U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright handpicked the five contrarian scientists who authored a controversial new climate report.Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Researchers say DOE report cherry-picks data to downplay threat of greenhouse gases
The last assessment of the state of climate science from the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in its final form 2 years ago, was a monumental effort, with 721 volunteer scientists synthesizing all available published research. Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE) released its own climate assessment, as part of a campaign by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to overturn its landmark endangerment finding from 2009, which found that burning fossil fuels endangers public health and established carbon dioxide as a pollutant EPA could regulate. But the DOE report—called A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate—had fewer authors than IPCC’s: just five.
Handpicked by DOE Secretary Chris Wright, a fossil fuel entrepreneur, the authors are well known to climate scientists. Although the members of this Climate Working Group all hold scientific doctorates, they hold contrarian views on climate science that are out of step with the mainstream. The report, assembled in months, argues that some of the warming attributed to fossil fuel burning is instead driven by natural cycles or variability in the Sun, and that sea level rise has not been accelerating. Climate researchers say the authors cherry-picked evidence and highlighted uncertainties to achieve the net effect of downplaying the impacts of climate change. “This shows how far we have sunk,” says Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University. “Climate denial is now the official policy of the U.S. government.”
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
January 2025 was the hottest on record – a whole 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels. If many climate-watchers expected the world to cool slightly this year thanks to the natural “La Niña” phenomena, the climate itself didn’t seem to get the memo. In fact, January 2025’s record heat highlights how human-driven ocean warming is increasingly overwhelming these natural climate patterns.
La Niña is a part of the El Niño southern oscillation, a climate fluctuation that slowly sloshes vast bodies of water and heat between different ocean basins and disrupts weather patterns around the world. El Niño was first identified and christened by Peruvian fishermen who noticed a dismal drop in their catch of sardines that coincided with much warmer than usual coastal waters.
El Niño is now well known to be part of a grander climate reorganisation that also has a reverse cool phase, La Niña. As vast swathes of the eastern Pacific cool down during La Niña, this has knock on effects for atmospheric weather patterns, shifting the most vigorous storms from the central Pacific to the west and disrupting the prevailing winds across the globe.
This atmospheric reaction also helps to amplify the sea surface temperature changes. Typically, La Niña will lower the global temperature by a couple of tenths of a degree Celsius.
In 2024 the Pacific swung from moderate El Niño conditions to a weak La Niña. However, this time around, it’s apparently not enough to stop the world warming – even temporarily. So what’s different this time?
Each La Niña cycle is unique
Scientists aren’t entirely surprised. Each El Niño and La Niña cycle is unique. Following a surprisingly lengthy “triple dip” La Niña starting in 2020, the El Niño that developed in 2023 was also unusual, struggling to stand out against globally warm seas. The switch to a weak La Niña has only slightly cooled a narrow band along the equatorial Pacific, while surrounding waters have remained unusually hot.
Recent research shows human caused warming of the ocean is accelerating – so a year on year rise in temperature is itself getting bigger – and this is dominating to an ever greater extent over El Niño and other natural oscillations in the climate. This means that even during La Niña – when equatorial eastern Pacific waters are cooler than normal – the rest of the world’s oceans have remained remarkably warm.
More carbon, less reflection
There is also a sense of inevitability as greenhouse gas levels continue to grow, even despite the demise of El Niño. During El Niño years, the land tends to absorb less carbon from the atmosphere as large continental areas, such as parts of South America, temporarily dry out causing less plant growth and more carbon-emitting plant decay.
La Niña tends to have the opposite effect. In the strong La Niña of 2011, so much extra rain fell on the normally dry lands of Australia and parts of South America and southeast Asia that sea levels dropped as the land held on to this excess moisture borrowed temporarily from the ocean. This meant more carbon was taken from the atmosphere to feed extra plant growth. But despite the switch to La Niña, the rate of rise in atmospheric carbon in 2024 and January 2025 remains above the already high levels of previous years.
To this we can also add the diminishing effects of particle pollution from industry, big ships and other sources of “aerosols”, which in some regions had added a reflective haze in the atmosphere meaning the world absorbed less sunlight. Clean air policies introduced over time have made the world less smoggy, but they also seem to have caused clouds to reflect less sunlight back to space, adding to global heating.
As industrial activity continues to spew greenhouse gases into the air, while air cleansed of particle pollution causes more sunlight to reach the ground, this growing heating effect is beginning to drown out natural fluctuations, tipping the balance toward record warmth and worsening hot, dry and wet extremes.
The long-term trend is clear
But, just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, a single month is not reflective of the overall trajectory of climate change. Changing weather patterns from week to week can rapidly shift temperatures especially over big landmasses, which warm up and cool down more quickly than the oceans (it takes a long time to boil up water for your vegetables but not long to super heat an empty pan).
Large areas of Europe, Canada and Siberia experienced much less cold weather than is normal for January (by up to about 7°C). Parts of South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica also experienced above average temperatures. Along with the balmy oceans, this all contributed to an unexpectedly warm start to 2025.
