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We passed the 1.5C climate threshhold. We must now explore extreme options | Sir David King

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Monday, April 7, 2025

As a lifelong scientist, I have always believed that if something is possible, we can find a way to achieve it. And yet, one of the starkest realities we now face is that the world is failing to meet its climate goals. Last year marked a historic and deeply troubling threshold: for the first time, global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Without drastic and immediate climate action, this breach will not be temporary. The consequences – rising sea levels, extreme weather and devastating loss of biodiversity – are no longer projections for the distant future. They are happening now, affecting millions of lives, and likely to cause trillions in damages in decades to come.But we must think beyond our immediate horizons. When I read The Iliad, I am reminded that it was written 2,800 years ago. I often wonder: in another 2,800 years, what will people – if humanity as we know it still exists – read about our time? Will they see us as the generation that failed to act or one that made the choices necessary to safeguard the planet for the future?We must act with this longterm perspective in mind. Scientists agree we need to bring greenhouse gas levels down to below 350 parts per million by the end of this century to ensure a liveable planet for future generations. Achieving this will require a four-pronged approach: reduce, remove, repair and resilience.Reduction – cutting emissions rapidly and deeply – of course remains a critical priority. But we must also pursue the removal of excess carbon, explore repair techniques to stabilise key ecosystems and build resilience against the escalating impacts we are already experiencing.One of the greatest challenges of climate science today is that many of the necessary levers to regain control are uncomfortable, even controversial. Ideas such as thickening sea ice to prevent collapse or brightening marine clouds to reflect sunlight, may once have seemed extreme. Yet, as we contend with an escalating crisis, we must at least explore these possibilities. We do not have the luxury of rejecting solutions outright before we have thoroughly investigated their risks, trade-offs and feasibility.As scientists, we must never advocate for deploying unproven interventions. Any repair or removal techniques must undergo rigorous research and assessment before we evaluate full-scale suitability. However, we must also be clear: these investigations must happen with urgency. The longer we delay, the fewer options remain on the table and the more likely that deployment will happen without the proper due diligence at a point of desperation.Privately, many scientists acknowledge the need to advance research into these solutions, but there is a widespread reluctance to say so publicly. I understand this trepidation – some fear backlash, while others worry about giving ammunition to those who would use climate repair as an excuse to delay emissions reductions. There are also many who object on ethical, political or environmental grounds, often for entirely understandable reasons. We must respect these concerns and ensure that any research is conducted transparently, with input from affected communities and with the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous rights-holders.Yet, my question remains: if not now, then when? The climate crisis is worsening before our eyes. We cannot afford to remain silent on the necessity of responsible research into nature-based climate repair. We must explore these approaches as part of a holistic climate response, not in place of deep emissions reductions, but as a complement to them.I commend the advocacy groups, scientists and policy leaders who have already broken their silence. Groups such as Operaatio Arktis, Ocean Visions and the Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering are fostering open and inclusive dialogue about what responsible research should look like. It is time for more of us to speak up.Throughout history, scientific breakthroughs have changed the course of humanity when leaders and communities worked together to act on the evidence before them. The Montreal protocol successfully phased out CFCs after the discovery of the ozone hole. Decades of renewable energy research have made solar and wind the cheapest power sources globally. We have faced existential challenges before and found solutions – because people were willing to pursue bold, responsible action.Today, we face an even greater challenge. We must advance research into climate repair urgently, transparently and with the utmost scientific and ethical rigour. To do so, we must use our voices, collectively and courageously, before the choices are no longer ours to make. Professor Sir David King is the head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. For more than 60 years, he has been a scientist and vocal advocate for acting on climate change. He has served as the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, the foreign secretary’s special representative for climate change and the head of the University of Cambridge’s chemistry department.

We do not have the luxury of rejecting solutions before we have thoroughly investigated their risks, trade-offs and feasibilityAs a lifelong scientist, I have always believed that if something is possible, we can find a way to achieve it. And yet, one of the starkest realities we now face is that the world is failing to meet its climate goals. Last year marked a historic and deeply troubling threshold: for the first time, global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Without drastic and immediate climate action, this breach will not be temporary. The consequences – rising sea levels, extreme weather and devastating loss of biodiversity – are no longer projections for the distant future. They are happening now, affecting millions of lives, and likely to cause trillions in damages in decades to come.But we must think beyond our immediate horizons. When I read The Iliad, I am reminded that it was written 2,800 years ago. I often wonder: in another 2,800 years, what will people – if humanity as we know it still exists – read about our time? Will they see us as the generation that failed to act or one that made the choices necessary to safeguard the planet for the future? Continue reading...

As a lifelong scientist, I have always believed that if something is possible, we can find a way to achieve it. And yet, one of the starkest realities we now face is that the world is failing to meet its climate goals. Last year marked a historic and deeply troubling threshold: for the first time, global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Without drastic and immediate climate action, this breach will not be temporary. The consequences – rising sea levels, extreme weather and devastating loss of biodiversity – are no longer projections for the distant future. They are happening now, affecting millions of lives, and likely to cause trillions in damages in decades to come.

