If Donald Trump moves back to Washington, D.C., in January 2025, he won’t arrive alone. Though Trump’s first term was marked by a messy transition and bouts of political incompetence, Republican operatives have spent the past four years putting together a plan to hit the ground r … | Continue reading
It’s raining again in China. Reservoirs are filling, and the country’s massive hydropower complex is generating power at closer to normal capacity after years of drought. This could mean that China’s emissions of greenhouse gases — the largest in the world — may be peaking, or ev … | Continue reading
How hard is it to build big clean-energy infrastructure in America? Look at SunZia. When completed, the more-than-500-mile power line is meant to ferry electricity from a massive new wind farm in New Mexico to the booming power markets of Arizona and California. When finally buil … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Nearly 12 inches of rain fell over six hours in Mumbai this morning • Extreme storms on the South African coast are causing shipping delays • July 4 fireworks sparked a forest fire in New Jersey that burned thousands of acres. THE TOP FIVE 1. June marked anoth … | Continue reading
There are some things money can’t buy, and it seems a clean power grid is one of them. Despite authorizing billions of dollars to subsidize renewable energy development through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Biden administration remains off … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Rain storms prompted China to evacuate 240,000 in the east • A heat wave is breaking records in Moscow • Beachgoers along the Gulf of Mexico are cautioned to beware dangerous rip currents this weekend. THE TOP FIVE 1. Fires rage in California as ‘very dangerou … | Continue reading
Minneapolis may be the only city in the country with a carbon sequestration program manager on staff. Now, Jim Doten — who holds that title — is about to realize his dream of starting up one of the first municipally owned and operated carbon removal projects. The Minnesota metrop … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Hurricane Beryl could bring up to 9 feet of storm surge to Jamaica • Northeastern India, already flooded, is expecting more rain • Last month beat June 2023 as the hottest June ever recorded. THE TOP FIVE 1. Car companies see EV growth in Q2 sales reports Many … | Continue reading
As decades of administrative law were being rendered irrelevant last week by a landmark Supreme Court decision denying regulators deference in their interpretations of ambiguous legal statues, one such regulator, Mark Christie, already had some ideas about what do with this new d … | Continue reading
Jesse is on vacation until August, so this is a special, Rob-only summer episode of Shift Key. The far right is rising across Europe. The global order seems to be deteriorating. And American politics is careening toward a crisis. Where does climate policy go from here? On this we … | Continue reading
The word “consequential” barely touches the importance of the Supreme Court’s decisions this term, as two cases — Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors — took a wrecking ball to the stability of the administrative state. Courts will no l … | Continue reading
Joe Biden was not a late arrival to the cause of arresting climate change, even if for most of his career he was better known for advancing the interests of the credit card industry than for environmental passion. He introduced an early climate bill in 1987, and though it didn’t … | Continue reading
Perhaps it’s futile to talk about any Supreme Court decision this term other than the justices’ unprecedented ruling in the Trump case. The court’s decision to grant broad immunity to the president from criminal prosecution could reshape the modern presidency and empower Donald T … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Raging wildfires are forcing evacuations on several Greek islands • More rain is forecast for China’s sodden rice growing regions • Temperatures in Death Valley could reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit early next week. THE TOP FIVE 1. Judge blocks Biden’s LNG permit … | Continue reading
You can take the real estate magnate out of development, but becoming a politician hasn’t made Donald Trump less invested in dishwashers and water flow. Here’s what he’s gotten right and wrong about at-home energy efficiency on the campaign trail. All I know about magnets is this … | Continue reading
For being so cozy with (not to mention bankrolled by) the oil and gas industry, Donald Trump still manages to get a lot wrong about the world’s dominant petroleum industry. Here’s everything he’s gotten wrong, and occasionally right, about the oil and gas industry while on the 20 … | Continue reading
Donald Trump claims to be a “big fan” of electric vehicles despite making them a frequent target of derision on the campaign trail. He might be a bigger fan, though, if he got his facts straight. Here’s what Trump has gotten right and wrong about EVs since 2021. “To China, if you … | Continue reading
Donald Trump loves eagles and whales and therefore he wants to protect them — from clean energy development. Trump may, however, be relieved to hear that many of his concerns about wind and solar energy are unfounded. Here’s what he gets right and wrong. Pointing out the window t … | Continue reading
If Donald Trump retakes the White House in November, he will direct the U.S. to leave the Paris Agreement — again. This time, though, the ex-president and his allies also plan to make it more difficult for any future Democratic president to rejoin the international deal to limit … | Continue reading
Long before Donald Trump ever became a politician, he was a climate change denier. “I’m in Los Angeles and it’s freezing,” he tweeted back in 2013. “Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!” On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump has continued to claim that cold weather is … | Continue reading
Donald Trump has never been closer to returning to the White House than he is at this moment. Despite becoming a convicted felon in early June, Trump was polling on par with President Biden at the start of the summer — and that was before Biden’s disastrous debate performance. No … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Intense storms in Europe killed at least seven people over the weekend • Nine inches of rain fell in 24 hours in Delhi, causing deadly flooding just days after blistering high temperatures • California will have “record-challenging heat” for the 4th of July. T … | Continue reading
If the world is going to slash greenhouse emissions from transportation, then we need a vast number of drivers to switch from fossil fuel engines to electric cars powered by renewable energy. Yet the EVs we need to mitigate further climate damage might, in one way, be ill-suited … | Continue reading
It’s a sad day for the regulatory state. On Friday, the Supreme Court struck down a 40-year-old precedent that deferred to agencies’ interpretations of their own mandates where the statutory guidance was incomplete or ambiguous, otherwise known as Chevron deference, after the los … | Continue reading
