Members of the California national guard and other law enforcement at a protest in Los Angeles on Sunday. Photograph: Daniel Powell/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
Lawsuit claims administration ‘trampled’ on states sovereignty by bypassing Governor Gavin Newsom
The state of California will file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for “unlawfully” federalizing the state’s national guard and deploying its troops to quell immigration protests, the attorney general Rob Bonta said on Monday.
Previewing the lawsuit, Bonta claimed the Trump administration “trampled” on the states sovereignty by bypassing the governor Gavin Newsom – a move he said was “by definition, illegal” and escalated what began on Friday as scattered protests and erupted into unrest.
“This was not inevitable,” Bonta said of the demonstrations that built over the weekend following immigration raids across Los Angeles, adding: “There was no risk of rebellion, no threat of foreign invasion. No, inability for the federal government to enforce federal laws.”
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Protesters oppose Trump’s policies in Los Angeles on Sunday. Photograph: Étienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images
Thousands take to LA streets to protest against Ice raids and president’s deployment of national guard troops
Federal agents clashed with demonstrators in Los Angeles on Sunday as police used teargas and “less-lethal munitions” to disperse massive crowds of people protesting against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and his deployment of the California national guard against the will of the state’s elected leaders.
Thousands of Angelenos swamped the streets around city hall, the federal courthouse and a detention center where protesters arrested in days before are being held. They also brought a major freeway to a standstill.
Vocal and boisterous, the crowd for large parts of the day was mostly peaceful. But tensions flared several times. On Sunday afternoon, police used teargas to disperse groups of protesters gathered near the detention center. And in the evening, officers fired round after round of flash-bangs in an attempt to push the protesters back up the freeway off-ramps. Los Angeles police leaders said officers had been shot at with commercial grade fireworks, and had rocks thrown at them.
Trump’s decision to deploy national guard troops into Los Angeles, against the wishes of state and local officials, has sent shockwaves through American politics. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and other Democratic governors have sharply criticized the move, describing it as an “alarming abuse of power”. Newsom has called on the administration to rescind the “unlawful” deployment.
“This is a serious breach of state sovereignty – inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed. Rescind the order. Return control to California,” Newsom said.
Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 national guard on Saturday night following two days of clashes between demonstrators and US immigration authorities.
The decision marked a stunning escalation in a broad crackdown on immigrants following raids across the country, which have triggered protests.
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The 2015 Paris agreement committed countries to keeping the global temperature increase “well below 2°C”, which is widely interpreted as an average of 1.5°C over a 30-year period. The Paris agreement has not yet failed, but recent high temperatures show how close the Earth is to crossing this critical threshold.
Climate scientists have, using computer simulations, modelled pathways for halting climate change at internationally agreed limits. However, in recent years, many of the pathways that have been published involve exceeding 1.5°C for a few decades and removing enough greenhouse gas from the atmosphere to return Earth’s average temperature below the threshold again. Scientists call this “a temporary overshoot”.
If human activities were to raise the global average temperature 1.6°C above the pre-industrial average, for example, then CO₂ removal, using methods ranging from habitat restoration to mechanically capturing CO₂ from the air, would be required to return warming to below 1.5°C by 2100.
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Do we really understand the consequences of “temporarily” overshooting 1.5°C? And would it even be possible to lower temperatures again?
Faith that a temporary overshoot will be safe and practicable has justified a deliberate strategy of delaying emission cuts in the short term, some scientists warn. The dangers posed by remaining above the 1.5°C limit for a period of time have received little attention by researchers like me, who study climate change.
To learn more, the UK government commissioned me and a team of 36 other scientists to examine the possible impacts.
How nature will be affected
We examined a “delayed action” scenario, in which greenhouse gas emissions remain similar for the next 15 years due to continued fossil fuel burning but then fall rapidly over a period of 20 years.
We projected that this would cause the rise in Earth’s temperature to peak at 1.9°C in 2060, before falling to 1.5°C in 2100 as greenhouse gases are removed from the atmosphere. We compared this scenario with a baseline scenario in which the global temperature does not exceed 1.5°C of warming this century.