But we must think beyond our immediate horizons. When I read The Iliad, I am reminded that it was written 2,800 years ago. I often wonder: in another 2,800 years, what will people – if humanity as we know it still exists – read about our time? Will they see us as the generation that failed to act or one that made the choices necessary to safeguard the planet for the future?

We must act with this longterm perspective in mind. Scientists agree we need to bring greenhouse gas levels down to below 350 parts per million by the end of this century to ensure a liveable planet for future generations. Achieving this will require a four-pronged approach: reduce, remove, repair and resilience.

Reduction – cutting emissions rapidly and deeply – of course remains a critical priority. But we must also pursue the removal of excess carbon, explore repair techniques to stabilise key ecosystems and build resilience against the escalating impacts we are already experiencing.

One of the greatest challenges of climate science today is that many of the necessary levers to regain control are uncomfortable, even controversial. Ideas such as thickening sea ice to prevent collapse or brightening marine clouds to reflect sunlight, may once have seemed extreme. Yet, as we contend with an escalating crisis, we must at least explore these possibilities. We do not have the luxury of rejecting solutions outright before we have thoroughly investigated their risks, trade-offs and feasibility.

As scientists, we must never advocate for deploying unproven interventions. Any repair or removal techniques must undergo rigorous research and assessment before we evaluate full-scale suitability. However, we must also be clear: these investigations must happen with urgency. The longer we delay, the fewer options remain on the table and the more likely that deployment will happen without the proper due diligence at a point of desperation.

Privately, many scientists acknowledge the need to advance research into these solutions, but there is a widespread reluctance to say so publicly. I understand this trepidation – some fear backlash, while others worry about giving ammunition to those who would use climate repair as an excuse to delay emissions reductions. There are also many who object on ethical, political or environmental grounds, often for entirely understandable reasons. We must respect these concerns and ensure that any research is conducted transparently, with input from affected communities and with the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous rights-holders.

Yet, my question remains: if not now, then when? The climate crisis is worsening before our eyes. We cannot afford to remain silent on the necessity of responsible research into nature-based climate repair. We must explore these approaches as part of a holistic climate response, not in place of deep emissions reductions, but as a complement to them.

I commend the advocacy groups, scientists and policy leaders who have already broken their silence. Groups such as Operaatio Arktis, Ocean Visions and the Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering are fostering open and inclusive dialogue about what responsible research should look like. It is time for more of us to speak up.

Throughout history, scientific breakthroughs have changed the course of humanity when leaders and communities worked together to act on the evidence before them. The Montreal protocol successfully phased out CFCs after the discovery of the ozone hole. Decades of renewable energy research have made solar and wind the cheapest power sources globally. We have faced existential challenges before and found solutions – because people were willing to pursue bold, responsible action.

Today, we face an even greater challenge. We must advance research into climate repair urgently, transparently and with the utmost scientific and ethical rigour. To do so, we must use our voices, collectively and courageously, before the choices are no longer ours to make.

  • Professor Sir David King is the head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. For more than 60 years, he has been a scientist and vocal advocate for acting on climate change. He has served as the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, the foreign secretary’s special representative for climate change and the head of the University of Cambridge’s chemistry department.

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When Scarcity Blurs the Line Between Right and Wrong

Megha Majumdar’s second novel imagines how climate disaster might scramble our sense of morality.

