Climate change is already shaping what the future will look like and plunging the world into crisis. Cities are adapting to more frequent and intense extreme weather events, like superstorms and heatwaves. People are already battling more destructive wildfires, salvaging flooded homes, or migrating to escape sea level rise. Policies and economies are also changing as world leaders and businesses try to cut down global greenhouse gas emissions. How energy is produced is shifting, too — from fossil fuels to carbon-free renewable alternatives like solar and wind power. New technologies, from next-generation nuclear energy to devices that capture carbon from the atmosphere, are in development as potential solutions. The Verge is following it all as the world reckons with the climate crisis.
He signed a series of executive orders today meant to revive the nuclear energy industry in the US, which has struggled to compete with cheaper sources of electricity. The president could also hit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with layoffs as part of a broader reorganization of the agency.
GOP lawmakers passed resolutions rescinding federal approval of California’s plans to require that all car sales be zero-emission by 2035, as well as policies limiting nitrogen oxide emissions and other pollutants from trucks.
Republicans fast-tracked passage of the resolutions using a maneuver that nonpartisan watchdogs said should be barred, and that Governor Gavin Newsom calls illegal. The Clean Air Act gives California authority to set state pollution limits that are more stringent than federal regulation.
The Empire Wind project off the coast of New York can restart construction, about a month after the Trump administration abruptly issued a stop work order. The project was reportedly bleeding $50 million a week during the pause as President Trump waged his war against windmills.
The company building it had considered taking legal action against the Trump administration; it already had federal and state permits in place and construction is roughly 30 percent complete.
Microsoft, TikTok, and other big names have signed deals with Climeworks, a company developing technologies to filter CO2 out of the air, as a way to try to clean up some of their planet-heating pollution. But Climeworks hasn’t even been able to capture enough CO2 to offset its own carbon footprint yet.
The climate tech company announced layoffs as it faces “a challenging time” that includes uncertainty around the future of its projects in the US.
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Teen Vogue points out the irony of turning to water-intensive and energy-hungry generative AI in a recent op-ed. The rush to build massive new AI data centers is driving up electricity demand, prolonging the use of fossil fuels, and hitting nearby communities with more pollution.
New wind farms are still being built, but they’ll have to weather the storm of the Trump administration.
House Republicans proposed cutting crucial Biden-era tax credits for wind, solar, and geothermal energy even though Republican districts have the most to gain from investments in renewables.
The Trump administration’s war on DEI is spurring scientists and researchers from Indigenous communities to seek new protections for their data.
The Trump administration announced its decision Thursday to retire the database of billion dollar weather and climate disasters, part of an ongoing purge of federal scientific data. The number of billion dollar disasters hitting the US has increased over the years as climate change fuels stronger storms, floods, and fires — a trend the US is no longer tracking.
More than 90 percent of Americans rely on federal science information, from weather forecasts to food safety warnings, according to a recent poll by the Association of Science and Technology Centers. Many of those resources are in jeopardy now as the Trump administration slashes the federal workforce and funding for health and science research.
The Trump administration reportedly plans to shutter the program that certifies products for energy efficiency and slaps the recognizable blue Energy Star label on refrigerators, washers, dryers, LED bulbs, and more. CNN and E&E News report that Energy Star is on the chopping block as part of a “reorganization” planned at the Environmental Protection Agency that would end key initiatives on climate change.
The Trump administration has cut off access to data used globally for warnings about disasters and shortages.
The Trump administration notified contributors to the national climate assessment on Monday that they’ve been “dismissed” as it re-evaluates the scope of the report, the New York Times says. Since 2000, the report has been a key resource detailing how each region of the US is affected by drought, wildfire, flooding and other climate disasters.
MIT Technology Review visited the eerie tree farms Apple and other companies rely on to try to cancel out their carbon emissions. Are they really helping to fight climate change? Or are they making problems worse? It’s complicated, and controversial, and a good read.
[technologyreview.com]
A leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget proposes drastic cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency that leads weather and climate research in the US.
”We’ll go back to the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s,” former NOAA acting chief scientist Craig McLean tells ProPublica.
That’s more than triple the total clean energy investments canceled over the past 30 months, according to a report from nonpartisan think tank E2. Economic uncertainty and proposals to rollback tax credits for renewables under the Trump administration are already taking a toll.
Despite those headwinds, however, companies still managed to announce $1.6 billion in investments in new solar, EV, and power grid facilities this March.
[technologyreview.com]
The Environmental Protection Agency is demanding answers from controversial start up Make Sunsets about its attempts to cool the planet down by releasing reflective particles into the atmosphere. The company started launching sulfur dioxide-filled balloons in the US after Mexico banned its efforts.
Environmental advocates have also criticized solar geoengineering as a risky distraction from legitimate efforts to stop climate change by getting rid of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
The company announced $99 million in new funding, part of its goal of transitioning its supply chain to entirely carbon pollution-free energy by 2030. This marks the second phase of the China Clean Energy Fund that Apple launched in 2018, AppleInsider reports.
[appleinsider.com]
The company that operates the pipeline sued the environmental group for $300 million, an amount 10 times Greenpeace USA’s annual budget. The outcome could make it easier to target other groups for their activism, advocates warned.
”Freedom of speech is on the line,” says Waniya Locke, a member of Standing Rock Grassroots, told The Verge recently. “This directly impacts everybody, not just Standing Rock, not just Greenpeace.”
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) placed 22 California offices for environmental protection and research on its list of leases to terminate, the Los Angeles Times reports.
That includes the L.A. office of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The federal employee union representing EPA employees told The Verge last month that the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the agency could hamper wildfire recovery efforts in the region.
The agency is axing the Office of the Chief Scientist and the the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy.
NASA contributes significantly to research on climate, weather, air quality, and the environment. Joe Biden appointed chief scientist Katherine Calvin, who was recently stopped from joining a meeting of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Science reports.
