-based policymaking.

Scientific facts should inform policy

UCS is one of many groups, including a group of 85 scientists and a group of 20+ senior national security leaders, that have called out the significant shortcomings in this report. We are alarmed to see climate science denial and disinformation in an official US government document. In many cases, this echoes long-debunked talking points from the fossil fuel industry.

People across the United States deserve and need better from our government. The evidence of the climate crisis is acutely obvious around us—including through climate-fueled extreme weather, accelerating sea level rise, and threats to lives, livelihoods and ecosystems. To deny that is cruel, contrary to climate justice, and a shameful abdication of responsibility. We need solutions, not further lies and attempts to delay action. The overwhelming benefits of a rapid transition to clean energy and to a more climate-resilient world are staring us in the face.

The EPA is still taking comment on its proposed repeal of the Endangerment Finding through September 22. Please add your voice urging EPA Administrator Zeldin to uphold scientific facts and do what’s right and necessary to safeguard our health and the health of generations to come.

The cataclysmic impacts of this monster storm reverberate to this day. Nearly 1400 lives lost. Eighty percent of the city of New Orleans under water, requiring 43 days for all the floodwaters to be removed. Large areas of the Mississippi coastline completely decimated. Over $200 billion (in 2024 dollars) in damages. 1.5 million people displaced, one of the largest internal displacements of people within the United States, thousands of whom never returned to their homes. Over a million homes damaged or destroyed, leading to the largest national housing crisis since the Dust Bowl. The disproportionate impact of the storm and its aftermath on the Black population of New Orleans, which has still not recovered its pre-Katrina numbers. The terrible destruction wreaked on the United Houma Nation, hit back-to-back by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and cruelly overlooked by the federal government because they lack federal recognition as a Tribe.

Many local leaders and community groups are commemorating this week with events on ground. Hearing from them directly about the losses, the hard-earned lessons, their struggles to fight for their rights and build back, and their perspectives on what it will take to protect communities in the face of worsening climate change, is crucial. My colleague Zoe Middleton and I had the privilege of joining in Katrina20 events in New Orleans organized by local groups, including anchors Taproot Earth, Foundation for Louisiana, Ashé Cultural Arts Center, and Junebug Productions. Other groups leading events include the Mississippi NAACP, Housing NOLA, and the Chisholm Legacy Project.

A human-caused disaster

Katrina underscored a reality that has become undeniable in the years since:

Climate change together with long-standing racial and socioeconomic inequities are the background conditions within which communities experience extreme disasters.

We cannot design effective and equitable solutions to better protect people without recognizing these realities and the root causes behind them. Those root causes include unequal power dynamics that have led to unjust policies and institutional structures for disaster preparedness, response and recovery. And the extractive, polluting, deep-pocketed fossil fuel industry, which holds all too much sway over our politics and policymaking, is a key contributor to the health, environmental and climate impacts that communities face.

Katrina was no ordinary disaster—it was human-caused. There’s no question that our government’s actions that day—or lack thereof—directly contributed to the steep human toll. From the failure to safely evacuate and house people, to the inadequate rescue and recovery efforts, all of those failures added up to more deaths and suffering. Much has also been written about the engineering flaws that led to the failure of the levees in New Orleans, including this report from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Hurricanes worsened by climate change

Scientists from Climate Central have estimated that Katrina’s top wind speeds of 175 miles per hour (mph) were increased 5 mph because of the energy it was able to feed off from Gulf waters that were 1.6°F warmer due to climate change. Their analysis showed that climate change made those warmer ocean temperatures 18 times more likely. And that increase in wind speed is estimated to have contributed to increasing the damages from the storm by 25%.

The rapid intensification of hurricanes, mainly due to warmer waters, has now become a hallmark of climate-fueled storms. Warmer air also holds more moisture so storms tend to carry more heavy rainfall with them. And rising sea levels mean that destructive coastal storm surges are now able to reach higher and further inland.

The fact is that in today’s climate, even more dangerously warmed since 2005, the impacts on people and property could be much worse, were a storm like Katrina to form and make landfall.

Policy lessons from Katrina—now being lost to Trump administration attacks

On the policy front, twenty years on, the question is: did we actually learn the lessons of Katrina and take necessary action to make sure we do better? Unfortunately, in many ways the answer is no. Storm after storm since Katrina—Sandy, Harvey, Maria, Helene, Milton, the list goes on—has shown that we are still falling far short of being prepared ahead of disasters, and ensuring people have the resources they need to get back on their feet after disasters strike.

In the aftermath of Katrina, there was widespread recognition—including from President Bush—that the government had utterly failed its people. Many reports were written to draw out those lessons, including one from the Bush administration and one from a bipartisan Senate oversight committee.

These reports make for haunting reading all these years later. Here is an excerpt from the Senate report for example: “…the suffering that continued in the days and weeks after the storm passed did not happen in a vacuum; instead, it continued longer than it should have because of – and was in some cases exacerbated by – the failure of government at all levels to plan, prepare for, and respond aggressively to the storm. These failures were not just conspicuous; they were pervasive.”

Congressional oversight led to legislation to reform FEMA, the Post-Katrina Reform Act of 2006, and some important progress was made over the years to improve emergency management systems.

But now the Trump administration is attacking and reversing all that progress, to the point that this week 191 FEMA staffers released a ‘Katrina declaration and petition to Congress’ to raise the alarm. (Unfortunately and predictably, the administration has retaliated by putting several of these staff on leave). Drastic cuts in seasoned professional staff and budgets, the installation of successive acting FEMA administrators (Cameron Hamilton and David Richardson) with no emergency management experience, the rollback of critical funding and programs, halting door-to-door canvassing for disasters, authoritarian decision-making by Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem—all put people at great risk.

After Katrina, scientific agencies also committed to making improvements in hurricane forecasting and communicating risk to the public. NOAA launched the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program in 2007. In the years since, the National Hurricane Center’s ability to forecast the path of storms, their projected intensity, and landfall timing has improved tremendously. They also have greatly improved tools to predict storm surge height and extent, as well as precipitation totals. Unfortunately, the current administration is threatening a lot of that progress by its assaults on NOAA—cutting staff, budgets, scientific resources, and creating a chilling atmosphere around anything to do with climate science.

Katrina also taught us very clearly that climate justice and housing justice are inextricably connected. Yet the administration is also decimating the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and undermining its fair housing mandate.

This is, without a doubt, an especially sobering moment to be commemorating Katrina. Hard as it is to imagine, in some ways people across the nation could be at greater risk today than back then—both because the climate crisis has accelerated and because our government is taking a dangerous turn toward authoritarianism, ignoring science and ignoring the voices of frontline communities while boosting fossil fuels.

The EPA is also proposing to repeal pollution standards to limit these emissions from vehicles, power plants and other sources. In one fell swoop, these destructive actions would have the agency completely evade its legal responsibility to protect people from worsening climate impacts, while propping up polluting fossil fuels.

Hundreds of people have signed up to testify this week, the overwhelming majority voicing strong opposition to the EPA’s harmful actions. We each had 2.5 minutes to speak and here is what I shared (edited slightly, as I had to adjust my comments to fit the time constraints).

Good evening, my name is Rachel Cleetus, and I am the Senior Policy Director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The EPA’s attempts to overturn the Endangerment Finding and evade its legal responsibility to address the health harms of global warming pollution are quite simply alarming, not to mention contrary to science and law. And basing these actions on an error-riddled sham science report hastily and secretly commissioned by the Department of Energy is equally egregious.

The scientific evidence on human-caused climate change is unequivocal and has only grown more compelling since the 2009 Endangerment Finding was issued. Heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. The harms to people and the planet are readily apparent today and they will mount as emissions rise. Every major scientific society and multiple authoritative reports including the Fifth US National Climate Assessment and the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are clear about these facts.

People across the nation are already experiencing costly and harmful impacts from extreme heatwaves, intensified storms, catastrophic wildfires, record-breaking floods and droughts, and accelerating sea level rise. Communities with fewer resources, people who work outdoors or have preexisting health conditions or vulnerabilities, farmers are others who draw their livelihoods from nature are among those disproportionately affected. To deny these realities is a cruel dereliction of the EPA’s mission to protect public health and the environment.

The EPA and this administration are trying to bury the evidence on climate change and replace science with lies and disinformation. Rather than protect the public, they are choosing to protect the profits of fossil fuel polluters.

We urge the EPA to return to its core mission and restore science-based policymaking at the agency. Stop these dangerous and destructive efforts to overturn the Endangerment Finding and repeal pollution standards for power plants, vehicles and other sources of heat-trapping emissions.

The world is teetering on the brink of crossing the 1.5°C mark, and global heat-trapping emissions are far off-track from where they need to be to limit the worst consequences of climate change. The United States cannot solve this problem alone—but as a leading contributor to global emissions, our nation’s actions have profound consequences for the trajectory of the climate crisis. The EPA and the administration must help ensure our nation is part of the solution, for the sake of people today and for generations to come.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a sweeping effort to do away with the endangerment finding, a proposal that not only disregards science but also has huge consequences for stemming the climate crisis.

This 2009 legal determination is based on extensive scientific evidence that says heat-trapping emissions from activities like the burning of fossil fuels are driving climate change and posing a threat to human health and welfare. This scientific finding, which followed a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that heat-trapping emissions are pollutants covered under the Clean Air Act, firmly established EPA’s authority and responsibility to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants, oil and gas operations, and other sources of these pollutants.

Undoing this finding is a blatant attempt to evade that responsibility and pander to fossil fuel interests. In addition to proposing to repeal the endangerment finding, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has also proposed repealing greenhouse gas standards for vehicles and power plants, the two largest sources of US global warming emissions. The vehicles standards were projected to reduce planet-warming emissions by more than seven billion tons over the next three decades, and the power plant carbon pollution standards were projected to limit emissions by 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide through 2047.