Whenever I read a novel about immigration, I recall a scene from the 2006 Italian film Nuovomondo (released as Golden Door in English). At the turn of the 20th century, a young Sicilian woman who will soon marry a “rich American” presents two postcards, supposedly from the United States, to a village elder. The first depicts a man holding a wheelbarrow that contains a massive onion, so large that it dwarfs both the wheelbarrow and the man. The second postcard displays a tree that is bursting with coins, as if money is sprouting from the branches. Convinced that these images faithfully represent America, a group of villagers sets off for the New World.Many immigrant novels contain similar scenes, in which hapless characters embrace improbable visions of America, only to be chastened upon arrival. These passages reflect how divided the planet once was, how easily myths about the United States could become rooted in other countries. Yet these images also contained a kernel of truth: America once seemed to be a place where hard work inevitably yielded prosperity; where, with time and effort, you could eventually purchase as many onions as you pleased.Immigration tales tend to adopt a hybrid form—part elegy for life in the home country, part hymn to the promise of the new. A Guardian and a Thief is not an immigrant novel in the traditional sense, though its protagonist hopes to leave India for America. (Majumdar’s best-selling debut novel, A Burning, takes place in contemporary India.) Set in the near future, when an environmental crisis has decimated India’s economy and landscape, A Guardian and a Thief unfolds as a mesmerizing morality play that demonstrates how categories like “victim” and “thief” collapse under conditions of scarcity. Yet the novel suffers from what feels like a mismatch between the conditions it depicts and the worldview of the people who populate it. Majumdar’s characters are contending with intractable 21st-century problems while adhering to the stories of an earlier era. In a novel that is so alert to where climate change is leading the world, a narrative frame that illustrates migration as linear and largely redemptive feels anachronistic.[Read: A new kind of immigrant novel]A Guardian and a Thief begins promisingly, offering nuanced portraits of its main characters. On the first page, the reader meets Ma as she fetches eggs and rice from a hidden room in her home. Standing before the stove, she watches a young man whistling as he cycles past her house. Majumdar continues: Thief, thought Ma. Who else but a person who had chanced upon fresh vegetables or fruit would wander the city of Kolkata in this ruined year, the heat a hand clamped upon the mouth, the sun a pistol against one’s head, and recall a song? But the reader soon learns that Ma, who manages a homeless shelter, has for the past year been skimming donations for her own family as food grows scarcer in Kolkata. Soon after, a desperate man named Boomba, who witnessed Ma stealing from the shelter, breaks into her home and swipes her food, her phone, and a purse containing her family’s invaluable travel documents.Throughout the book, Majumdar provides devastating details about Ma’s and Boomba’s lives. Ma cares for her young daughter and elderly father, and has gone months without seeing her husband, who is waiting for her in the U.S. Boomba’s family, in a nearby village, has endured a series of catastrophes, leaving them in dire straits. Ma and Boomba desire the same things—love, food, shelter, security—and they are fearless and unapologetic in pursuing them. Each comes to understand that the rules that prevailed during calmer times no longer hold, that to cling to them is to willingly accept privation and defeat. Majumdar lavishes her characters with careful attention, and so the reader comes to regard their most troubling actions as justified, if not inevitable. And because the world she conjures is so similar to our own (her characters complain about economic inequality and have smartphones; among them is a social-media influencer with 600,000 followers), a persistent question pulses beneath the story: What would you do if you were in their shoes?In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Majumdar said that her novel was prompted by asking herself: “Are there good people and monsters or do we contain elements of both?” This idea animates every encounter between Ma and Boomba until the distinction between good and bad, right and wrong, begins to dissolve. Ma imagines herself as a guardian—of her daughter, her father, her fragile home—yet she steals from the shelter she manages. Boomba, young and rootless, takes essential provisions from Ma’s family, yet his act is also one of guardianship, because he does so to secure his own family’s survival. The novel offers no clean resolutions; it shows how scarcity makes every action double-edged.Majumdar’s psychological precision is what makes the novel’s geopolitical weaknesses feel so pronounced. Her depiction of everyday human interaction is rich and persuasive, but the larger world her characters inhabit feels underdeveloped. Ma’s vision of the U.S., for instance, is described in these clichéd terms: She knew plenty about America. Who didn’t, given Hollywood? It was a country of grocery stores as large as aircraft hangars, stocked with waxed fruit and misted vegetables and canned legumes from floor to ceiling. It was a country of breathable air and potable water, and, despite a history of attempts to cultivate a poorly educated electorate, functioning schools and tenacious thinkers. It was a country of encompassing hope, sustained by the people despite the peddlers of fear and pursuers of gain who wore the ill-fitting costumes of political representation. Ma’s assertion that she knows plenty about America “given Hollywood” might have been understandable in an earlier era, before the internet was ubiquitous. But Majumdar has created a world that is recognizably continuous with our own—her characters scan social media and inhabit a culture saturated with real-time information; as a result, this statement feels curiously old-fashioned. Ma’s description of enormous, glistening grocery stores could be explained as the musings of a person who longs for stability and plentitude, or of a naive character who thinks of America as a land of boundless riches. But Ma has been deftly drawn as a canny realist and problem solver—not the kind of person to indulge in daydreams.[Read: No one is prepared for a new era of global migration]Majumdar’s inconsistent world building ultimately undermines the reader’s ability to invest in the story. She reveals that crops have failed and hunger grips India, but the scope and texture of the climate crisis remain unclear. At one point, Ma’s husband does provide a glimpse of how the climate crisis has affected the U.S. (“fields of corn, cucumber, and asparagus withering, rivers depleted, cacti where there had once been broad-leafed trees”). Yet its brevity is telling: This is the sum of Majumdar’s engagement with the international scale of the disaster. The vagueness might be deliberate—an attempt to present the story as a parable about morality under duress. But invoking climate change invites readers to think in global terms. Without that examination, the moral argument becomes unmoored. A novel about planetary collapse retreats into the contours of a fable, one that asks what people will do to survive without fully confronting the systems that endanger them.Majumdar’s most compelling insight—into collapsing social categories during a time of crisis—speaks to a broader global condition, in which the will to survive can obscure the line between right and wrong. Yet the novel also shows that moral imagination cannot thrive in isolation. Majumdar’s characters’ choices would carry greater weight if the conditions constraining them were rendered with equal depth. In the end, A Guardian and a Thief is a story that comprehends hunger more deeply than the world that produces it.