Advocates for televised presidential debates argue that they offer the best chance voters will have during the campaign to get an extended look at the candidates, beyond what they see in 30-second ads and 8-second sound bites. We can hear them defend their records as they critiqu … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Forecasters are keeping an eye on a weather system moving toward the Caribbean that could strengthen into a tropical storm • Heavy rains have rejuvenated dried-up lakes and lagoons in Chile • Severe storms could bring strong wind, excessive rain, and hail to p … | Continue reading
In an altogether distressing debate in which climate was far from a main focus, the two candidates did have one notable exchange regarding the Paris Agreement. The 2015 treaty united most countries around the world in setting a goal to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degre … | Continue reading
Former President Donald Trump has been known, on occasion, to exaggerate. Still, an assertion he made during the first presidential debate on Thursday night is one for the books: “During my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever,” he said. It was “unclear” what Tru … | Continue reading
In spite of a deadly heat wave that has seen temperatures touch 100 degrees Fahrenheit and a first-ever summer date, today’s presidential debate in Atlanta won’t even come close to being the hottest ever. Temperatures will reach 84 degrees this afternoon and are forecasted to set … | Continue reading
The Department of Energy may not be ready to say yes to more liquified natural gas export projects, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is. In a meeting on Thursday, FERC approved plans for a massive LNG terminal project in Louisiana by a 2-1 vote, with Allison Clements, … | Continue reading
Carbon removal would seem to have a pretty clear definition. It’s the reverse of carbon emissions. It means taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it somewhere else — underground, into products, into the ocean — where it won’t warm the planet. But a new kind of carbon re … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Severe storms dropped hail stones on Madrid • More than 500 people have died during a heat wave in Pakistan • A home near Minnesota’s failing Rapidan Dam was swept into the raging Blue Earth River. THE TOP FIVE 1. Biden and Trump to debate in Atlanta President … | Continue reading
Backed by a whopping $1.69 billion endowment, Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability — its first new school in more than 70 years — opened its doors two years ago, and what else came along with it but a new sustainability-focused accelerator specifically for the Stanford commu … | Continue reading
Rondo Energy, a Silicon Valley startup building “heat batteries” to replace fossil fuels in heavy industries, announced three new customers on Wednesday. In just a few months' time, the company has gone from serving a single industry — ethanol — at its pilot plant in California, … | Continue reading
The United States Senate is almost certainly getting another Republican who at least thinks climate change is a real problem. Utah Congressman John Curtis, the founder of the Conservative Climate Caucus, won the Republican primary for Mitt Romney’s Senate seat over a gaggle of mo … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Puerto Rico issued a heat advisory for the entire island for the first time ever • Flooding and landslides in Ivory Coast left at least 24 people dead • A fast-growing wildfire in central Oregon prompted evacuations. THE TOP FIVE 1. Volkswagen and Rivian team … | Continue reading
Congress just passed perhaps its biggest support for zero-carbon energy since the Inflation Reduction Act. The ADVANCE Act, which the Senate adopted overwhelmingly last week, aims to keep America at the cutting edge of the global nuclear industry by cutting regulatory fees, makin … | Continue reading
There will be many chances this week to dissect why two-term New York Congressman Jamaal Bowman lost his primary to Westchester County Executive George Latimer, which The Associated Press called less than an hour after polls closed in the state on Tuesday. Post mortems will focus … | Continue reading
The American car buyer is a hard one to satisfy. The freedom of the open road is embedded in our consciousness in a way it is in few (if any) other countries. A typical American consumer may want to be able to embark on a summer road-trip across the United States’ vast distances, … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Deadly flooding in parts of the Midwest is forecast to worsen Tuesday before rivers crest midweek • Northern China remains in drought as the southern province of Guangdong suffers flooding, landslides, and mudslides • Western India braces for heavy rains. THE … | Continue reading
With a brutal heat dome still threatening parts of the United States, one more thing about this summer has become clear: Cities are struggling to protect their most vulnerable citizens from extreme temperatures. Just last week, on Juneteenth, over 82 million Americans were under … | Continue reading
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has become something of a one-woman band lately, traveling the country promoting nuclear energy. In Las Vegas at the American Nuclear Society annual conference last week, she told the audience, “We’re looking at a chance to build new nuclear … | Continue reading
Excessive rainfall in the Swiss Alps triggered a landslide • Power was restored in the Balkans following a massive outage that left people sweltering • Flood waters are receding in Rock Valley, Iowa, after 1,500 people were forced to evacuate. THE TOP FIVE 1. ‘Mission 2025’ coali … | Continue reading
Northwest Louisiana is about to be awash in direct air capture. Heirloom announced today that it’s moving its half of the Department of Energy-funded Project Cypress DAC hub from coastal Calcasieu Parish inland to Shreveport — and that it will be building a second facility, capab … | Continue reading
If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember the hole in the ozone layer. Like Joseph Kony and Livestrong wristbands, the obsession over O3 now feels like a cultural artifact, thanks to ozone depletion being one of the rare success stories of international environmental coop … | Continue reading
When I visited the Electrify Expo in Long Beach, California last month, the traditional automakers had set up tents and booths buzzing with happy representatives ready to show off their electric and electrified vehicles to the media and the public. And then there was Fisker, wher … | Continue reading
In 1933, with unemployment running at 25%, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps, an idea with both practical and symbolic significance. It put young men to work (at a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which would be sent to their families); by the … | Continue reading
Last summer was the hottest in two millennia. We won’t get any relief this year. An overwhelming majority of Americans will experience above-average heat this summer, and temperatures in more than half of the contiguous United States are expected to top the historical average by … | Continue reading