As such, if the finding is successfully rescinded, EPA will have actively and intentionally walked away from its responsibility to address climate change. This abdication, coupled with actions the Trump administration and Congress are taking that hamper federal clean energy policies and investments and boost fossil fuels, are a huge blow to US climate action, and will likely mean the nation’s emissions will continue to rise at a time when the science is clear that they must urgently be lowered.

Zeldin has based the rollback of the endangerment finding on a Department of Energy (DOE)–commissioned report that purports to be a “critical review of the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate,” per the title. But in addition to being crafted by five known climate contrarians, the report is riddled with climate denial tropes, cherry-picked evidence, and distortions of the indisputably well-established facts on climate change. For example, the report claims that rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are good for agriculture without acknowledging the significant negative impacts of climate-driven heat, drought, and floods on crops.

Multiple scientists whose papers were cited in the report slammed the misrepresentation of their findings, pointing out how the DOE report often stated the opposite of what the peer-reviewed studies actually concluded. Ben Santer, who is among those scientists, said that the DOE report contradicted his findings while citing his research on climate “fingerprinting.” Within a day of being released, the report was already well and thoroughly on its way to being completely debunked.

But meanwhile we are watching the very agency created to protect public health and the environment completely abandon its mission and instead embrace a pro–fossil fuel agenda. Even more alarming, we are witnessing the US government adopt fringe climate denial talking points as its official position over what scientific evidence has made abundantly clear. This is a dangerous moment for our nation as disinformation and lies replace facts.

Here’s the reality: since 2009 when the endangerment finding was released, the scientific evidence around fossil fuel–driven climate change and its impacts on people and the planet has only become clearer and more sobering. More than 99% of peer-reviewed scientific literature and every major scientific body in the world agrees on the core facts that climate change is happening with clear consequences playing out now, and that our burning of fossil fuels is primarily to blame.

Sharply cutting those emissions is crucial to limiting dangerous climate change. Hundreds of scientists have come together to write major globally relevant reports, including the US Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) and the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR6), documenting the latest science. These reports draw on the work of thousands of underlying research papers and have undergone a rigorous and transparent review process.

As scientific methods have advanced, attribution science is another arena of rapid progress. Scientists can now determine the climate contribution to the probability or severity of individual extreme weather events such as Hurricane Helene, as well as estimate how much the emissions that come from major fossil fuel and cement companies contribute to the climate crisis.

At a time when people worldwide are reeling from extreme heat waves, worsening flooding and extreme rainfall, intensifying tropical cyclones and catastrophic wildfire seasons, it’s frankly cruel to deny that these extreme disasters affect people’s health and well-being. Extreme weather kills, as is clear from the deaths of so many young children to floods in Kerrville, Texas, and eastern Pakistan in just the last month.

These climate extremes are ruining livelihoods and harming the economy, too. Lost homes, rising insurance premiums, unhealthy outdoor working conditions, business interruptions, and damaged infrastructure are all effects of a worsening climate.

With the world about to fully breach the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark after briefly crossing it in 2024—global climate goals are increasingly at risk. There’s no time to lose. We must quickly shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy. We must rapidly bend the global emissions curve. Yet, the US—the world’s largest historical emitter—is shamefully and purposefully stepping away from the fight, and we will all suffer for it.

As scientists, and as people who care about the future of this planet and its amazing life-forms and ecosystems, we must speak up! Submit comments to the EPA and DOE pushing back against their destructive actions. Urge your representatives in Congress to defend the interests of their constituents and hold this administration accountable.

Burying facts and replacing them with propaganda is a hallmark of authoritarian governments. What’s ultimately at stake here goes far beyond any one scientific discipline or policy outcome.

This piece was co-authored by Dr. Carlos Javier Martinez, Senior Climate Scientist at UCS.

Dr. Jacobs served as acting NOAA administrator during President Trump’s first term in office and was found to have contributed to politicizing the agency’s scientific work and to have violated its scientific integrity policy during the notorious “Sharpiegate” scandal. He deliberately allowed a false statement to be issued by NOAA, contradicting agency scientists’ forecasts about Hurricane Dorian’s projected trajectory, to provide political cover for an erroneous tweet from President Trump. So ahead of the hearing, there were already reasons to worry about his nomination.

In a UCS statement ahead of the hearing, Dr. Martinez said: “Despite his relevant expertise and career experience, Dr. Jacobs has already demonstrated he’s willing to undermine science and his employees for political purposes as he did during the infamous ‘Sharpiegate’ scandal. As NOAA administrator, Dr. Jacobs will bear responsibility for standing up to reckless Trump administration staffing and budget cuts that threaten NOAA’s mission. I worry about Dr. Jacobs’ ability to be the leader the country needs, especially as climate change is supercharging extreme weather across the United States.”

Dr. Martinez’s biggest concerns about what he heard at the hearing: Jacobs’ endorsement of the president’s destructive FY26 budget proposal for NOAA and his lukewarm comments on the science of human-caused climate change, which together did not instill confidence that he will be a stalwart defender of the agency, its scientific mission and staff experts.

NOAA—which is primarily tasked with gathering, sharing, and using the latest scientific data and analytic tools to understand and predict climate and extreme weather impacts—is facing insurmountable cuts to its budget and staffing with more expected. This data is widely used by weather forecasters, city and state planners, emergency responders, farmers, mariners, businesses and more. The recent flash flood tragedy in Texas brings to the fore the imperative to protect this robust scientific enterprise that taxpayers have invested in over decades to help keep people safe during extreme weather disasters.

Dr. Martinez watched the hearing, listening closely for how Dr. Jacobs intends to live up to the responsibilities of NOAA administrator at a time when the agency has been under unrelenting attack from the Trump administration. Commerce Secretary Lutnick, who oversees NOAA and will potentially be Jacobs future boss, has completely failed to do so.

Here are Dr. Martinez’s key takeaways from Jacobs Senate Confirmation Hearing:

• Despite acknowledging and expressing support for NOAA’s critical, life-saving work, Dr. Jacobs’ testimony is at odds with the FY2026 President’s Budget Request, which proposes a 27% cut to NOAA, cuts that he stated he supports.
  • For example, he supports the collection of data from NOAA’s Regional Climate Data Centers, essential for forecasters and farmers, but the FY2026 President’s Budget Request would eliminate these centers entirely.
  • He voiced support for continued research on harmful algal blooms and lake-effect snow, which informs freshwater ecosystems health and fisheries in the Great Lakes region, yet the FY2026 President’s Budget Request would terminate the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, the very lab conducting this work.
  • He stated he supports upgrades to the National Weather Service radar network and hurricane aircraft, crucial for detection and forecasting of severe thunderstorms, and hurricane track and intensity. However, those efforts depend on foundational research conducted by NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) like at the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory, which is slated for termination under the proposed FY26 President’s budget request.
  • While stating that climate is essential to NOAA’s mission, Dr. Jacobs made no mention of climate change or its role in supercharging extreme weather events. It was notably absent from his opening remarks. When directly asked, he provided a nuanced answer, acknowledging “human influence” but also emphasizing “natural signals”. Fact Check: natural signals or variability (e.g., volcanic eruptions, solar cycle) cannot account for the rapid rate of warming, it’s human activity spurred by fossil fuel emissions.
  • He stated he would modernize NOAA weather radio systems, ensure NOAA emergency alerts, watches, and warnings are understood, and that Americans should not have to pay to access forecasting data and information.
  • Lastly, he stated that he would not sign off on an inaccurate statement again (in response to a question about SharpieGate) and would improve morale at NOAA by appealing “to their sense of mission.” While it’s good to hear him say he won’t propagate false information, the fact that he is already caving in and providing cover for the president’s disastrous FY2026 budget isn’t a great sign that he will stand up to political pressure. As for his response on improving morale, it is frankly insulting to the thousands of people at NOAA who have been completely committed to the mission and yet have been undermined and mistreated by this anti-science administration.  

Congress must ensure Dr. Jacobs is not rubber-stamped into his new position and that there continues to be oversight of his handling of his responsibilities if he gets the job. The nation depends on having a NOAA administrator who is firmly committed to advocating for a fully resourced agency, upholding its scientific integrity policy, halting the onslaught of attacks against NOAA and its staff, and guaranteeing that the agency’s widely used scientific data remains intact and publicly accessible.

Congress must also stand up to the Trump administration in the forthcoming annual budget appropriations process. It must absolutely reject the president’s destructive budget and instead ensure robust funding for NOAA so that it can deliver on its mission for all our benefit.

One big takeaway

There is a lot to learn from this disaster, and one thing we simply cannot do is allow the Trump administration to continue to attack, defund, and dismantle the very agencies that help keep us safe and recover from disasters, including NOAA and FEMA. Quite the opposite: we need to ramp up investments in cutting-edge science and climate resilience to keep people safer as climate extremes intensify.

1. A terrible confluence of factors in “flash flood alley”

This region of Texas is notoriously prone to flash floods, and this particular event had the worst possible confluence of conditions. The remnants of Tropical Storm Barry, which made landfall in Mexico earlier in the week, and warmer-than-usual Gulf waters both contributed to more moisture in the air when it started raining. The area around Kerr County was also under severe to exceptional drought conditions which makes runoff and flash flooding more likely as the ground is less effective at absorbing water. This meant that 10-plus inches of rain fell to quickly run off into the river, contributing to a rapid rise in water levels. In addition to these meteorological factors, the worst of the flooding happened late at night when people were asleep, and it was a holiday weekend with lots of folks camping along the Guadalupe River. Cell phone alerts may not have reached some people in remote areas.