Climate
Culture
Food

How Friends in South Carolina Are Restoring a Wetland and Bringing Their Neighborhood Together

Joel Caldwell and two friends have been working to improve wetlands in Charleston, South Carolina

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — As the October night deepened and her bedtime approached, Joel Caldwell's 4-year-old daughter huddled with her dad, dangling a stick she pretended was a fishing pole over a creek that has become Caldwell's passion project for nearly the entirety of his daughter's life.“I want my children to grow up with a relationship to the natural world,” said Caldwell. “But we live in a neighborhood, so how do you do that?”The answer Caldwell and two of his friends came to was improving the creek that snakes into their section of Charleston — preserving its tidal flow, expanding its reach and rewilding its edges. This wetland is a transition zone where the land meets the bigger river. Their work here is small in scale and local, but it is tangible and has built a community at a time when it has gotten easier to destroy such places.With fewer wetlands there are fewer fish, fewer plants, fewer insects and birds, dirtier water and less protection against floods. That flooding is a special concern in hurricane-prone Charleston. Storm threats are compounded further by sea rise, which is being driven by climate change. The trio's restoration work fits into a growing public appreciation over the last 10 to 15 years for how wetlands help absorb floodwater.“We can be paralyzed by the bad news that we are fed every day, or we can work within our local communities and engage with people and actually do things,” Caldwell said. Amid isolation, restoration project was founded Caldwell has traveled the world as a freelance photographer. Then the COVID-19 virus hit right around the time his wife gave birth to their first daughter. From that stuck-in-place isolation, he and two friends, who were also having their first children at the time, founded The Marsh Appreciation and Restoration Society for Happiness Project, or The MARSH Project. Halsey Creek is mere blocks from Caldwell's house. The tidal salt marsh extends a few thousand feet from the Ashley River, one of three rivers that meet at Charleston, flowing between blocks of single-family homes many squeezed on one-tenth-of-an-acre lots.Neglected and abused in its urban setting, their first project was a community trash pickup on a hot day. They expected maybe a dozen people but ended up with 50, thanks to advertising by cofounder Blake Suárez, a graphic designer. Caldwell said people were clearly hungry to connect with their local environment.Over the years, they’ve pulled tires, radios, televisions, “generations of garbage” and even brought over winches to remove a car engine from the marsh. Wetlands viewed as an impediment to progress “It is going to be even harder to protect those wetlands that are left because the best tool we had to protect those wetlands, the federal Clean Water Act, is really being gutted,” said Mark Sabath, an attorney with the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center.The wetlands around Charleston support oyster beds that filter water and cling to long, wooden piers that stretch over shallow water and into the Ashley River. Kingfishers and egrets fly between the cordgrass. It's a humid, sticky place during blazing summers in the South. A vein of the river becomes Halsey Creek, shooting into the Wagner Terrace neighborhood, a suburban area north of Charleston's historic downtown. Waves of communities called it home after World War II: it was predominantly Jewish along with Greek and Italian immigrants in the decades following the war, shifting to African American in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, gentrification has created a mostly white community of more expensive homes.To help protect the wetlands, The MARSH Project's first significant conservation step was buying an acre of land from a local landowner.That acre is not obviously remarkable, running along a sloped strip that hugs the water, a runway of backyard grass on one side and bushes crowding the other. But the purchase ensures it will stay wetlands, not become new houses.“With the state of the world, and maybe my own sort of inclination, I’m not, like, naturally a happy person. So, this is like my form of therapy,” said co-founder Blake Scott, a historian who can recite the marsh’s role in Charleston dating back to when the British staged a nearby siege during the Revolutionary War.“The marsh makes me happy.” 'There is no gesture too small' Private homes abut the creek, so Scott has become its neighborhood salesperson. Out on a recent day, Scott spotted Jill Rowley, who lives near the end of the creek. He pointed to bare soil in the yard, explaining it would be an ideal spot for native plants to cleanse and slow rushing water, offering an expert’s gardening advice and possibly funding.“I never had an interest in the marsh or native (plants),” Rowley said. “And seeing this, and what is going on here, and really feeling like a steward and learning … I’ve just fallen in love with it.”Rowley can see what Scott is describing by looking across the street at one of their demonstration gardens. This is not a place for evenly spaced flowers surrounded by freshly cut grass. It’s a wilder mass of plants, with tall bending golden rod and Elliott’s aster that sprout purple flowers to attract pollinators deep in the fall. Native plants like these helped increase the bugs for the kids’ moth night that brought Caldwell's daughter, Land, to the creek that October night with her dad. The founders see events like this as one way of ensuring the next generation appreciates the importance of the ecosystem.Scott believes wetlands and wildlife could improve the neighborhood. For part of its length, the creek meanders and absorbs the tide, but a bisecting street constrains flow to its back half. Here it struggles to turn and expand. Nearby blocks flood easily into a suburban lake that can rise to a tall man’s waste. He wants to install better drains and a tidal gate to help the marsh absorb millions of additional gallons of that floodwater. The reaction from neighbors has been mostly, but not universally, positive, Scott said – a limited few resists public access near their property or picking up trash.The trio of founders are now starting to look outside of their neighborhood to create a corridor of native plants and trees to connect wildlife across the city’s few remaining creeks. It builds on four years of hosting public lectures, trash pickups, planting pollinator gardens, bringing in students for water quality testing and many other community events.Through them, they’ve found success focusing on an issue, and local actions — not broader politics.“It’s getting as many people as possible to change whatever their little piece of earth is,” Caldwell said. “There is no gesture too small.”The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environmentCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