While this particular warm January isn’t necessarily cause for immediate alarm, it suggests natural cooling phases may become less effective at temporarily offsetting the impact of rising greenhouse gas levels on global temperatures. And to limit the scale of the inevitable, ensuing climate change, there is a clear, urgent need to rapidly and massively cut greenhouse gas emissions and to properly account for the true cost of our lifestyles on societies and the ecosystems that underpin them.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
You don’t have to look far to see what climate change is doing to the planet. The word “unprecedented” is everywhere this year.
We are seeing unprecedented rapidly intensifying tropical storms such as Hurricane Helene in the eastern United States and Super Typhoon Yagi in Vietnam. Unprecedented fires in Canada have destroyed towns. Unprecedented drought in Brazil has dried out enormous rivers and left swathes of empty river beds. At least 1,300 pilgrims died during this year’s Hajj in Mecca as temperatures passed 50°C.
Unfortunately, we are headed for far worse. The new 2024 State of the Climate report, produced by our team of international scientists, is yet another stark warning about the intensifying climate crisis. Even if governments meet their emissions goals, the world may hit 2.7°C of warming – nearly double the Paris Agreement goal of holding climate change to 1.5°C. Each year, we track 35 of the Earth’s vital signs, from sea ice extent to forests. This year, 25 are now at record levels, all trending in the wrong directions.
Humans are not used to these conditions. Human civilisation emerged over the last 10,000 years under benign conditions – not too hot, not too cold. But this liveable climate is now at risk. In your grandchild’s lifetime, climatic conditions will be more threatening than anything our prehistoric relatives would have faced.
Our report shows a continued rise in fossil fuel emissions, which remain at an all-time high. Despite years of warnings from scientists, fossil fuel consumption has actually increased, pushing the planet toward dangerous levels of warming. While wind and solar have grown rapidly, fossil fuel use is 14 times greater.
This year is also tracking for the hottest year on record, with global daily mean temperatures at record levels for nearly half of 2023 and much of 2024.
Next month, world leaders and diplomats will gather in Azerbaijan for the annual United Nations climate talks, COP 29. Leaders will have to redouble their efforts. Without much stronger policies, climate change will keep worsening, bringing with it more frequent and more extreme weather.
Bad news after bad news
We have still not solved the central problem: the routine burning of fossil fuels. Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases – particularly methane and carbon dioxide – are still rising. Last September, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hit 418 parts per million (ppm). This September, they crossed 422 ppm. Methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, has been increasing at an alarming rate despite global pledges to tackle it.
Compounding the problem is the recent decline in atmospheric aerosols from efforts to cut pollution. These small particles suspended in the air come from both natural and human processes, and have helped cool the planet. Without this cooling effect, the pace of global warming may accelerate. We don’t know for sure because aerosol properties are not yet measured well enough.
Other environmental issues are now feeding into climate change. Deforestation in critical areas such as the Amazon is reducing the planet’s capacity to absorb carbon naturally, driving additional warming. This creates a feedback loop, where warming causes trees to die which in turn amplifies global temperatures.
Loss of sea ice is another. As sea ice melts or fails to form, dark seawater is exposed. Ice reflects sunlight but seawater absorbs it. Scaled up, this changes the Earth’s albedo (how reflective the surface is) and accelerates warming further.
In coming decades, sea level rise will pose a growing threat to coastal communities, putting millions of people at risk of displacement.
Accelerate the solutions
Our report stresses the need for an immediate and comprehensive end to the routine use of fossil fuels.
It calls for a global carbon price, set high enough to drive down emissions, particularly from high-emitting wealthy countries.
Introducing effective policies to slash methane emissions is crucial, given methane’s high potency but short atmospheric lifetime. Rapidly cutting methane could slow the rate of warming in the short term.
Natural climate solutions such as reforestation and soil restoration should be rolled out to increase how much carbon is stored in wood and soil. These efforts must be accompanied by protective measures in wildfire and drought prone areas. There’s no point planting forests if they will burn.
Governments should introduce stricter land-use policies to slow down rates of land clearing and increase investment in forest management to cut the risk of large, devastating fires and encourage sustainable land use.
We cannot overlook climate justice. Less wealthy nations contribute least to global emissions but are often the worst affected by climate disasters.
Wealthier nations must provide financial and technical support to help these countries adapt to climate change while cutting emissions. This could include investing in renewable energy, improving infrastructure and funding disaster preparedness programs.
Internationally, our report urges stronger commitments from world leaders. Current global policies are insufficient to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Without drastic changes, the world is on track for approximately 2.7°C of warming this century. To avoid catastrophic tipping points, nations must strengthen their climate pledges, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and accelerate the transition to renewable energy.
Immediate, transformative policy changes are now necessary if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
Climate change is already here. But it could get much, much worse. By slashing emissions, boosting natural climate solutions and working towards climate justice, the global community can still fend off the worst version of our future.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Extreme weather is by definition rare on our planet. Ferocious storms, searing heatwaves and biting cold snaps illustrate what the climate is capable of at its worst. However, since Earth’s climate is rapidly warming, predominantly due to fossil fuel burning, the range of possible weather conditions, including extremes, is changing.