2. Made worse by climate change

Climate change is increasing the risk of these types of extreme precipitation events. For example, there has been a clear increase in higher rainfall intensity events for nearby Austin, Texas. According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment (No longer available on the USGCRP website because of the Trump administration, but archived here), the Texas region has experienced a 21% increase in total precipitation in the heaviest rainfall days since the 1950s.

3. The NWS did its job

The NWS office in Austin/San Antonio flagged the risks early and repeatedly through multiple alerts, but it’s clear that those alerts didn’t reach people in time with the appropriate level of urgency. Well-documented reports show that 12 hours before the rainfall began, the NWS issued a flood watch for the Central Texas region, and by 6:10 pm CDT, the Weather Prediction Center warned of the possibility of flash flooding overnight. The rain began locally in Kerr County, where Camp Mystic is located, around 1:00 am CDT, and a “considerable” flash flood warning was issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) by 1:14 am CDT. USGS river gauges along the Guadalupe River began to spike, some showing water levels rising by tens of feet in less than an hour, around 3:30 am CDT.  

4. And the NWS is under duress

During this flash flooding event in Central Texas, the local NWS offices in San Angelo and nearby San Antonio were together reportedly lacking several staff, including a senior hydrologist, staff forecaster and meteorologist in charge, a warning coordination meteorologist and a science officer. These roles are an important part of any NWS office: the hydrologist, for example, helps to monitor the river gauges. Questions remain whether these vacancies contributed to a lack of timely coordination with local emergency officials. While the forecasts may have been solid, not having local knowledgeable experts to communicate the risks to local officials and translate them in actionable ways may have contributed to some of the challenges.

5. A critical “last mile” emergency alert breakdown

Every level of government has a critical role to play in preventing, predicting, and responding to emergencies. In this case, it seems that the “last mile” emergency alerts and coordination were clearly lacking. Beyond the NWS, local officials did not act expeditiously enough to communicate risks or evacuate people from harm’s way. Despite the region’s history of floods, there isn’t a local early warning alarm system, something the county has long needed.

6. Dismantling of federal systems that keep us safe

Science-based tools and forecasts are critical to keeping people safe in the face of climate-change–fueled extreme weather, yet the Trump administration is hell-bent on dismantling NOAA and slashing budgets for NOAA, USGS, and FEMA’s pre-disaster resilience programs. We know the risks of these events are worsening and our best opportunity to keep people safe is by continuing to invest in the science and modeling tools to improve forecasts of complex weather disasters. DHS secretary Kristi Noem’s remarks about “working to upgrade technology” during a post-disaster media briefing are particularly galling when in fact this administration is taking a hatchet to NOAA’s science, data, and modeling capabilities.

7. Communities need stronger, not weaker, federal support

States and local communities simply CANNOT cope with this scale of disaster and need federal government support, which is why it’s so important that President Trump has quickly approved a major disaster declaration and activated FEMA federal disaster assistance. Impacted residents can already start applying for disaster assistance. On its own, Kerr County would hardly be able to gather up funding to cope with the costs of the large rescue, response, and short-term recovery operations. This exposes why the administration’s politicization of disaster aid and threats to dismantle and get rid of FEMA while pushing the burden of disaster response and recovery onto states is reckless and cruel.

Congress must defend NOAA and FEMA

The Texas flash flood is a still-unfolding horrific tragedy, with many complexities, and there will be much more information to learn from in the days to come. We’ve learned a lot and benefitted from excellent information being shared by scientists and meteorologists in these past few days, including Daniel Swain, John Morales, Marshall Shepard, the Balanced Weather substack and Matt Lanza.

We urge Congress to stand up to the Trump administration’s attacks on federal government agencies and science, including NOAA and FEMA, whose value is especially evident in the face of these kinds of extreme disasters. We also need resources for better emergency coordination from the federal to the local level. Climate change will make these kinds of extreme events more common and intense, and people’s lives are at stake.

If you are able to donate, please go here for resources on how you can help the victims of this disaster.

Other resources:

Central Texas July 4 Mutual Aid

The Hill Country’s Community Foundation

Year-on-year costly wildfire seasons are now a major factor driving higher property insurance costs and limited availability of insurance in wildfire-prone areas. With climate change driving worsening wildfire risks, the future of insurance and the knock-on effects on housing affordability are major pocketbook challenges for millions of people. Yet federal policymakers are still failing to act and the Trump administration’s slashing of budgets and staffing for key federal agencies is making things worse.  

Insurance markets disrupted by catastrophic wildfires

The deadly and devastating January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, which took at least 30 lives and whose economic costs are now estimated to be as high as $131 billion, put a fresh focus on property insurance markets in wildfire-prone areas. Prior to the fires, the state had seen a number of insurers raise rates and withdraw from writing new policies, and in the wake of the fires some insurers reacted by filing for further rate increases—part of a longer-term trend in many western states. Other states, including Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, are also experiencing wildfire-driven insurance challenges.

California’s insurance challenges are not new and date back to the two back-to-back 2017-2018 terrible wildfire seasons with tremendous costs that triggered a wave of insurance market repercussions that have only gathered steam since then. A “Sustainable Insurance Strategy,” launched by California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara in 2023, is attempting to find solutions that work for insurers and homeowners. These reforms will certainly be tested as California is a at risk of another tough fire season this year.

US Treasury report underscores climate impacts on insurance markets

Earlier this year, the US Department of the Treasury released a report underscoring how climate-related events are leading to rising homeowners’ insurance costs and the declining availability of insurance. The report, which analyzes data trends from 2018 to 2022, shows that homeowners’ insurance rates are rising across the nation by an average of 8.7 percent above inflation. People living in the 20% of zip codes with greatest property exposure to climate risks paid 82% more than those living in the lowest 20% climate risk zip codes. The data also show that policy non-renewal rates are 80% higher in the highest risk zip codes compared with the lowest risk ones.

A key metric in the report is the Total Expected Annual Losses to Buildings from Climate Risk (TLCR), categorized by zip code across the nation and by the type of major climate-related peril. The “building value at risk” is an insurance metric for estimating the potential financial costs of damage that a property owner would face under a particular disaster scenario and usually is calculated based on costs of repair or rebuilding. Climate perils vary by region, and for the western US, wildfires are the highest source of risk. Nationwide, hurricanes account for 61.4% of the building value at risk, while severe convective storms account for 25.4%, and wildfires account for 11.7%.  

Steve Koller at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies conducted a deeper analysis of insurance trends in California’s Pacific Palisades and Altadena zip codes from the Treasury Department report and found these areas already were experiencing higher than average insurance rate increases and non-renewal rates before being struck by the Palisades and Eaton fires in 2025. In other words, the warning signs were there.

An insurance crisis colliding with a home affordability crisis

The rise in insurance costs is one more factor contributing to the rising costs of home ownership nationwide, and it’s especially acute in places that have experienced repeated climate-driven disasters. Year-after-year rate shocks, limiting of coverage and outright withdrawal of insurance are now commonplace realities for all too many people.

From 2021 to 2024, annual homeowner insurance premiums have increased an average of $648 across the country, a 24% increase that is 11% higher than inflation across that period, according to a report from the Consumer Federation of America. The report cites “rising costs of construction and building materials, climate change, an expensive and tight global reinsurance market, and weak regulatory oversight by state insurance commissioners” as the main factors behind these increases.

Many are increasingly turning to so-called residual markets—the state Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plans —which serve as insurers of last resort providing high-cost bare-bones insurance for those unable to procure it through the traditional private market. These plans, which are state-run and backed by a pool of private insurers, provide limited coverage with much higher premiums, a last resort for homeowners shut out of the regular market.

Data show that California’s FAIR plan is taking on an increasing number of policies, with the percentage of these policies rising to 3.7% of the market in 2023 from 1.7% in 2015. In the top ten counties with homes at high wildfire risk, that figure reached 32.6% in 2023. And since then the numbers have only grown, with the number of FAIR plan policies rising by 23 % between September 2024 and March 2025.  Colorado just launched its FAIR plan in April as a result of homeowners finding it increasingly hard to get insurance as wildfire risks there grow.

And it’s not just single-family homeowners feeling the impacts—the rising costs of insurance are also affecting multi-family housing, undermining the ability to maintain affordable housing. In some cases, the costs are also being passed through to renters.

Worst of all, many people find themselves temporarily or even permanently displaced from their communities after catastrophic wildfires. Returning can be impossible if insurance claims are denied or if there is no or insufficient insurance to rebuild. And returning to a place that is at high risk of wildfires can be dangerous—although leaving for a new place can be incredibly expensive and wrenching. For people with few or moderate resources who find themselves on the frontlines of these climate-fueled wildfires, the choices are hard and getting harder.

Greater oversight of insurance companies needed

Regulators must also pay greater attention to examining the underlying reasons for the rate increases and not simply take insurance companies’ rationale at face value. Even as insured losses grow, major insurance companies are still largely maintaining healthy profits through their business model of generating earnings off premiums. As the Consumer Federation report states:

It is important to note—and insurers often fail to acknowledge this when reporting rising claims costs—that insurance companies earn a significant portion of their profits by investing customers’ premiums and the surplus capital they hold. Instead of acknowledging the nature of the business model, insurers point to low “underwriting profits” or underwriting losses as a justification for rate increases. But since the underwriting profit excludes investment income it fundamentally misrepresents the profitability of the business.

Insurance companies are also being called out for failing to pay up, or delaying payments, in the wake of disasters. California Insurance Commissioner Lara has just launched an investigation into State Farm’s handling of insurance claims from the fires. The “Market Conduct Examination” comes as a result of numerous consumer complaints about State Farm and will look into whether the company complied with state laws and whether additional reforms are needed. This kind of oversight, transparency and enforcement is urgently needed, especially as climate-fueled disasters are increasingly disrupting insurance markets and leaving people at the mercy of arbitrary decisions by insurance companies even as they deal with the trauma of losing their homes.