Climate
Conservation
Waste

Biofuel Pledge at Climate Summit Highlights India’s Ethanol Blending Debate

Earlier this year, the Indian government announced that it has achieved its target of mixing 20% of ethanol—considered a relatively cleaner fuel—with petrol or gasoline five years ahead of schedule

BENGALURU, India (AP) — India's push to blend ethanol with gasoline shows the benefits and challenges of the sustainable fuel efforts being showcased at global climate talks this week. Earlier this year, the Indian government announced that it achieved its goal of mixing 20% of the plant-based fuel with gasoline five years ahead of schedule. The world's most populous country is joining Brazil, Japan and Italy to promote ethanol and other biofuels as part of the Belem 4x initiative. The initiative, being showcased Friday at the COP30 climate summit, provides political support for expanding biofuels and relatively low-emission hydrogen-based fuels. Brazil, long a biofuel leader, commonly sells a 27% ethanol blend and its government recently announced plans to increase the percentage. India's rapid ethanol shift shows challenges other countries could face. While the Indian government said ethanol usage reduces pollution, some users said it is affecting their mileage and damaging older engines. Most fuel pumps in India now sell the 20% ethanol blend or unblended gasoline that’s nearly twice as expensive. Lower ethanol blends are being phased out. Environment experts also said grain production for ethanol can displace food crops and sometimes generates more planet-warming gases than it saves. Indian car owners say ethanol reduces mileage Ethanol, typically made from corn, sugarcane or rice, is considered cleaner than petroleum-based gasoline. The Indian government said its blending program has already cut carbon emissions by 74 billion kilograms (163 billion pounds)— equivalent to planting 300 million trees — and saved over $12 billion in oil imports in the last decade.“I think it’s good for the environment,” said Vijay Ramakrishnan, a businessman in Chennai. “But I’ve noticed a drop in mileage in my vehicle in recent months. Given how expensive fuel already is this further drop is only adding to my costs.”Ramakrishnan, who commutes over 100 kilometers (62 miles) daily, wants the government to offer more fuel choices.Amit Khare, who runs a popular YouTube channel on automobiles, said many followers complain about a significant drop in mileage from E20. Some owners of older cars have told him that they are having engine trouble.“E5 is the best fuel, E10 is manageable, but E20 has given a lot of trouble,” he said. Ramya Natarajan of the Bengaluru-based Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy said ethanol can be good for some engines if they are compatible, but agreed that it can reduce mileage. Indian farmers want clarity on crops needed for ethanol Farmers said they need clarity on government procurement plans for ethanol production. Ramandeep Mann, a farmer in India's northern Punjab state, said farmers significantly increased corn acreage last year in hopes of selling it for fuel, but the price dropped after the government allocated large amounts of rice to ethanol makers. The amount of ethanol blended with gasoline in India grew from 8% to 20% in the last five years. Most of the ethanol now comes from grains, as opposed to the sugarcane, its traditional source. Mann said prices for sugarcane have also dropped this year. He said it’s good that the government is tackling climate change, but it should put farmers and their prices ahead of ethanol mandates. Previously, surplus crops not needed for food were the primary source of India's ethanol, but that's beginning to change, according to Natarajan of CSTEP. “With the push for E20 blends or even more, a lot more area has to be cultivated which in turn means it’ll be replacing other crops,” she said. Climate experts said biofuel production can have minimal environmental impact when it’s made from waste or inedible vegetation and processed in facilities that run on clean energy. But when crops are grown explicitly for biofuels, it has a higher carbon footprint because of the fertilizer and fuel involved.India’s ethanol strategy is part of a broader effort to reduce emissions, cut oil imports and boost agriculture, said Purva Jain, an energy specialist at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.But she said a faster transition to infrastructure for electric vehicles might be better. A 2022 study by her organization found that installing solar power for EV charging can be a much more efficient land use than growing crops for biofuel. However, ethanol producers have invested significant sums in manufacturing and need a steady, growing market for their product now, said CK Jain, president of the Grain Ethanol Manufacturers Association. He said India should increase the percentage of ethanol mixed with gas and encourage the sale of compatible vehicles. “We need to have higher blending as soon as possible, otherwise the industry will go into deep financial trouble,” Jain said. Other experts advocated for a middle ground. A 10% blend of ethanol with gasoline, can be a “win-win” solution said Natarajan of CSTEP. She said that would allow for use of existing crops without putting too much pressure on increased cultivation. Khare, the YouTube influencer, said keeping lower blends available would help older vehicles. “The government can bring E20 or even up to E85 programs on top of that, that’s completely fine. But consumers need to be given the option,” he said. The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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If Trump’s EPA abandons climate policy, could California take over on greenhouse gases?

