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President Donald Trump made good on a promise to ignore the impacts of climate change last month by once again pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, which obligates the country to make big reductions in its greenhouse gas emissions. But that was just an opening salvo.
Last week, the administration barred U.S. scientists from participating in key United Nations climate change assessments, according to Reuters. The order impacts research staff at the U.S. Global Change Research Program and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who’ve been part of a working group under the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The immediate effect is that U.S. scientists won’t be at an IPCC meeting in Hangzhou, China, this week to plan a new global climate assessment, at least not in an official capacity. Exactly what benefit the White House sees in restricting scientists from directly participating in the assessment isn’t clear though it’s in keeping with the range of executive orders from Trump reversing federal policies on climate change. Those include efforts to pull back funds distributed by the Biden Administration for clean energy projects, the elimination of tax credits for electric vehicles and ordering agencies such as the EPA and Interior Department to prioritize oil and gas production.
A rapidly heating planet poses profound challenges for the foreseeable future, a reality embraced by all developed nations for years–including the U.S. until very recently. In its most recent assessment, the country’s Global Change Research Program–the same scientists now barred from working with international colleagues–pulled no punches.
“Without rapid and deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, the risks of accelerating sea level rise, intensifying extreme weather and other harmful climate impacts will continue to grow. Each additional increment of warming is expected to lead to more damage and greater economic losses compared to previous increments of warming, while the risk of catastrophic or unforeseen consequences also increases.”
When it comes to climate, there’s a new U.S. mantra: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
The Big Read
Meet The Billionaire CEO Trying To Resurrect The Woolly Mammoth
Serial entrepreneur Ben Lamm and Harvard geneticist George Church started Colossal Biosciences in 2021 to bring back the woolly mammoth. It’s an idea that’s equal parts crazy and brilliant, with real-world implications for the environment, climate change and even healthcare — if they can pull it off.
With the company recently raising $200 million at a valuation of $10.2 billion, led by TWG Global, CEO Lamm is now a billionaire worth $3.7 billion, by Forbes’ estimates. Church, who started work on the concept in his lab many years before it became a company, does not have an equity stake in Colossal.
“The fact that I’m not a billionaire is almost as interesting as Ben being one,” Church said, adding, “If I had a billion dollars, I would just spend it on this.”
Read more here
Hot Topic
Daniela Fernandez, founder and CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance, on promoting the “blue” economy
Your group focuses on improving global ocean health in part by helping startups with new ideas and tech. How do you define the blue economy?
We’re talking about shipping. We’re talking about seafood. We’re talking about anything that’s entering the ocean, such as waste management. We’re talking about the fashion industry and how it’s also impacting the ocean. Data collection and data analysis of the ocean. We have more data and information on outer space than we do about the ocean, and the ocean is the most underfunded of all of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. There are quite a lot of touchpoints the ocean has but it hasn’t been valued in the way that other issues have been valued.
The last aspect of this is restoration. How can we get the ocean restored in a way where it can be brought back to life and regenerate its ability to maintain the balance of carbon in the atmosphere?
Are policy shifts on environmental policy–promoting plastic straws and downplaying climate concerns–likely to undermine the shift to more ocean-friendly products and practices?
Frankly, a lot of the work that we’re seeing that’s catching on is market-driven. Consumers are asking for alternatives. Consumers are being more educated as to what they what they’re looking for. So we don’t necessarily see the policy shift, especially in the U.S. as detrimental because a lot of our companies are also global. They’re not just looking at the U.S. market.
For example, in the European Union, single-use plastic was a massive issue. Right now we have all these companies that are looking to service that marketplace. I do think the U.S. will fall behind in implementing a lot of the innovation.
However, I think we have the wind at our back from the perspective of the markets seeing that consumers are looking for alternatives. That’s what’s going to drive companies to be successful. It’s not going to be a policy-driven approach. Even under previous administrations, we haven’t had massive policies that have shifted in this direction, that brought in subsidies or brought in that market signaling.
Over the next few years where do you think the Sustainable Ocean Alliance can make its biggest impact?
The biggest impact we’re going to have is driving private capital into this space. We have seen how much potential there is and what I love to remind entrepreneurs and investors of is this industry, the blue economy, specifically, is so ripe for early investment. It’s ripe for a ton of upside because all of these industries are future proofing their business models. And when they’re looking at how they’re going to do that, they’re not finding answers internally, with their own talent. They’re looking externally at the solutions that exist.
What Else We’re Reading
California’s efforts to build the nation’s first high-speed rail network, which has seen its projected costs nearly triple since it was initiated in 2008, may lose out on $4 billion of previously approved funds following a review of the program being initiated by the Transportation Department. (Forbes)
U.S. oil and biofuel groups banded together to urge the Trump administration to boost volumes of renewable fuels that must be blended into the nation’s fuel mix in 2026 and beyond. It’s an unusual move because those industries are usually at odds over the Renewable Fuel Standard program, a law requiring refiners to blend billions of gallons of biofuels into gasoline and other fuels or buy credits. (Reuters)
The Environmental Protection Agency unfreezes some climate funds. The money, approved by Congress and overseen by the EPA, had been blocked since January, when President Trump ordered a pause and review of climate and clean energy programs. (New York Times)
Vast reserves of game-changing clean fuel hydrogen may be hidden under mountain ranges, scientists find. Large reserves of geologic, or so-called white, hydrogen may exist within mountain ranges, according to a new study, raising hopes this clean-burning gas can be extracted and supercharge efforts to tackle the climate crisis. (CNN)
Was Al Gore Right? Checking back after nearly two decades to see how accurate Gore’s climate change predictions in the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” have been. (ABC News)
Environmental groups are suing to block the Trump Administration from allowing offshore oil drilling along broad swaths of U.S. coastline, in what appeared to be the first legal challenges to Republican efforts to boost fossil fuel production. (Reuters)