Meanwhile, egregiously, insurance companies are continuing to insure fossil fuel projects and infrastructure—the root cause of the climate crisis! As UCS research shows, major fossil fuel producers bear a huge responsibility for the emissions that are fueling worsening western wildfire seasons.

A future of cascading climate risks to insurance and home markets…

A recent Senate Budget Committee report on the climate-driven insurance crisis contains a stark warning that encapsulates what the future could bring:

As climate change gets worse, so does trouble in insurance markets, threatening mortgage markets and property values. In certain communities, sky-high insurance premiums and unavailable coverage will make it nearly impossible for anyone who cannot buy a house in cash to get a mortgage and buy a home. Property values will eventually fall — just like in 2008 — sending household wealth tumbling. The United States could be looking at a systemic shock to the economy similar to the financial crisis of 2008 — if not greater.

Furthermore, when homeowners struggle to procure mortgages or insurance and if property values decline, local tax bases also suffer, and municipal bond ratings can also decline. That could put communities in a difficult bind, making it harder to fund local amenities and infrastructure.

…Or a climate-resilient future

The reality is that with climate change escalating wildfire and other risks so significantly, it will be hard to stabilize insurance markets everywhere for the long term. Insurance can at best be viewed as one tool that must be complemented by holistic solutions—including ramping up investments in climate resilience, limiting heat-trapping emissions, and creating more affordable housing in safer places.

Homeowners should be on the alert and do everything they can to prepare. States and local jurisdictions can and must do a lot to support and advance these efforts. Investments in firefighting using the latest technologies and a fairly compensated wildland firefighting workforce, as well as in managing forest ecosystem health, are all crucial. Insurers must play a role too in providing incentives for investments in fire-proofing homes, and making communities more resilient to fires. But these efforts will fall short without support at the federal level.

That brings us back to the Trump administration, where the president’s latest executive order aimed at addressing the rising dangers of wildfires raises some skepticism, given the budget cuts to federal agencies like NOAA, that helps with wildfire mapping and warnings, and FEMA that helps with response and recovery—not to mention the administration’s refusal to acknowledge the role of climate change in contributing to worsening wildfires and its actions to boost of fossil fuels.

Congress must step up to do its part to move forward bills that invest in mitigating wildfire risks and helping communities become more wildfire-resilient. Communities also need true solutions to the insurance crisis, solutions which recognize its intersection with the climate and housing affordability crises. I’ll be writing more about what these solutions could look like in future blogposts.

But climate change is all too real, and there’s no getting away from the many ways it’s showing up in our daily lives, from catastrophic wildfires and floods to rising property insurance costs. To limit the public health and economic costs of the climate crisis, the country must transition quickly from fossil fuels to clean energy and invest in resilience—but of course the Trump administration is hell-bent on doing the exact opposite. And what better way to boost fossil fuels than to hide the facts on their true costs and spread lies and propaganda instead?

Yes, climate change is contributing to billion-dollar disasters

For over four decades, NOAA has been tracking and collecting data on US extreme weather and climate-related disasters with costs exceeding a billion dollars. Last week, NOAA announced that it will no longer be updating this dataset beyond 2024. Specifically: “In alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information will no longer be updating the Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product.” For now, the dataset and documentation spanning 1980-2024 will remain available at this landing page. An external consortium of researchers has also saved it in a Harvard Dataverse repository.

The motivation couldn’t be clearer: this dataset is uncomfortably inconvenient because, among other things, it shows that climate change is costly, right now, across the nation. That reality doesn’t sit well with an administration that peddles climate disinformation, going as far as to call it “a hoax.”

A look at the 2024 map is revealing: billion-dollar disasters hit every region of the country and many of them—including Southwestern wildfires, extreme heat and drought, as well as several intensified hurricanes in Gulf Coast states and the Southeast—were worsened by climate change. Of course, other important factors are also at play, including the increase in development along coastlines and other places exposed to disasters. More expensive property and infrastructure exposed to climate-fueled disasters contribute to higher damage costs.

The extreme weather we experience today is occurring in the unavoidable context of a warming world—the roughly 1.3˚C (2.3˚ F) increase in global average temperature over the 20^th century average that we have already seen is now baked into the background conditions in dangerous ways. In 2024, the hottest year on record following on a decade of hottest years on record, the global annual average temperature was about 1.5˚C (2.6˚ F) above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels.

In 2024 alone, the nation experienced 27 individual billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, which together caused at least 568 direct or indirect fatalities and cost approximately $182.7 billion in total. The most catastrophic by far was Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 hurricane that hit Florida and traversed far inland to Georgia and North Carolina, causing 219 deaths and approximately $79.6 billion in economic damages, according to NOAA. The hurricane was intensified by record warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, and it drove storm surges of up to 15 feet in the Big Bend coastal area, and caused historic rainfall of up to 30+ inches in western North Carolina.

As my colleague Dr. Marc Alessi noted last year: “Helene was an example of what hurricanes will look more like in the future. With ocean surface temperatures more than 2 degrees Celsius above normal in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, Helene was able to rapidly intensify to a Category 4 hurricane before making landfall in Florida.”

While many factors contributed to the destruction caused by Helene, climate attribution studies (for example, here) show that:

• The overall rainfall amounts associated with Helene were about 10% heavier due to climate change, and as much as 50% heavier in parts of Georgia and the Carolinas. The rainfall totals over the 2-day and 3-day period were made about 40% and 70% more likely by climate change, respectively.
• In general, climate change is enhancing conditions more favorable to rapid intensification of Atlantic tropical storms, and more conducive to those storms carrying heavy precipitation.

The long-term trend data on billion-dollar disasters is also striking. Adjusted for inflation, the annual average number of these events for 1980–2024 is 9.0 events (Consumer Price Index-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2020–2024) is 23.0 events (CPI-adjusted). Their costs, too, have risen since 1980, even after adjusting for inflation. The highest cost years are all post-2000.

Hiding this data doesn’t make us safer. It only hinders our ability to take protective action, based on facts, to limit harms to communities, infrastructure, and critical economic assets. Those actions include: limiting the heat-trapping emissions driving climate change by transitioning away from fossil fuels and ramping up clean energy, while using energy more efficiently; and investing in climate resilience, including by enhancing pre- and post-disaster response, ramping up adaptation measures, and thinking carefully about where and how to build in disaster-exposed places.

The social cost of carbon shows that fossil-fueled climate change is costly

In another blatant anti-science move, the Trump administration has also issued a directive to stop federal agencies from using the social cost of carbon in their actions. The social cost of carbon is a widely accepted economic metric that puts a dollar value on the damage caused per ton of heat-trapping emissions, allowing federal agencies to set policies and regulations that take those costs into account. In economist-speak, this is just a commonsense way to correct a market failure and internalize the climate-driven externality costs of using fossil fuels.

The social cost of greenhouse gases (SC-GHG) helps quantify the costs of climate change related to heat-trapping emissions, in terms of dollars per ton of carbon dioxide (CO₂) or methane (CH₄) or nitrous oxide (N₂O) emitted. It can also be used to quantify the benefits of reducing these emissions. Based on science, this metric simply underscores the obvious: climate change is costly and right now, many of the costs are falling to society at large instead of being assumed by fossil fuel companies and others who are making decisions that ultimately determine how much of these pollutants are emitted.

How costly? Well, the latest estimates of the social cost of greenhouse gases from the EPA—before the Trump administration’s attempts to gut them—are summarized in the table below. The dollar costs of a ton of CO₂ emitted in 2020, using a 2% discount rate, are $190. These estimates are based on cutting-edge climate science and economics, and went through an extensive peer-review and public comment process. If anything, these are underestimates of the true costs because of the challenges of monetizing many categories of climate harms (e.g. ecosystem damages).

One additional important area of continued improvement is the recognition that estimating damages over long periods, especially those that are profound, long-lasting, and even irreversible, requires a different approach to the choice of discount rates. Estimating dollar values also comes with important justice and ethical considerations because of the multi-generational, global nature of climate damages.

Now, the Trump administration wants to eliminate any consideration of these costs by fiat. Yup, they want to force us to act as if the costs of climate change are exactly zero, even as extreme heatwaves take a deadly toll, people are losing their homes, farmers face dire crop failures, and businesses are experiencing costly disruptions! Guess who that crooked math benefits? Fossil fuel companies and other polluters, who don’t want to limit their egregious profits and want to keep dumping the rapidly growing costs of their harmful products on all of us.

As climate scientist Dr. Robert Kopp said in a recent New York Times interview: “By effectively saying the social cost of carbon should be treated as zero, this policy arbitrarily and capriciously ignores the science and economics of climate change.”

Jeopardizing the National Climate Assessment (NCA) doesn’t stop climate change

In another assault on science last month, the Trump administration fired the staff of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and soon followed that by disbanding the author team for the sixth National Climate Assessment. As one of the 400+ volunteer authors, I received an email stating that “the scope of the NCA6 is currently being reevaluated,” but the administration has yet to announce any plan for how it will deliver on this Congressionally mandated comprehensive climate science report.

People around the nation rely on the NCA to understand how climate change is impacting their daily lives already, and what to expect in the future. While not policy-prescriptive, the findings of these quadrennial reports underscore the importance of cutting heat-trapping emissions and investing in climate resilience to protect communities and the economy. Trying to bury this report won’t alter the scientific facts one bit, but without this information our country risks flying blind into a world made more dangerous by human-caused climate change.

The only beneficiaries of disrupting or killing this report are the fossil fuel industry and those intent on boosting oil and gas profits at the expense of people’s health and the nation’s economic well-being. Congress must step up to ensure the report it requires by law is conducted with scientific integrity and delivered in a timely way.

Rigging the facts to benefit polluters

This recent series of actions underscores the Trump administration’s ongoing strategy of rigging the math to put a thumb on the scale in favor of polluters while saddling the rest of us with the costs. It’s all shamefully clear and premeditated.