Legal experts, including a former federal official and UCLA professor, say California could go it alone if the federal government stops regulating greenhouse gases. One reason to try is to protect the state’s clean-car economy.

In summary Legal experts, including a former federal official and UCLA professor, say California could go it alone if the federal government stops regulating greenhouse gases. One reason to try is to protect the state’s clean-car economy. California has long cast itself as the nation’s climate conscience — and its policy lab. Now, as the Environmental Protection Agency moves to revoke the backbone of federal climate rules — the scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health — one of the state’s top climate officials is weighing a provocative idea put forward by environmental law experts: If Washington retreats, California could lead on carbon-controlling regulation.   Absent what’s known as the endangerment finding, the EPA may soon consider abandoning the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and other sources, furthering the Trump Administration’s stated aim to dismantle U.S. climate policy.  While decrying the prospect of such a move, climate advocates say a repeal would yield a silver lining: California and other states could in theory set their own greenhouse gas rules for cars and trucks, regulations previously superseded by federal authority. Cars and trucks represent more than a third of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. A long shot regulatory gambit could clean some of the nation’s dirtiest air – and keep the state’s clean-car transition alive. “All options are currently on the table,” Lauren Sanchez, chair of the California Air Resources Board, told CalMatters in an interview. Authority states have never had before A former federal official and expert on the Clean Air Act – who is also a law professor at UCLA – first floated this idea.  Ann Carlson wrote in the law journal Environmental Forum that an aggressive federal action against climate policy “could, ironically, provide states with authority they’ve never had before.” The Trump administration now argues that greenhouse gases do not endanger health and that regulation is more harmful — a claim widely rejected by scientists, businesses and environmental groups, as well as states, including California. The Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, on Sept. 30, 2025. Photo by Stella Kalinina for CalMatters “If greenhouse gases aren’t covered by the Clean Air Act,” Carlson told CalMatters, “then California could presumably regulate them — and so could every other state.” Carlson, who ran the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration until last year and has written extensively about the landmark law, argues that the act only preempts state rules for pollutants it actually covers. States “have a pretty strong legal argument” to regulate greenhouse gases, she said. The EPA, for its part, argues that states would still be barred from setting their own standards, arguing that its broad authority over air pollution covers even emissions the agency chooses not to regulate. That’s a view shared by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade association and lobbying group, which supported overturning California’s phaseout of new, gas-powered cars, as well as the American Trucking Associations, which has opposed some of California’s rules on trucks. Carlson said that argument doesn’t hold up. In her Environmental Forum article, she wrote: “If Congress didn’t intend the act to cover greenhouse gases, as the administration argues, then it’s hard to believe Congress intended to preempt states and localities from regulating them.” In other words, she says, preemption has its limits.  Other experts agreed the idea is worth considering.  Ethan Elkind, who directs the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, said that states are free to “do whatever they want,” as long as the federal government hasn’t preempted them.  Not a slam dunk for California to step in For the better part of a century, California has worked to curb air pollution at the state and local level. The state’s vanguard status positions it well to test Trump’s move to curb federal climate regulation, say experts.  “I personally would be advocating that they move ahead,” said Mary Nichols, a former air board chair. “And if I were there, I would be looking to gain support for doing it.” California holds a unique status under federal law. It can set tougher tailpipe-emission standards than the rest of the country — a recognition of its early leadership in fighting smog. Since 1968, the state has obtained more than 100 federal waivers for its vehicle rules, and other states can adopt California’s standards under certain conditions. UC Berkeley law professor Daniel Farber said the state could even take a dual-track approach. “We don’t really think we need a waiver,” he would argue after EPA abandons the field, “but just in case we do: yes, give us one.” California’s latest clash with Washington stems from a decades-long dance over who sets the nation’s toughest clean-car rules. The state’s strict vehicle rules have helped spur innovations from catalytic converters to cleaner fuel to electric cars. The regulatory push began in Los Angeles after skies grew so smog-choked they stung peoples’ eyes. In 1966, California adopted the nation’s first tailpipe standards. When Congress passed the 1970 Clean Air Act, it gave the state rare authority to set tougher rules — making California both a laboratory and a trailblazer, so long as it secured a federal waiver. In 2002, California passed the nation’s first law regulating greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling confirmed those gases are pollutants under federal law, leading to the Obama administration’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that they harm public health. Such a move would fit California’s pattern of