Our Earth system model suggested that Arctic temperatures would be up to 4°C higher in 2060 compared to the baseline scenario. Arctic Sea ice loss would be much higher. Even after the global average temperature was returned to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, in 2100, the Arctic would remain around 1.5°C warmer compared to the baseline scenario. This suggests there are long-term and potentially irreversible consequences for the climate in overshooting 1.5°C.
As global warming approaches 2°C, warm-water corals, Arctic permafrost, Barents Sea ice and mountain glaciers could reach tipping points at which substantial and irreversible changes occur. Some scientists have concluded that the west Antarctic ice sheet may have already started melting irreversibly.
Our modelling showed that the risk of catastrophic wildfires is substantially higher during a temporary overshoot that culminates in 1.9°C of warming, particularly in regions already vulnerable to wildfires. Fires in California in early 2025 are an example of what is possible when the global temperature is higher.
Our analysis showed that the risk of species going extinct at 2°C of warming is double that at 1.5°C. Insects are most at risk because they are less able to move between regions in response to the changing climate than larger mammals and birds.
The impacts on society
Only armed conflict is considered by experts to have a greater impact on society than extreme weather. Forecasting how extreme weather will be affected by climate change is challenging. Scientists expect more intense storms, floods and droughts, but not necessarily in places that already regularly suffer these extremes.
In some places, moderate floods may reduce in size while larger, more extreme events occur more often and cause more damage. We are confident that the sea level would rise faster in a temporary overshoot scenario, and further increase the risk of flooding. We also expect more extreme floods and droughts, and for them to cause more damage to water and sanitation systems.
Floods and droughts will affect food production too. We found that impact studies have probably underestimated the crop damage that increases in extreme weather and water scarcity in key production areas during a temporary overshoot would cause.
We know that heatwaves become more frequent and intense as temperatures increase. More scarce food and water would increase the health risks of heat exposure beyond 1.5°C. It is particularly difficult to estimate the overall impact of overshooting this temperature limit when several impacts reinforce each other in this way.
In fact, most alarming of all is how uncertain much of our knowledge is.
For example, we have little confidence in estimates of how climate change will affect the economy. Some academics use models to predict how crops and other economic assets will be affected by climate change; others infer what will happen by projecting real-word economic losses to date into future warming scenarios. For 3°C of warming, estimates of the annual impact on GDP using models range from -5% to +3% each year, but up to -55% using the latter approach.
We have not managed to reconcile the differences between these methods. The highest estimates account for changes in extreme weather due to climate change, which are particularly difficult to determine.
We carried out an economic analysis using estimates of climate damage from both models and observed climate-related losses. We found that temporarily overshooting 1.5°C would reduce global GDP compared with not overshooting it, even if economic damages were lower than we expect. The economic consequences for the global economy could be profound.
So, what can we say for certain? First, that temporarily overshooting 1.5°C would be more costly to society and to the natural world than not overshooting it. Second, our projections are relatively conservative. It is likely that impacts would be worse, and possibly much worse, than we estimate.
Fundamentally, every increment of global temperature rise will worsen impacts on us and the rest of the natural world. We should aim to minimise global warming as much as possible, rather than focus on a particular target.
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Climate scientists are probably among those most aggrieved by Donald Trump’s return as US president.
Trump has scoffed at the increasingly dire warnings of these scientists and declared his enthusiasm for digging up and burning the coal, oil and gas that is overheating Earth. His empowerment of the far right dims prospects for collective solutions to collective problems, but what is he likely to change about US climate policy?
Trump has not published a climate agenda. To discern his impact on domestic and international policy, we have to sift through statements, appointments to political positions and the record of his first term.
Here, our academics glean grim portents for the years ahead – and some continuities with supposedly pro-climate presidents of the past.
1. It’s still ‘drill, baby, drill’
Trump’s three-word campaign slogan, “drill, baby, drill”, is intended to sum up his plans for the US oil and gas industry. It’s also an apt summary of existing US energy policy.