Drastically slashing the social cost of carbon was a tactic used during the first Trump administration, when the administration lowered the value to $1-$7 per ton (see Table 4-1 in the link). The Project 2025 manifesto took an even more aggressive approach, saying that the President ‘by executive order should end the use of SCC analysis.’ The last Trump administration also tried to bury the fourth NCA by releasing it the day after Thanksgiving—which ironically back-fired and only served to give it more attention! In its second term, the Trump administration’s actions have escalated well beyond those taken in the first term. Now the goal seems to be to get rid of scientific data, facts, and research entirely—for example, as EPA’s Administrator Lee Zeldin is trying to do with a “reconsideration” of the Endangerment Finding, or via the administration’s wholesale attacks on NOAA.

We need Congress to step up and ensure we have policies and outcomes guided by the best available science to help protect lives and our economy, especially as the climate crisis worsens.

This is not just ordinary politics and run-of-the-mill disagreements on policy details. More disturbingly, it’s become increasingly clear that the Trump administration is following the classic playbook of authoritarian regimes. Burying facts and replacing them with propaganda is a way to exert control over independent thought and consolidate power. People who care about science and facts must resist this dangerous turn and protect the democratic institutions that allow free thought to flourish.

The cuts identified in news stories have not yet been publicly confirmed by NOAA or the Trump administration. In any other administration, one might be inclined to wait and see, hoping that rational choices safeguarding the public interest will prevail. But again and again, this administration has shown that it’s willing to engage in unbounded destruction and cares little about what it’s destroying or if their unilateral actions are even legal. Cut first and ask questions later, no matter the harm to people, seems to be the modus operandi.

And what they’re destroying is an incredibly rich and valuable scientific enterprise, built up over decades through investments made by US taxpayers, for the public’s benefit. NOAA belongs to all of us—communities, first responders, farmers, mariners, businesses, local decisionmakers—and we need to fight for what is ours. Congress needs to step up to do its job: reclaim its constitutional power and limit the worst excesses of this increasingly authoritarian administration.

Timing and scale of cuts to NOAA

Numerous news outlets have reported on a leaked document showing the president’s proposed budget for NOAA, which outlines significant cuts to the agency. As my colleague Marc Alessi points out, if those cuts go forward, they would significantly degrade the agency’s ability to provide lifesaving and economically beneficial data and forecasts.

Back in February, following from an executive order issued by President Trump, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, (OPM) issued guidance requiring agencies to author and deliver reorganization plans by April 14. Specifically, it says:

Agencies should… submit a Phase 2 ARRP [Agency Reduction in Force and Reorganization Plans] to OMB and OPM for review and approval no later than April 14, 2025. Phase 2 plans shall outline a positive vision for more productive, efficient agency operations going forward. Phase 2 plans should be planned for implementation by September 30, 2025.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who heads the department that oversees NOAA, has presumably complied with this guidance but those decisions have not yet been made public.

It seems that the administration is determined to degrade NOAA’s capabilities, one way or another. Of course, decisions about the actual budget appropriated for agencies are made by Congress—and it should not just obediently rubberstamp these dangerous cuts.

Threat of eliminating NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) division

OAR, headquartered in Silver Spring, MD, provides the foundational research and data underpinning the work of other parts of the agency. In collaboration with various divisions at NOAA, OAR helps develop and advance scientific understanding of Earth systems to ensure more accurate weather forecasts, better early warnings for extreme weather events, and greater understanding of climate change within the US and across the globe.

From improved hurricane forecasting to better tornado modeling and warning systems, OAR science and scientists play a critical role in keeping people in every part of the country safe.

Yet, the leaked proposed Trump budget document calls for the elimination of OAR as a line office, and many of its career staff have already been laid off. While parts of its work and staff may be shifted to other divisions of NOAA, there’s no question that huge cuts like this would be devastating to its essential work, not to mention our country’s standing in the global scientific community.

NOAA’s satellite resources at risk

Just last week, NOAA celebrated 50 years of its Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) program. GOES satellites are the agency’s “eyes in the sky,” helping to monitor and track severe weather, environmental hazards and space weather. GOES-19, the latest model in the series, just became operational as GOES-East and is slated to provide critical new information to weather forecasters across the nation.

Just in the last month, this incredible satellite system has helped monitor two powerful storm system and tornado outbreaks—one that affected central and eastern US, and another that stretched from Texas to the Great Lakes—and provided early warnings to communities in their path that undoubtedly helped save lives. NOAA has plans to expand these capabilities through the Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) satellite system, scheduled to begin operation in the early 2030s, which would provide enhanced information on emerging threats including climate change.

Yet, the leaked document indicates a plan to make major cuts in NOAA’s satellite program, including cancelling contracts associated with the GeoXO program and contracts for NASA collaboration on it. Unfortunately, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine that changes like this could be aimed at trying to deliberately gut agency capabilities so as to privatize critical satellite systems and hand large contracts to companies that will then take advantage of taxpayers financially in the years to come.

NOAA cuts are cruel, dangerous—and premeditated   

The Trump administration’s assault on NOAA—including the reckless mass firings of career scientists and other experts, targeting of climate-related work for elimination, and threats to precious, long-standing resources and data—are all reprehensible. They will harm people across the country and could leave the nation at a scientific disadvantage for decades to come.

Much of what is happening was previewed in Project 2025, whose chief architect, Russell Vought, is now executing his master plan from his powerful perch at the OMB. Project 2025 chillingly said:

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.

It took specific aim at OAR, calling for it to be downsized and for its climate-related research to be disbanded, falsely disparaging it as “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism.”

And here we are, not even three months into the term of this administration, watching the destruction unfold as planned.

Refusing to accept the scientific reality of climate change and gutting the nation’s ability to understand those changes won’t make climate impacts go away. Instead, cities, states and our country will be left flying blind into this oncoming disaster, without the information they urgently need to get out ahead in responding to worsening risks.

This is not efficiency; this is not going to save money. This is, quite literally, going to cost lives and lead to mounting, incredibly expensive damage to our economy. Congress, please stand up to these attacks and defend NOAA.

In an earlier post, I laid out some of the history and context for the 2009 science-backed Endangerment Finding and the Cause or Contribute Finding. These findings followed from the landmark 2007 Mass v. EPA Supreme Court ruling which held that greenhouse gas emissions are unambiguously air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. Together, these establish the clear basis for EPA’s authority and responsibility to set pollutions limits for heat-trapping emissions from vehicles, power plants and other sources of these pollutants, under the Clean Air Act.   

Attacks on the Endangerment Finding and EPA’s Clean Air Act authority from industry interests are nothing new. Importantly, courts have repeatedly upheld both, including in a resounding 2012 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals–D.C. Circuit in Citizens for Responsible Regulation v. EPA. But those who have long sought to overturn or weaken regulations to limit heat-trapping emissions now have Administrator Zeldin in their corner. And he has shown himself to be an unbridled purveyor of disinformation and proponent of harmful attacks on bedrock public health protections, as my colleague Julie McNamara highlights.

The details of what will be included in the reconsideration proposal are unclear at this point. But we do know some of the trumped-up lines of attack the Zeldin EPA could advance to try to invalidate these Findings because many of these tired arguments are outlined in EPA’s reconsideration announcement.

Here are the facts:

Fact #1: The science backing the Endangerment Finding is beyond dispute

Every major scientific society endorses the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change driven by GHG emissions. The Fifth National Climate Assessment and the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report are two major recent authoritative summaries of peer-reviewed climate science, which show that the science on climate change has only become more dire and compelling since 2009.

The impacts of climate change on human health are also starkly clear and backed by overwhelming evidence. Here’s the main finding from the NCA5 chapter on public health, for instance:

Climate change is harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, higher incidences of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water security. These impacts worsen social inequities. Emissions reductions, effective adaptation measures, and climate-resilient health systems can protect human health and improve health equity.

As just one example, climate change is contributing to worsening extreme heat which exerts a punishing toll on people’s health, including that of outdoor workers. Heat is already the leading cause of extreme weather-related deaths in the United States and studies show that heat-related mortality is on the rise.

Looking around the nation, with communities reeling from extreme heatwaves, intensified hurricanes, catastrophic wildfires and record flooding, climate impacts are the lived reality of all too many people. To deny that or obfuscate about the underlying causes is not only disingenuous, but actively harmful and outright cruel.

Fact #2: The law requires an independent scientific determination of endangerment, unhindered by cost considerations

A Finding of Endangerment under the Clean Air Act is specifically focused on a threshold scientific determination of whether the pollutant under consideration harms public health or welfare. Costs to industry of meeting any subsequent regulations are not relevant per the statute.

The original Endangerment Finding was reached in the context of the vehicle emissions, per section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, partially excerpted below:  

The Administrator shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.

In its 2012 decision, the DC Circuit was also clear is noting that “By employing the verb “shall,” Congress vested a non-discretionary duty in EPA.” That duty is not circumscribed by cost considerations.

Of course, the impacts of climate change are themselves incredibly costly and those costs are mounting as heat-trapping emissions rise. Unsurprisingly, the social cost of greenhouse gases, a science-based estimate of those costs, is another metric that the Trump EPA is seeking to undermine in yet another blatant attempt to put a thumb on the scale in favor of polluting industries.

Fact #3: EPA used well-established methodologies in its assessment of six GHGs

As noted in the 2009 endangerment finding, the EPA defined the pollutant contributing to climate change as “the aggregate group of the well-mixed greenhouse gases” with similar attributes. The attributes include that they are sufficiently long-lived, directly emitted, contribute to climate warming and are a focus of science and policy.