pushing first and asking permission later. In 2005, the state adopted its greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles and sought a waiver before it was even clear whether carbon qualified as pollution under federal law. The EPA initially denied that request in 2008 but reversed course a year later, granting the waiver in 2009. “So this wouldn’t necessarily be a slam dunk approach for the state to take, but I think the legal avenue is now there,” said Elkin, of UC Berkeley. Targeting cars with new regulation If California tried to regulate greenhouse gases on its own, it would have both experience and infrastructure to rely on. The process would look a lot like how the state has written past clean-car rules — except this time, the target would be carbon itself. California’s clean-car rules have operated within the permission-seeking framework set up by the Clean Air Act — until this year, when Trump and Congress moved to block the state’s plans to phase out gas cars and tighten diesel-truck standards. Trump’s EPA then went further by proposing to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding, framing it as a win for “consumer choice.” Most of the state’s climate programs already run under authority of California’s own groundbreaking state laws: clean-energy mandates for utilities, a carbon-trading program for businesses, even standards to cut the carbon in fuels. Cars are different. They’re sold into a national market, and tailpipe emissions have long been federally preempted — one reason California has needed Washington’s permission to go its own way. If the state decides to test those limits, regulators would need to draft new rules and open them to public review — a process that could take years. California has already started down the path of new rules for clean cars and trucks. Last month, the Air Resources Board began the process of crafting clean car rules in response to the Trump administration’s rollback of the state’s new gas-car ban — a revocation the state is also fighting in court. In December, the board plans to begin the process of writing new emissions rules for trucks. The automobile association declined to comment on the new rulemaking effort.  Patrick Kelly, vice president of energy and environmental affairs for American Trucking Associations, said the group would work with its state affiliate to “respond to specific proposals. “ “More broadly, (our group) supports achievable national standards and opposes a patchwork of state and local standards that Congress sought to avoid,” Kelly wrote in an email. Gov. Gavin Newsom swears in incoming California Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez on Oct. 1, 2025. Photo courtesy of Office of the Governor Asked by CalMatters whether the new rulemakings could become the vehicle for California to go its own way under Trump, Sanchez, the air board chair, said it’s an option staff is studying. “It’s something that staff is looking into, and I look forward to digging into myself,” Sanchez said. No downside to trying, and some upsides Even if legal experts like the idea in theory, UC Berkeley’s Dan Farber says California going forward alone is a longshot in practice.  “There’s a chance you would win,” Farber said, of the argument that the state could directly regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars. “You’re buying a lawsuit, but other than litigation expenses, I don’t think there’s much downside in trying to do it.” Farber and others point out that the Trump administration and car and truck manufacturers would almost certainly sue to block state-level efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.  The Alliance for Automotive Innovation warned, in comments to the EPA, that if states were not preempted, any unregulated emission “would then become fair game,” creating conflicting standards across the country. Automakers have long argued that letting states write their own climate rules would create a costly patchwork of standards, raising prices for consumers and complicating production for a national market. California is in somewhat of a legal quandary. The Clean Air Act requires California to meet national pollution standards, and the state still has some of the most air-polluted regions in the country. The state’s solutions rely heavily on clean-car and truck rules to meet those requirements. If California falls short, it could lose federal highway funding, a situation that Sanchez called a “no-win, Catch 22.”  After decades of regulation and incentives, California has built a reputation as a leader in electric cars, and experts said if the state pushes further on policy, that could help keep California’s clean-car transition alive and its electric-vehicle goals within reach.  Nick Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, said California could also risk getting ahead of consumers if it goes it alone. Electric cars proved less popular than policymakers expected when it originally passed its goal to do away with sales of new gas-powered cars.  “What is clear is that the program was not overwhelmingly popular amongst the public, even in California, right?” Nigro said. “That’s usually a flag for policymakers.” Craig Segall, an independent consultant and former state air board deputy, said there’s another factor to consider: by preserving demand and infrastructure for EVs, the state could maintain a beachhead for innovation that a future president might build on. With no coherent federal policy to compete in the global EV market, California could again use its regulatory and investment muscle — just as it once did in helping spawn electric car maker Tesla — to push the market forward. “What the feds are basically signaling here is that the field is open for anyone who’s serious about being a competitive car or truck company in five years,” Segall said. “One of those paths is: the world’s fourth largest economy figures out ways to take its manufacturing economic capacity and just plow ahead.”