Since 2008, when Democrat Barack Obama was elected, oil production has soared from a 50-year low of 6.8 billion barrels a day to 19.4 billion in 2023.
“The United States is already producing more crude oil than any country ever,” says Gautam Jain, an energy and finance expert at Columbia University.
“Oil and gas companies are buying back stocks and paying dividends to shareholders at a record pace, which they wouldn’t do if they saw better investment opportunities.”
2. We won’t always have Paris (or even Rio)
Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris agreement on the first day of his second term (it took him six months to do it last time).
Jain frets that he may go further and exit international negotiations entirely, by rescinding his country’s membership of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was adopted in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Rejoining would be “nearly impossible”, Jain says, as a future president would need the consent of two-thirds of the Senate.
The US risks dropping the mantle of climate leadership on China, he adds. A recent analysis by Oxford economists Matthew Carl Ives and Natalie Sum Yue Chung suggests that that ship may have sailed years ago.
“China already processes most of the clean energy supply materials and has an advanced manufacturing base that is more capable of scaling up production to meet the rising demand,” they say.
3. The bucks stop here?
A US retreat from international climate diplomacy would afflict people who are particularly vulnerable to the mounting crisis in Earth’s atmosphere. Jain highlights how Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden donated several billions of dollars more towards renewable energy and adaptation in the developing world, compared with Trump in his first term.
However, a 2023 study that estimated each country’s “fair share” of this climate finance pot according to income, population size and historical emissions, issued this withering assessment while Biden was president:
“Based on these metrics, we found that the US is overwhelmingly responsible for the climate finance shortfall,” says environmental economist Sarah Colenbrander (University of Oxford).
“The world’s largest economy should be providing US$43.5 billion of climate finance a year. In 2021, it gave just US$9.3 billion – a meagre 21% of its fair share.”
4. Biden’s green tax credits may endure…
Trump could keep some Biden-era investments in clean energy (tax breaks for investors in renewables, for example) as the benefits are accruing in Republican states, Jain says.
He may still cut tax credits for people buying electric vehicles, though. This would slow the transition from combustion-engine transport by making it harder for people to afford an EV. (Biden’s 100% tariff on Chinese-made EVs hasn’t help either).
5. … but his methane tax probably won’t
Jain predicts that the greatest damage inflicted by Trump will be to the regulation of fossil fuels and emissions. In his crosshairs is a federal charge for the release of methane from oil and gas wells and pipelines.
Biden identified cutting methane emissions as a potential brake on the accelerating pace of global heating. That’s because methane is a greenhouse gas that lingers in our atmosphere for decades instead of centuries like CO₂ and is far more potent in trapping heat during that time.
Reducing methane emissions could reduce climate change quickly – a climate action lifeline we will be sorry to see thrown away.
6. The nuclear option
Trump seems to have a soft spot for one low-carbon energy source: nuclear power. Perhaps because civil nuclear maintains the skills and supply chains needed for its military applications?
7. Up is down, left is right
Democrats may regret making “trust the science” their dividing line against Trump.
Eric Nast, an environmental governance expert at the University of Guelph, tracked how the first Trump administration altered language on US government websites.
He expects Trump to disguise his regulation bonfire as “strengthening transparency” (blocking air pollution standards that rely on private health data) and championing “citizen science” (dismissing academics from advisory boards for private citizens rich in time and money, who might benefit from scrapping rules and limiting scrutiny).
8. Fighting fire with money
Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg attended Trump’s second inauguration. Their presence – plus a pointed farewell speech by Biden – has provoked murmurs of “oligarchy”: rule by people whose immense wealth and influence has utterly captured ostensibly democratic societies.
“As public firefighters struggle to cope, affluent residents and businesses have turned to private firefighting services to protect their properties,” says Doug Specht, a University of Westminster geographer.
