The main purpose of this blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Main Topic: Europe Begins to Tiptoe Away from Key Climate Policies
Dear Diary. No one ever said that transitioning totally to renewables with all transportation getting electrified would be easy. Nevertheless, this change will be necessary to keep our climate and civilization intact as we move through the 21st century. I’m not sure if this transition is too late to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change, but what I do know is that the longer we as a species delays, the greater our civilization will be stressed, even to the point in which our very survival is threatened if global temperature averages get much over +2.0°C above preindustrial conditions.
Trump and his fossil fuel loving cronies have put a big monkey wrench into transition plans. Perhaps they have rubbed off on European counterparts who are now using the ‘transition will be too hard’ excuse to delay deadlines to use all electric vehicles. Here are more details from the New York Times:
Europe Begins to Tiptoe Away From Key Climate Policies – The New York Times
Europe Begins to Tiptoe Away From Key Climate Policies
Europe has some of the world’s most ambitious climate goals, but in recent months it has backtracked on rules governing automobile emissions and deforestation.
Queuing for gas in southern France. Earlier this week, E.U. officials introduced a proposal that would walk back an effective ban on the production of gas- and diesel-powered cars by 2035.Credit…Christophe Simon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Claire Brown
Dec. 18, 2025
At the start of the year, as President Donald Trump began the process of withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement and started dismantling climate policies, the European Union president, Ursula von der Leyen, tacked in the opposite direction.
“Climate change is still on top of the global agenda,” she said during a speech in January.
Eleven months later, things look very different. Patricia Cohen and Eshe Nelson reported Tuesday that the E.U. is poised to water down its plans to ban the production of gas- and diesel-powered cars by 2035. Members of Parliament voted on Wednesday to delay the rollout of a groundbreaking deforestation law that would affect far-flung corners of the globe. And early this year, lawmakers chipped away at the scope and scale of new disclosure requirements meant to force companies to be more forthcoming about the environmental impact of their operations.
It’s not a pivot that’s on par with the U-turn the U.S. has taken on climate this year. Europe still has some of the strongest climate commitments in the world, with a goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. But the events of 2025, experts say, are reflective of increasing worries that E.U. regulations will slow economic growth.
“First, it was climate policy no matter what,” said Gianmarco Fifi, a research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies European politics. “Now, it’s climate policy, yes, but as long as it’s not completely detrimental to competitiveness.”
Here are some of the policies under the microscope.
Combustion engines
This week, E.U. officials introduced a proposal that would walk back an effective ban on the production of gas- and diesel-powered cars by 2035.
Instead of requiring automakers to produce zero-emissions cars, the revised version of the rules would require a 90 percent reduction in tailpipe emissions starting that year. Automakers would be required to offset the remaining 10 percent with low-carbon steel or alternative fuels.
The change follows intense lobbying from European automakers as they face U.S. tariff pressure and surging competition from Chinese manufacturers. The E.U. climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, said the proposal would ensure a clean future for the European car industry at a time when it is “fighting for survival,” Cohen and Nelson reported.
This year, the Trump administration, along with Republicans in Congress, eliminated tax credits for electric vehicle buyers and blocked California’s plans to phase out the sales of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. This month, the administration moved to weaken fuel efficiency requirements for new cars and light trucks that would have forced automakers to sell more electric and hybrid vehicles.
Deforestation delay, Part 2
In 2023, the European Union passed a bold law aimed at preserving forests around the world by banning imported goods linked to deforestation. On Wednesday, legislators voted to delay the law for a second time.
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The rules govern products containing seven land-intensive commodities: cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soybeans, rubber and wood. They require companies to monitor their supply chains to ensure these materials are not sourced from land that has been converted from forest to agriculture since 2020.
It’s a vast and complicated task, and the law has drawn pushback. Companies balked. Indonesia’s economic minister called the plan “regulatory imperialism,” objecting to Europe’s efforts to impose environmental standards on economically important industries in other nations. Some E.U. member countries asked for a delay, and so did the Biden administration. Last December, the E.U. granted a one-year reprieve.
As this year’s deadline inched closer, lawmakers again grew concerned, this time that the record-keeping requirements would overwhelm an I.T. system used to collect paperwork. The E.U. Parliament voted to delay it for another year and simplify some of the reporting requirements.
“The heart of the E.U. deforestation regulation remains intact,” Christine Schneider, a German member of the European Parliament, said in a statement. “This agreement takes the concerns of farmers, foresters and businesses seriously and ensures that the regulation can be implemented in a practical and workable way.”
What’s next
There are new European climate laws that the world may have to adjust to. In 2027, for example, oil and gas companies exporting to Europe will have to comply with strict methane-monitoring standards. And in January, some emissions-intensive imports like steel and cement will be subject to a new border tax based on their climate footprint, part of a broad effort to put a price on imported carbon emissions.
On Tuesday, Lisa Friedman reported that the Trump administration was seeking an exemption from the methane law for American oil and gas companies. China has balked at both the emissions border tax and the deforestation rule.
These climate policies were intended to lay the track for other countries to follow — examples of what has been called “the Brussels effect.” But it’s not clear if the rest of the world will comply.
“I think there is a concern that Europe is trying to lead a fight, and it’s going to find itself alone in this fight,” Fifi said. “The other big players — China and Russia or the United States — at the moment are not even thinking about it.”
Here are some “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Monday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)