The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track global 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: Trump Withdraws from Parris Accords on First Day
Dear Diary. I along with many pundits for many years have stated that elections have country. As expected, Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords with one signature only a few hours after his swearing in ceremony. What a sad day for my nation and the world. Dr. Michael Mann and I agree that there is no hope to maintain a livable climate without international intervention and cooperation.
Due to Trump and other world leaders that have dithered before him, the world may very well enter a dark age in which civilization eventually falls due to climate pressure, particularly if agriculture is greatly disrupted and rising seas inundate all coastal areas.
Here are more details from the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/01/20/trump-day-one-executive-orders-energy
Trump just declared an ‘energy emergency.’ Here’s what it means.
In Day 1 executive orders, President Donald Trump withdrew from the landmark climate accord and pushed to dismantle his predecessor’s environmental agenda.
January 20, 2025 at 9:23 p.m. EST
President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a victory rally at Capital One Arena in D.C. on Sunday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By Maxine Joselow, Chico Harlan and Evan Halper
During his first moments as the nation’s 47th president Monday, Donald Trump moved to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement, boost domestic fossil fuel production and reverse many of former president Joe Biden’s signature efforts to combat climate change and other pressing environmental problems.
The flurry of executive orders drew cheers from the fossil fuel industry but raised fears among U.S. allies about the future of global climate initiatives. The United States ranks as the largest historical emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases, and its exit from the Paris accord threatens to derail emissions-cutting efforts during a critical four-year period.
Nations pledged in 2015 to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels — a crucial threshold for averting the most catastrophic climate impacts. But scientists recently confirmed that 2024 was the first year to surpass this threshold — and the hottest year on record.
Trump signed an executive order pulling out of the Paris climate accord during an event with supporters at the Capital One Arena in Washington. He slammed the accord as “unfair” and “one-sided,” prompting loud applause from the crowd.
Later on Monday in the Oval Office, Trump signed additional executive orders declaring a “national energy emergency,” boosting oil and gas drilling in Alaska, “unleashing American energy” and stopping new offshore wind projects in federal waters. It was not immediately clear what government actions the energy emergency would entail, although Trump allies have suggested it could allow federal agencies to quickly approve pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure deemed important to national security.
In the orders, Trump directed agencies to review dozens of Biden’s environmental policies and, if possible, quickly reverse them. He instructed the Energy Department to end the Biden administration’s pause on approving new facilities that export liquefied natural gas, and he instructed the Interior Department to lift restrictions on oil and gas drilling across millions of acres of federal lands in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
“We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump declared in his second inaugural address Monday, adding that the United States has “the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it.” (In fact, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia have the biggest oil reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.)
It is common for presidents to sign executive orders on their first day that reverse some of their predecessors’ decisions. But the contrast between Biden’s climate legacy and Trump’s energy agenda is particularly pronounced, heralding a seismic shift in policy across the federal government.
Some of the steps outlined in Trump’s executive orders, such as ending the pause on new LNG exports, will take effect immediately. Other efforts, such as rewriting complicated regulations, could take months or even years.
For instance, it could take years for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department to weaken fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, which Biden strengthened. Though Trump has described these rules as an “electric vehicle mandate,” they do not ban the sale of new vehicles powered by gasoline or diesel.
In some cases, market forces could have a greater impact on the nation’s energy landscape than the new administration’s policies. The price of oil, for instance, tends to dictate companies’ decisions about major new investments in drilling and refining.
Trump had made no secret of his energy agenda for his first day in office, frequently boasting about his plans after his November victory over Biden.
“I will sign Day 1 orders to end all Biden restrictions on energy production, terminate his insane electric vehicle mandate, cancel his natural gas export ban, reopen [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] in Alaska — the biggest site, potentially anywhere in the world — and declare a national energy emergency,” Trump said in December.
Former North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick for interior secretary and “energy czar,” also suggested during his confirmation hearing Thursday that the incoming administration could consider declaring an energy emergency because of soaring electricity demand.
“This is part of a larger crisis our nation is facing around electricity,” Burgum told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The energy emergency declaration relies heavily on concerns about the nation’s power grid not being able to keep up with surging demand, particularly from tech companies developing artificial intelligence. It stresses that the nation’s “ability to remain at the forefront of technological innovation” requires more energy.
In a call with reporters Monday morning, officials with the incoming administration stressed that the order is focused, in part, on keeping the United States ahead of China in the AI arms race.
The tech companies building these data centers had initially planned to power them solely with clean energy. But new wind and solar generation is not keeping up with the needs of the immense AI infrastructure, and tech companies are routinely being told their projects will have to wait years to come online.
Pulling out of Paris again
Among Trump’s initial climate moves, the decision to exit the Paris agreement stands as the most internationally consequential, reinforcing a sense that the United States is an unreliable partner in the global effort to reduce emissions. That sense had been growing even before Trump’s election, as the United States expanded its oil and gas production even after joining other nations in pledging to phase out fossil fuels.
“We are back to countries performing actions in their narrow, short-term interests,” said Li Shuo, director of the China climate program at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “That will inform the judgment of all the other political capitals in the world that the zeitgeist of global climate action is not where it should be.”
In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry expressed concern over Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement.
“Climate change is a common challenge faced by all of humanity. No country can stand apart from it or stay unaffected,” said Guo Jiakun, the ministry’s spokesman. “Upholding the concept of a shared future for mankind, China will work with all parties to actively tackle the challenges of climate change and jointly advance the global transition toward a green and low-carbon [future],” Guo said at a press briefing Tuesday.
Though Trump announced a similar action in 2017, at the start of his first term, the circumstances then were different: A rule stated that parties could withdraw from the accord, which came into force in 2016, only once it was three years old. Because the withdrawal process takes a year, the United States technically remained a member of the agreement until Nov. 4, 2020 — one day after voters awarded the presidency to Biden.
This time, the United States will be able to exit the accord more quickly. And the move will come at a perilous time for global climate efforts.
Right-wing parties, particularly in Europe, are gaining traction by pushing back against green policies. Wealthy countries are falling well short in financing climate-related projects in poorer nations, swelling a sense of injustice between the Global North and Global South — and leaving some countries worried about the viability of future global negotiations.
“A lot of countries could use [the U.S. exit] as an excuse to do little,” said Linda Kalcher, a former U.N. climate adviser and the founder of Strategic Perspectives, a Brussels-based climate policy group.
At the same time, many countries see an economic case for the clean-energy transition — and a political opportunity to fill a power vacuum.
China might have the most to gain, policymakers and experts predict. Already, China’s share of global solar panel manufacturing exceeds 80 percent. And Chinese-made EVs are surging in competition against those of American and European automakers. The United States’ withdrawal from the Paris accord could further cement a perception of Beijing as the superpower that can help the world cope with climate perils.
When Trump pulled out of the Paris agreement the first time, a group called America is All In announced that dozens of states, cities and corporations were still committed to the pact. Gina McCarthy, the former White House climate czar under Biden and the managing co-chair of America is All In, promised in a statement to continue that fight.
“Our states, cities, businesses, and local institutions stand ready to pick up the baton of U.S. climate leadership and do all they can — despite federal complacency — to continue the shift to a clean energy economy,” she said.
Dino Grandoni contributed to this report. Vic Chiang in Taipei, Taiwan, also contributed.
Here are more “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 Tuesday:
(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.)