9. Arctic relations
What explains Trump’s sudden interest in the Arctic? Oil, gas and critical minerals newly liberated by thawing ice in a region warming four times faster than the global average says engineer Tricia Stadnyk at the University of Calgary.
“The second Trump administration is aware of both the new opportunities and risks as global temperatures shatter new records and thresholds, and an ice-free Arctic becomes a possibility,” she says.
October to April is normally considered to be the wet season in California, yet this January, the region is experiencing some of the most devastating fires it’s ever seen.
As of January 10, five major fires in and around Los Angeles have burned over 29,053 acres, leading to the evacuation of more than 180,000 people, the destruction of over 2,000 buildings (mainly homes), and an estimated damage cost of at least US$52 billion (£42.5 billion). Ten lives have been lost, and these numbers are expected to rise as the fires continue to burn.
The exact causes of each fire are still under investigation. However, several factors have contributed to their rapid spread and intensity.
The seasonal Santa Ana winds are particularly strong this year, bringing low humidity, dry air and high wind speeds. Southern California has received less than 10% of its average rainfall since October 2024, creating dry conditions that make the area highly vulnerable to fire.
Unusually wet winters in both 2022-23 and 2023-24 led to increased vegetation growth, providing more fuel for the fires. This cycle of wet and dry extremes, known as “hydroclimate whiplash”, is part of the increasingly intense climate cycles caused by climate change.
Hydroclimate whiplash can occur virtually anywhere. These cycles can cause extreme wildfires, such as those in California, where rapid vegetation growth is followed by drying. They can also exacerbate flooding when unusually heavy rains hit the dry-baked ground, then run off over the land rather than seeping in, leading to flash flooding.
In Los Angeles, some neighbourhoods have been almost entirely destroyed. Jae C. Hong / Alamy
The human impact of hydroclimate whiplash
Rapid transitions between extreme wet and dry conditions have significant and wide-ranging impacts on people, a focus of my academic research, affecting everything from public health to economic stability and social equity.
As we have seen in California, there is the immediate impact of loss of life, property and livelihoods. We have also seen this during whiplash-induced floods and landslides, such as those experienced across California in 2023 and east Africa in 2024, when years of drought were followed by weeks of rain.
Fires exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular diseases through their polluting smoke. Flooding creates conditions for waterborne illnesses such as cholera, leptospirosis or norovirus to rip through populations. Extreme swings in temperature can also create more heat-related illnesses, as human bodies struggle to adapt quickly. It is estimated that the health-related impacts of climate change will cost US$1.1 trillion by 2050.
And these impacts are not evenly distributed. While this month’s wildfires are affecting some of the richest communities in the US, it is generally low-income communities and vulnerable populations that are disproportionately affected, with limited resources to prepare for or recover from extreme events. Across the world, poorer populations are experiencing a 24%-48% increase in drought-to-downpour events, exacerbating their vulnerability and widening the health equity gap.
All these events and concerns also lead to mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), resulting from displacement and trauma. Such human impacts are harder to measure, and often under-reported.
Adaptation and resilience
As climate change intensifies hydroclimate whiplash events, the human impacts are expected to grow more severe. Addressing these challenges will require coordinated efforts across multiple sectors, with a focus on both mitigation and adaptation strategies to protect human health, economic stability and social equity.
Governments and local authorities will need to implement co-management approaches for both drought and flood risks, alongside developing more flexible water management systems and infrastructure. Investing in natural infrastructure to enhance biodiversity and ecosystems will reduce risks to humans, both by restricting the effects of climate change and lowering the risks of fire and flooding.
As individuals we can often feel powerless, but environmental campaigns and movements have been highly successful in changing government policies. In the UK, the 2008 Climate Change Act and the net zero by 2050 legislation were the direct result of citizen lobbying and action, and the same can be said for numerous renewable energy transition policies around the world.
In California, we have seen the devastating effect of hydroclimate whiplash – and this won’t be the last we see. By calling on our governments to produce adaptation and resilience strategies that recognise climate change as a long-term human and economic risk factor, we can be more prepared for these events.