The EPA used a very well-established scientific methodology to combine emissions of GHGs on the basis of their heat-trapping potential, measured in CO₂ equivalents. In the case of passenger cars, light- and heavy-duty trucks, buses, and motorcycles—the transportation sources EPA considered for the original endangerment finding—they emitted four key greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons.

False, glib claims in the reconsideration announcement baselessly accuse the 2009 Endangerment Finding of making “creative leaps” and “mysterious” choices. There is nothing mysterious about the heat-trapping attributes of greenhouse gases, nor their impact on public health. It’s called science. Once again, relying on the mountain of evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature would make that readily apparent.

Fact #4: EPA has the responsibility and authority to regulate major sources of GHGs

The Cause or Contribute Finding—which specifically established that greenhouse gas emissions from new vehicles contribute to the pollution that harms public health—may   also come under attack. This finding has been extended to other major sources of GHGs, including power plants and oil and gas operations. However, the Trump administration could attempt to use accounting tricks to avoid regulating emissions—as it has tried before.

In its first term, the administration attempted multiple underhanded maneuvers along these lines, including in the context of methane and VOC regulations in the oil and gas sector . For these regulations, the administration split up segments of the source category, designated them as separate source categories, used that manipulation to claim inability to regulate certain segments, and asserted that methane emissions from the remaining segments were too small and regulating them would not provide additional benefits, so those too could not be regulated. Separately, in the final days of the administration, EPA released an absurd framework attempting to set thresholds for determining “significance,” trialed in the context of power plants.

This irrational approach could be used to artificially segment components of power plants or the power system, for example, and then claim no regulations are required. This kind of rigged math wouldn’t fool a kindergarten child but there’s no telling where this administration might go in its desperate attempt to undo or weaken regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

Zeldin’s relentless subversion of EPA’s mission

Under Administrator Zeldin, EPA’s mission to protect public health and the environment has been completely subverted. His shocking rhetoric lays bare how far he will go to protect polluters at the expense of the public. Here he is, for instance, crowing about going after 31+ EPA regulations and guidance, as well as the enforcement of pollution standards meant to protect all of us:

“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion…”

EPA even set up an email address for polluters to send an email to get a presidential exemption from complying with regulations on toxic pollution, such as mercury emissions, regulated under the Clean Air Act!

Zeldin is fervently committed to dismantling public health protections and rolling back enforcement of existing laws passed by Congress. Going after the Endangerment Finding is an integral part of this all-out assault because, in the Trump administration’s harmful calculation, revoking the Finding is a potential means to rolling back all the regulations that depend on it.  

Ironically, some utilities and oil and gas companies have spoken out in favor of keeping the Finding intact, as they fear a greater risk of climate damages lawsuits in the absence of EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Of course, this just exposes that they know their products are causing damage. What they seek is the weakest possible exercise of EPA authority so they can continue to reap profits while evading accountability for those harms.

We can fight back with science

But none of this is a foregone conclusion. The legal and scientific basis for the Endangerment Finding is incredibly strong. The false claims Zeldin and other opponents have trotted out are full of bombast but weak on substance.

The science on climate change is so indisputably well-established, that it’s hard to see how any court would uphold a challenge to it. That’s not to say Zeldin won’t try to find a cabal of fringe “scientists” to try to attack it, but they’re unlikely to succeed on the merits.

Public comments on the proposal to reconsider the Endangerment Finding can help set the record straight on facts. And if the Zeldin EPA ignores them and finalizes a sham Finding or revokes the Finding with a faulty rationale, that will be challenged in court.

UCS will be closely following the details of EPA’s proposal to reconsider the Endangerment Finding when it is released. And we will let you know how you can add your voice to bolster this crucial science-based Finding, and the public health protections that flow from it. So, stay tuned!

Mapping wildfire risk

While wildfire risks in California have lessened for now, wildfire risk predictions in early February were already signaling the risks to the Carolinas. Here’s what the latest map of above-normal fire risk looks like for March. (And, yes, in case you were wondering, these outlooks depend in part on data from NOAA’s National Weather Service. Another reason why the Trump administration’s attacks on NOAA make no sense).

The latest wildland fire outlook report highlights especially high wildfire risks in the Southeast:

Most of the rest of the Southeast will start March off with unusually dry fuels for this time of year. The highest significant fire potential is expected to occur from the Florida Big Bend into western North Carolina due to impacts from Helene or other recent hurricanes, in addition to the longer-term dryness that has been the rule since hurricane season.

It also calls attention to high risks in the southern Great Plains:

Confidence is increasing in a high impact spring fire season across the southern Great Plains. The expected weather pattern and its impacts to the fire environment are of major concern, and at least weekly high-end wind events are plausible through March and April. Areas with normal and especially above normal grass loading will be most susceptible to unusually large fires

What’s behind the high wildfire risks?

The immediate spark for wildfires can come from fires carelessly or purposely set by people, malfunctioning power infrastructure, lightning or other proximate causes. But, once sparked, the background weather, climate and ecological conditions can greatly increase the risks of large fires taking hold and spreading rapidly.

Emerging dry and drought conditions are one of the classic precursors to an increase in wildfire risk, as we are seeing in parts of the southeast and southern plains now.

Another set of more complex factors is also highlighted in the latest wildfire prediction report: the multi-season, long-term effects of previous storms, droughts and bark beetle infestations.

For example, Hurricane Helene’s devastating impacts across Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee damaged and killed trees that are now more prone to serve as fuel for wildfires and burn under dry conditions. The record-breaking rainfall that accompanied that storm also contributed to the growth of new vegetation that is now drying out, again adding to the load of flammable material. A historic drought in 2023 and subsequent pine beetle infestation are also now contributing to higher fire risks in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

All of these underlaying factors are affected by climate change, and they show how some of the markers for wildfire seasons are set well before summer, which is considered to be the time of peak fire risk.

April’s outlook shows that risks will remain high in the southeast and southwest. It also expands the above-normal fire risk to parts of Alaska, where abnormally dry conditions around Bristol Bay and Kodiak Island create high fire risk. As the report notes: If this trend continues into spring, there is the potential for a busy start to the fire season across much of southern Alaska.

It’s never too early to prepare for fire season

Hopefully, the fires burning right now will soon be brought under control and people will remain safe. If there’s one thing this potentially high impact spring wildfire season shows, it’s that it’s never too early to prepare. States and communities in these high-risk zones need to take stock now to make sure they have taken all the advance precautions they can to limit the risk of fires starting. And, should fires break out, there must be plans in place for how best to protect people from the dangers including safe evacuation routes if needed.

Policymakers at the state and federal levels must make sure adequate funding and resources are available to deal with wildfires, and to help fire-damaged communities get back on their feet.

Worsening wildfire seasons will also contribute to the ongoing challenges in the property insurance market, another hardship for homeowners and everyone struggling with the lack of affordable housing. And wildfire smoke is a health hazard that can affect people hundreds of miles away from the original fire site.

Trump administration budget cuts and layoffs will worsen risks to people

The Trump administration’s mass layoffs of thousands of forest service employees, combined with federal funding freezes that affect wildfire mitigation and prevention projects, are their own red flag warnings going into this year’s fire season. Across the board, indiscriminately cutting staff and budgets at agencies such as NOAA, USDA and FEMA that contribute to predictive data and wildfire risk mapping, firefighting, and disaster response and recovery will only make things more unsafe for everyone.

Instead, the nation must scale up investments in solutions that will help people this fire season, and in the future, as our climate continues to heat up.

Ahead of the hearing, I submitted written testimony to the subcommittee. You can also watch the full hearing, including all the witness statements and the questions and answers afterwards. Here’s one exchange between Ranking Member Maxwell Frost (D, FL-10) and me.

Speaking at this hearing gave me the opportunity to share the facts on the economic, health and climate benefits of accelerating our nation’s transition to clean, reliable, affordable energy, drawing on insights from research done by UCS and others.

Unfortunately, other panelists used their time to boost fossil fuels, bash pollution standards for the power sector, and give full-throated endorsement to the Trump administration’s destructive actions to roll back climate and clean energy policies. One panelist even engaged in pointed anti-science rhetoric, questioning the reality and harmful impacts of human-caused climate change.

Here are my oral comments, as prepared in advance.

Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Burlison, Ranking Member Frost and members of the subcommittee for holding this hearing. My name is Rachel Cleetus. I am the policy director for the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-partisan science advocacy organization.

I want to highlight three things today:

• Accelerating the transition of our electric system to one that’s modernized, more flexible, with more renewables and storage, is the best way to protect consumer’s pocketbooks as well as safeguard health, make sure that we’re competitive on the global stage and that we’re innovating as we go along. There are tremendous economic and health benefits from this transition.
• Doubling down on fossil fuels is harmful and it’s taking us in exactly the wrong direction.  And there is ample evidence that natural gas price volatility is one of the factors driving increased electricity prices, as well that gas-fired power plants raise reliability concerns for the power grid.  
• Today, in 2025, we should not ask any American to choose between their health and prosperity. We can have both and we should have both.

The solutions to many of the challenges we see today are clear: ramping up renewable, energy efficiency and storage, and investing in a modernized, more resilient electric grid will help cut power bills, boost business opportunities, and improve public health. Doubling down on fossils fuels will instead take us in exactly the wrong direction and only serves to promote the profits of fossil fuel companies at the expense of the American public.  

Renewable energy sources are now the dominant source of new power generation capacity because, frankly, in many parts of the country they are the lowest-cost source of new electricity generation. They are also faster to build. Last year, renewables and battery storage accounted for 94% of all new large-scale capacity, with solar and battery storage leading the charge. In 2025, renewables are on track to supply 25% of electricity generation. Solar generating capacity is projected to increase 45% between 2024 and 2026.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) provide critical funding for clean energy investments that are benefiting communities across the nation by expanding access to clean, affordable energy, building domestic manufacturing and supply chains, creating good paying jobs, and helping to limit pollution from fossil fuels. In the past year, U.S. investments in clean technologies reached $272 billion, crucial to keeping US businesses competitive in a world where greener products are increasingly in demand.