Climate
Government
Energy

How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling

Exclusive: Research shows oil, gas and coal firms’ unprecedented access to Cop26-29, blocking urgent climate actionMore than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

More than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The roughly 5,350 lobbyists mingling with world leaders and climate negotiators in recent years worked for at least 859 fossil fuel organizations including trade groups, foundations and 180 oil, gas and coal companies involved in every part of the supply chain from exploration and production to distribution and equipment, research shared exclusively with the Guardian has found.Just 90 of the fossil fuel corporations that sent lobbyists to climate talks between 2021 and 2024 accounted for more than half (57%) of all the oil and gas produced last year, according to the analysis by Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO), a coalition of 450 organizations campaigning to stop the fossil fuel industry blocking and delaying global climate action.These corporations, which include many of the world’s most profitable private and publicly owned oil and gas majors, accounted for the production of 33,699m barrels of oil equivalent in 2024 – enough to cover more than the entire area of Spain with a 1cm blanket of oil.The same 90 firms also account for almost two-thirds (63%) of all short-term upstream fossil fuel expansion projects which are gearing up for exploration and production, according to the newly released Global Oil and Gas Exit List – a dataset which includes more than 1,700 companies covering more than 90% of global oil and gas activity.If executed, these expansion projects will produce enough oil – 2.623m km² at 1cm thickness – to coat the entire landmass of seven European countries (France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway) combined.The findings have renewed calls for fossil fuel companies and other big polluters to be banned from the annual climate negotiations amid mounting scientific evidence that the world has failed to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial levels,.“This information clearly exposes corporate capture of the global climate process … the space that should be about science and the people has been transformed into a large carbon business hall,” said Adilson Vieira, spokesperson for the Amazonian Work Group. “While forest communities fight for survival, the same companies that cause climate collapse buy credentials and political influence to continue expanding their fossil empires.”“Not only are Indigenous peoples on the frontlines of their extractive sites suffering human rights violations, but we also face the brunt of climate chaos on our lands with worsening floods, wildfires, and extreme heat waves. We need to take down the ‘for sale’ sign on Mother Earth and bar entry to Cop for oil and gas lobbyists,” said Brenna Yellowthunder, lead coordinator for the Indigenous Environmental Network, a member of KBPO.The 30th UN climate summit (Cop30) opens on Monday in Belem, a city in the Brazilian Amazon – the world’s largest rainforest, which is being destroyed by ever-expanding fossil fuel exploitation, industrial agriculture, and mining, among other extractive industries.The annual meetings are where every country in the world negotiates on how best to tackle the climate crisis. The decisions should be driven by the legally binding United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty, and the 2015 Paris agreement to curtail global heating to under 1.5C.The research analyses the fossil fuel lobbyists known to have attended the negotiations in Glasgow (Cop26), Sharm el-Sheikh (Cop27), Dubai (Cop28) and Baku (Cop29). Until then, information about lobbyists was not collated by the UNFCCC.Growing anger at the lack of meaningful action by the world’s wealthiest, most polluting countries has been compounded by revelations that the fossil fuel industry appears to be granted greater access to the climate talks than most countries.Last year, 1,773 registered fossil fuel lobbyists attended the summit in Azerbaijan – 70% more than the total number of delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined (1,033).But the true reach of fossil fuel tentacles is undoubtedly deeper as the lobbyists data excludes executives and other company representatives on official country delegations participating directly in the confidential negotiations, and those attending as guests of governments, known as overflow delegates.The largest number of known lobbyists in recent years were representing state-owned companies from the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Azerbaijan.Many of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel corporations have also been present at recent Cop summits, at a time when governments faced huge public pressure – but failed – to agree to phase out fossil fuels despite deadly climate impacts affecting every corner of the planet.Between 2021 and 2024, Shell sent a combined total of 37 lobbyists, BP sent 36, ExxonMobil 32 and Chevron 20.In the past five years, the four oil majors made more than $420bn in combined profits.On Friday the Exxon CEO Darren Woods will headline a Cop30 launch event in Brasilia hosted by the US chamber of commerce called Pragmatic Business Solutions for Carbon Accounting and Emission Reductions. The US, which like every state is legally obliged under international law to tackle the climate crisis, has withdrawn from the Paris agreement and is not sending a country delegation to the summit.Petrobas, the majority state owned Brazilian multinational which sent at least 28 lobbyists to the past four climate summits, was recently grant ed a licence to conduct exploratory oil drilling in the sea off the Amazon, which is home to multiple Indigenous communities and about 10% of the planet’s known species.A spokesperson said: “Petrobras will be present at COP30, as it has been at previous talks, because it recognizes the opportunity to discuss sustainable models… The company’s participation in COP30 reinforces its commitment to follow and contribute to international debates on climate and energy.”Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment.After years of campaigning by civil society groups, Cop delegates this year are being asked to publicly disclose who is funding their participation – and confirm that their objectives are in alignment with the UNFCCC. But the new transparency requirement excludes anyone in official government delegations or overflows, and calls for stricter conflict of interest protections to cut industry influence have not been adequately heeded, advocates say.“The new rules are a welcome start, but they come decades too late … and transparency without exclusion is performative. You cannot claim to fix a process already captured by the very corporations burning the planet and fueling wars,” said Mohammed Usrof, executive director of the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy. “The UNFCCC must move from disclosure to disqualification… without reform this process will not save the world, and instead, will just help bury it.”UNFCCC has been contacted for comment.

Climate
Agriculture
Crisis

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