The current administration’s actions to claw back or freeze this funding are frankly unfathomable. It is creating disruptions and market uncertainty for businesses that are trying to lean into opportunities right now. It’s going to result in ceding U.S. leadership on technological advancement. It’s going to cut good paying jobs and, ultimately, it’s going to harm electric reliability and increase energy costs.

Trying to turn back the clock and boost fossil fuels makes no sense. Market factors continue to drive ongoing coal plant retirements. Meanwhile, an overreliance on natural gas and volatility in natural gas prices increase the risk of higher prices for industry and for consumers. A rush to further expand LNG exports is only going to exacerbate those risks. And in a carbon-constrained world, these kinds of projects are likely to become stranded assets.

Recent extreme weather events underscore that gas power plants face significant reliability concerns, with the most catastrophic failures occurring in winter. Worsening heat waves and drought are also putting pressure on the electric grid, especially during summer months. Hybrid systems that couple renewable energy with storage provide significant grid reliability services, often more effectively than gas generators. During the heat domes that we saw last year and the year before, it was solar plus storage that helped save the day.

The power sector does need to plan and prepare for increased demand both in the near-term from data centers and manufacturing and in the long term from increased electrification of energy uses. Managing and planning for this demand growth to align with the expansion of clean energy will be crucial to avoid electricity price increases, reliability concerns, and increases in pollution.

We already are at record fossil fuel highs, whether it comes to oil or LNG. There is no problem in terms of expansion of fossil fuels unfortunately, even as the climate crisis worsens. What we need to do instead is unleash clean renewable power, the transmission to go with it, and energy efficiency.

The grid is desperately in need of upgrades and expansion. It got a C minus grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. During extreme weather and climate events we’ve seen  power outages that affect millions of people and cause billions of dollars of damages every year. We do need to quickly expand investments in a resilient transmission system built for the future climate conditions that scientists are telling us are going to worsen. By significantly expanding these grid investments, we can integrate higher levels of renewable energy, provide reliability benefits, and help reduce electricity bills.

Modernizing the power sector also provides opportunities to clean up air, water and soil pollution from fossil fuel use. Targeted investments and programs for low-income communities and communities overburdened by pollution will help ensure that all communities can reap the benefits of a cleaner, more affordable, more modern energy system.

Burning fossil fuels is also the primary driver of human-caused climate change which is already exerting a deadly and costly toll on communities and businesses across the nation. UCS research shows that we can cut sharply heat-trapping emissions while delivering billions of dollars in consumer energy cost savings and public health benefits.

In sum, modernizing and cleaning up the power sector is vital for the U.S. economy and for its ability to compete globally. It’s also the best way to protect consumers’ pocketbooks and enhance the reliability of the power system.

(There are some differences between this version and the actual remarks I delivered, as I didn’t read my comments verbatim. You can read my full written testimony here and watch my testimony below.)

It’s no surprise that this anti-science, pro-fossil fuel administration wants to go after the Endangerment Finding. Of course, an honest assessment of the latest climate science will show that since 2009 the evidence has become even more compelling and dire. Climate change, driven by rising heat-trapping emissions, is already causing significant harm to people’s health and well-being and to vital ecosystems. Those harms will worsen rapidly as global warming emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels, increase.

This blatant attempt to do an end-run around scientific evidence deserves to fail.

What is the Endangerment Finding?

Back in 2007, the Supreme Court reached a landmark judgment in Massachusetts et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency et al. establishing that heat-trapping emissions (or greenhouse gas emissions) are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. The court further mandated that, under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must set protective standards for global warming pollutants if the agency found them to be harmful to human health and welfare.

The 2007 case was brought by petitioners (which included several state attorney generals and NGOs, including the Union of Concerned Scientists) in the context of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles.

The EPA subsequently undertook an extensive process, including hearings and a public comment period, and concluded that a vast body of scientific evidence showed that heat-trapping pollutants do indeed harm public health and welfare and that motor vehicles contribute to that pollution.

In 2009, the agency issued the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases, summarized below:

• Endangerment Finding: The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.
• Cause or Contribute Finding: The Administrator finds that the combined emissions of these well-mixed greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution that threatens public health and welfare.

The findings have subsequently been extended to other major sources of heat-trapping emissions, including power plants and oil and gas operations, and have been upheld in court.

For more on the legal and political twists and turns in the history of the Endangerment Finding, please check out this blogpost: Endangered Science: Why Global Warming Emissions Are Covered by the Clean Air Act.

What is Zeldin being directed to do?

President Trump’s Day 1 executive order directs the EPA administrator to work with other relevant agencies to submit recommendations, within 30 days, to the director of the OMB on the “legality and continuing applicability” of the agency’s Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act.

Opponents of climate action have long understood the power of the Endangerment Finding and tried unsuccessfully to dismantle it during the first Trump administration. Project 2025 also includes a call to “Establish a system, with an appropriate deadline, to update the 2009 endangerment finding.”

With a new more dangerous Trump administration, thoroughly corrupted by fossil fuel interests—and with the architect of Project 2025, Russell Vought, now confirmed as OMB Director—this time the risk to the Endangerment Finding is definitely greater. Gutting the Endangerment Finding would completely undermine EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and put a stop to all of EPA’s regulations to limit global warming pollution, a gift to the fossil fuel industry.

But getting rid of the Endangerment Finding is not going to be easy and is by no means a foregone conclusion, as even Lee Zeldin knows. It would require such a brazen effort to lie about climate science evidence that it’s hard to imagine courts going along with that even if the EPA were to take that unwise route.

The latest climate science is clear and alarming

There’s no question that this is a bad faith effort to try to find ways to undercut EPA’s responsibility and authority to regulate heat-trapping emissions under the Clean Air Act. The fact remains that any science-based update to the Endangerment Finding would conclusively demonstrate that the actual harms and projected risks from climate change have only grown grimmer since the 2009 endangerment finding was issued.

As heat-trapping emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels, continue to rise, global average temperatures too continue their relentless climb with 2024 once again the hottest year on record. Extreme climate-related disasters—including heatwaves, storms, droughts, wildfires and flooding—are worsening, taking a fearsome toll on people, the economy and ecosystems. Accelerating sea level rise, ocean acidification and loss of major ice sheets also continue apace, with profound consequences for the planet.

If Lee Zeldin is looking for a recent authoritative assessment of the science, he should turn to the 2023 Fifth US National Climate Assessment, produced under the direction of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The Global Change Research Act of 1990 mandates that the USGCRP—which collaborates across 15 federal agencies—deliver a report to Congress and the President at least every four years.

Here’s the headline from the NCA5:

The effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States. Rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions can limit future warming and associated increases in many risks. Across the country, efforts to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions have expanded since 2018, and US emissions have fallen since peaking in 2007. However, without deeper cuts in global net greenhouse gas emissions and accelerated adaptation efforts, severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow.

Another valuable source is the IPCC sixth assessment report, which reflects the work of thousands of scientists around the world—including many from the United States—in assessing the latest climate science, impacts, and opportunities to cut heat-trapping emissions and adapt to climate change.

The National Academy of Sciences would also be a good source of information. Here, for example, is a handy booklet on the evidence for and causes of climate change.

NOAA and NASA, premier federal science agencies, also closely monitor and track global climate change and its impacts. (And hopefully will continue to do so—although recent attacks on NOAA, foreshadowed in the Project 2025 manifesto, do not bode well.)

An anti-science pro-fossil fuel administration

Barely a month into the term of this second Trump administration, it’s clear that the President and his cabinet are hell-bent on doing everything they can to boost fossil fuels and shred climate and clean energy policies, catering to deep-pocketed fossil fuel interests.

They clearly intend to use every means at their disposal (lawful or not) to roll back regulations to help address global warming pollution. Those actions will be rightfully challenged in court, and it takes time to undo regulations in a legal way. However, any delay in implementing strong standards is harmful when the climate crisis is so acute. If the Trump administration succeeds in weakening or stopping EPA’s efforts to cut heat-trapping emissions, that will just leave people bearing the costs while fossil fuel polluters rake in profits.

Revisiting the endangerment and cause or contribute findings is just one more backdoor way to try to advance that harmful agenda. This directive shouldn’t fool anyone. It’s not a genuine effort to engage with scientific facts and listen to climate scientists. After all, the President has called climate change a hoax and many of his cabinet are climate science deniers.

The question for Lee Zeldin is whether he will just pander to that destructive agenda, or will he actually defend the mission of the agency he leads, which is to protect public health and the environment. He has already overseen a series of harmful actions at the EPA—including firing staff, cutting budgets, gutting its environmental justice work, and illegally freezing already-allocated funds for clean energy. So, I doubt we can count on a courageous defense of the endangerment finding from him.

Regardless of how Zeldin responds to President Trump’s directive, this administration cannot hide the reality of climate change. Undoing the Endangerment Finding is such an extremist anti-science endeavor, it is hard to imagine how it could succeed.

But we live in a country today where many previously unimaginable things are happening.

What’s the OMB Director’s role?  

The OMB isn’t often in the headlines, but it’s a critical part of the Executive Office of the President, tasked with overseeing federal agencies and evaluating their policies and programs against established guidelines. The OMB is also responsible for preparing the President’s budget, which typically reflects the President’s priorities.  

It is important to note, however, that under the US Constitution, once spending bills have been passed by Congress and signed into law, decisions on how to spend US taxpayer money cannot be unilaterally altered by a US President. This separation of powers was made even more sharper by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 which makes clear that attempts by the President to withhold Congressional appropriations that have been enacted into law is illegal.  

Yet this unlawful, unconstitutional overreach is exactly what Vought has repeatedly supported, including during and after his previous stint at OMB in the first term of the Trump administration, and as he outlined in the Project 2025 agenda. As we have seen over the last two weeks, the Trump administration is already following through on an illegal federal funding freeze.  

As director of the OMB, Vought would occupy a powerful position over federal agencies and the federal civilian workforce. Here’s what he had to say in 2023 about his intentions for these hardworking civil servants under a second Trump administration:  

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. 

“We want to put them in trauma.” 

Those words alone should be enough to disqualify him from ever holding the position to which he’s been nominated. And they also clearly show whose side he’s on: putting the interests of polluting industries ahead of protecting public health and the environment.  

Vought and Musk are two of a kind 

Over the last two weeks, it’s been stunning and alarming to see the Trump administration allow  Elon Musk and his DOGE henchmen to take a hatchet to the federal government, undermining science-based policies and guidance, firing or otherwise attempting to get rid of thousands of career federal employees, gaining illegal access to the Treasury Department’s payment system and sensitive personal information of the American public, and taking steps to destroy USAID by freezing its budget, firing its staff, and spreading rampant disinformation about its work.  

Vought has repeatedly voiced strong support for these kinds of actions to decimate federal agencies and force a deregulatory agenda that benefits only powerful corporations. Like Musk, he too believes that the president can completely supersede congressional authority and disregard laws and the US Constitution.

With Vought in charge at the OMB, these destructive efforts would likely be turbo-charged, with rapidly escalating impacts on people across the country.  

Vought’s Project 2025 Manifesto 

Russell Vought served at OMB during the first Trump administration and has a track record of trying to gut agency budgets and regulations, proposing steep cuts to Medicaid and the Department of Education, and attacking career civil servants using Schedule F. This time around, his dangerous vision for the OMB is fully laid out in Project 2025, which he coauthored. He endorses an OMB that would help oversee and enforce a complete overreach of presidential authority, including authority over budgets and congressionally-authorized spending programs. The fact is that Congress makes the decisions on appropriations, including agency budgets and programs, and then the OMB must exercise lawful oversight on those decisions. It cannot substitute the will of the President for the decisions of Congress. 

Simply put, the OMB’s role is to ensure that the budget is spent in accordance with the law—the appropriations bills passed by Congress. But, in Project 2025, Vought writes:  

OMB can then direct on behalf of a President the amount, duration, and purpose of any apportioned funding to ensure against waste, fraud, and abuse and ensure consistency with the President’s agenda and applicable laws [emphasis added]. 

And therein lies the problem: If the President’s agenda diverges from Congressionally enacted law, which one will Vought uphold? The short answer: he will break the law to enable the President to push forward his agenda.  

This is not strictly an academic or hypothetical question, because we have already seen the OMB endorse and execute an illegal overreach of presidential power by unilaterally, arbitrarily, and indefinitely freezing federal funding that had already been authorized by Congress. When these funds are frozen, people across the country suffer as they lose access to the benefits, services, and funds that are rightfully theirs. People can lose their jobs, their businesses, and their livelihoods. Even a short pause or uncertainty about funding for essential things like food assistance, housing assistance, and healthcare can be devastating, especially for low-income households.  

Russell Vought’s views of the appropriate role of the OMB Director also include these nuggets from Project 2025: 

The Director must ensure the appointment of a General Counsel who is respected yet creative and fearless in his or her ability to challenge legal precedents that serve to protect the status quo. 

And: 

It is vital that the Director and his political staff, not the careerists, drive these offices in pursuit of the President’s actual priorities and not let them set their own agenda based on the wishes of the sprawling “good government” management community in and outside of government. 

The danger in these pronouncements is obvious. Vought’s sole aim is to replace the expertise of career employees with political appointees, willing to skirt the law to deliver for the rich and powerful rather than serve the public interest. He is also hell-bent on a deregulatory agenda that would only serve the interests of polluters and other deep-pocketed special interests, while harming people’s health and polluting the air and water. The entire notion of good government for the people is called into question.

During his confirmation hearings, Vought essentially reiterated that he believes the president can overrule Congress in deciding how to spend taxpayer money, despite constitutional authority and law to the contrary. He said: “The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that.” Senator Patty Murray pressed him on a number of fronts and concluded that: “No Senator who believes Congress holds the power of the purse should vote for an OMB director who will not respect the laws we pass, or disburse the investments we as lawmakers have secured for our states.”  

Taken together with the evidence of the havoc and harm caused in the Trump administration’s first weeks in office, and Vought’s harmful track record during the first Trump administration, Vought’s vision for his job at the OMB is truly alarming—and it is not a hidden agenda at all.  

Federal funding freeze shows the harm Vought poses 

President Trump’s Day 1 executive orders included several that called for freezing existing federal programs and grants that had already been authorized by Congress. For example, the executive order (EO) on “Unleashing American Energy” called for the elimination of standards to limit pollution from vehicles, and the halting disbursement of elective vehicle-supporting funds and other clean energy incentives passed through the Inflation Reduction Action and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Other EOs led to the evisceration of programs to promote environmental justice and DEI initiatives.  

To be clear, the President does not have this authority under the US Constitution.  

As if that were not enough, under acting administrator Matthew Vaeth, the OMB issued an ill-fated memo on January 27 calling for a much wider, across-the-board halt in all federal funding—a move that was such a significant overreach that it was immediately challenged in court with separate lawsuits from a group of non-profits and state attorneys general, and subsequently was rescinded by the OMB on January 29. On January 31, a federal district judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order against the funding freeze.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration and the OMB have continued to unlawfully withhold federal funding. On February 3, a federal judge in the DC Circuit issued another temporary restraining order against the Trump administration’s freeze on federal grants and loans. It remains to be seen whether the administration will fully comply with this latest order, but no one should hold their breath.  

Congress should vote No on Vought 

Congress must step up to its constitutional duty to protect the interests of people across the country. It holds the power of the purse, not the President or OMB. And it has the power to ensure that nominees to key cabinet positions are properly vetted, not just rubber-stamped.  

The Union of Concerned Scientists is on the record with two letters (here and here) to Congress urging them to reject Vought.  

By any reasonable standard, Congress should reject Russell Vought and his dangerous plans. Otherwise, the country will have to deal with the consequences of his harmful and destructive actions for years to come. 

We in the US are part of a country whose history and present-day social and economic realities are deeply intertwined with and built on the experiences of immigrants, enslaved African Americans, and Indigenous peoples. Owning that history—the good and the bad—is a crucial part of what it means to be an American. And it’s the first step in charting a path to a better, fairer future for our country.

The current US system of immigration is clearly broken, and across the political spectrum there is a recognition that reforms are urgently needed. I am not an immigration expert so I will not opine here on the details of those reforms.

What is clear—or should be clear—to all of us is that if we arbitrarily judge some immigrants to be “better” than others, we will inevitably risk reinforcing a system that is based on biased and unequal power and economic structures that are pervasive in the world today. All too often, current legal pathways to immigration privilege a subset of people while shutting out many who work equally hard and are equally deserving.

As my colleague Karen Perry Stillerman points out, in addition to being morally repugnant, mass deportation programs would have a significant negative impact on our nation’s food system, which could not function without the labor of immigrants.

As another example, as extreme weather and climate-related disasters mount across our nation, it is often immigrants who help to do the difficult and dangerous work of cleaning up debris and rebuilding homes and infrastructure as quickly as possible. As a recent news article points out:

“The fact is that the people who rebuild those areas—from Palisades to Malibu to Altadena—it’s immigrant construction crews,” said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “They’re the ones who are the second responders.”

Unfortunately, climate and fossil fuel-driven disasters are also contributing to a growing toll on people across the world, destabilizing economies, threatening livelihoods, health, water supplies, and food security. If we fail to sharply curtail heat-trapping emissions and invest in climate resilience, the numbers of people suffering harm will rise steeply, and many might even find themselves forcibly displaced both at home and abroad.

Rich nations like the United States (which is the leading historical contributor to global heat-trapping emissions) have the capacity and the responsibility to advance resilience at home and provide climate finance to help lower-income nations transition quickly to renewable energy and adapt to climate change. They also have a responsibility to help address climate loss and damage and displacement with a human rights-centered approach.

Hateful political rhetoric from President-elect Trump and his allies that demonizes and dehumanizes immigrants shows political leaders who are more interested in scoring cheap political points through fearmongering and fanning the flames of xenophobia, rather than acknowledging the basic humanity and incredible contributions of immigrants to our economy and our society.

This is not a new tactic. Across history, here in the United States and abroad, in uncertain economic times, extremists have often targeted immigrants and made harmful and deceptive claims blaming them for all the ills in society. Punching down, further marginalizing those who are fearful and may not have access to resources to defend themselves, is also a classic tactic of bullies and doesn’t solve the urgent problems facing our nation and our planet.

It’s up to all of us to stand up for the facts and stop allowing politicians to misuse the important issue of immigration policy to spew hateful lies as a convenient way to further their narrow interests. Mass detention and deportations will tear apart families, cause lasting trauma and harm, and set back health and education in immigrant communities especially for children, alongside undermining the the U.S. economy.  

We all know instinctively that leaving one’s familiar home and embarking on a dangerous journey to a faraway place, with very few resources and no guarantee of safety, is often an act of desperation—especially when bringing children. But for luck, this could be the plight of anyone in any country around the world.

Seeing our shared humanity and acting based on that principle is the best path forward on immigration and for our country of immigrants.  

Here are some resources to learn more. Please share them with anyone who needs them.

• American Civil Liberties Union: Know Your Rights/Immigrants’ Rights
• National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights: What to do if You Are Arrested or Detained by Immigration
• National Immigrant Justice Center: Know Your Rights: If You Encounter ICE