Scientists define “climate” as the distribution of possible weather events observed over a length of time, such as the range of temperatures, rainfall totals or hours of sunshine. From this they construct statistical measures, such as the average (or normal) temperature. Weather varies on several timescales – from seconds to decades – so the longer the period over which the climate is analysed, the more accurately these analyses capture the infinite range of possible configurations of the atmosphere.
Typically, meteorologists and climate scientists use a 30-year period to represent the climate, which is updated every ten years. The most recent climate period is 1991-2020. The difference between each successive 30-year climate period serves as a very literal record of climate change.
This way of thinking about the climate falls short when the climate itself is rapidly changing. Global average temperatures have increased at around 0.2°C per decade over the past 30 years, meaning that the global climate of 1991 was around 0.6°C cooler than that in 2020 (when accounting for other year-to-year fluctuations), and even more so than the present day.
A moving target for climate modellers
If the climate is a range of possible weather events, then this rapid change has two implications. First, it means that part of the distribution of weather events comprising a 30-year climate period occurred in a very different background global climate: for example, northerly winds in the 1990s were much colder than those in the 2020s in north-west Europe, thanks to the Arctic warming nearly four times faster than the global average. Statistics from three decades ago no longer represent what is possible in the present day.
Second, the rapidly changing climate means we have not necessarily experienced the extremes that modern-day atmospheric and oceanic warmth can produce. In a stable climate, scientists would have multiple decades for the atmosphere to get into its various configurations and drive extreme events, such as heatwaves, floods or droughts. We could then use these observations to build up an understanding of what the climate is capable of. But in our rapidly changing climate, we effectively have only a few years – not enough to experience everything the climate has to offer.
Extreme weather events require what meteorologists might call a “perfect storm”. For example, extreme heat in the UK typically requires the northward movement of an air mass from Africa combined with clear skies, dry soils and a stable atmosphere to prevent thunderstorms forming which tend to dissipate heat.
Such “perfect” conditions are intrinsically unlikely, and many years can pass without them occurring – all while the climate continues to change in the background. Based on an understanding of observations alone, this can leave us woefully underprepared for what the climate can now do, should the right weather conditions all come together at once.
Startling recent examples include the extreme heatwave in the Pacific north-west of North America in 2021, in which temperatures exceeded the previous Canadian record maximum by 4.6°C. Another is the occurrence of 40°C in the UK in summer 2022, which exceeded the previous UK record maximum set only three years earlier by 1.6°C. This is part of the reason why the true impact of a fixed amount of global warming is only evident after several decades, but of course – since the climate is changing rapidly – we cannot use this method anymore.
Playing with fire
To better understand these extremes, scientists can use ensembles: many runs of the same weather or climate model that each slightly differ to show a range of plausible outcomes. Ensembles are routinely used in weather prediction, but can also be used to assess extreme events which could happen even if they do not actually happen at the time.
When 40°C first appeared in ensemble forecasts for the UK before the July 2022 heatwave, it revealed the kind of extreme weather that is possible in the current climate. Even if it had not come to fruition, its mere appearance in the models showed that the previously unthinkable was now possible. In the event, several naturally occurring atmospheric factors combined with background climate warming to generate the record-shattering heat on July 19 that year.
The highest observed temperature each year in the UK, from 1900 to 2023
Later in summer 2022, after the first occurrence of 40°C, some ensemble weather forecasts for the UK showed a situation in which 40°C could be reached on multiple consecutive days. This would have posed an unprecedented threat to public health and infrastructure in the UK. Unlike the previous month, this event did not come to pass, and was quickly forgotten – but it shouldn’t have been.
It is not certain whether these model simulations correctly represent the processes involved in producing extreme heat. Even so, we must heed the warning signs.
Despite a record-warm planet, summer 2024 in the UK has been relatively cool so far. The past two years have seen global temperatures far above anything previously observed, and so potential extremes have probably shifted even further from what we have so far experienced.
Just as was the case in August 2022, we’ve got away with it for now – but we might not be so lucky next time.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, talks with reporters in Washington, D.C. on February 18, 2025. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“Lee Zeldin is willing to go so far as to break established law to pay back the corporate executives and polluters who spent millions to get Donald Trump elected,” said one climate leader.
Climate advocates said Wednesday that the Trump administration will be abdicating its “clear legal duty to curb climate-changing pollution” if it moves forward with repealing the 16-year-old scientific finding that has underpinned the federal government’s actions to protect people and the planet from fossil fuel emissions.
As The Washington Post reported, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin is pushing the White House to repeal the endangerment finding, an official determination announced in 2009 that affirmed what the fossil fuel industry had known for decades: that emissions of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and methane cause planetary heating and threaten public health.
The finding gave the government the authority to regulate such pollution.
For several days, the White House and EPA refused to release the results of a 30-day review of the endangerment finding, which President Donald Trump called for under an executive order he issued on his first day in office.
Three people with knowledge of the issue, who remained anonymous, told the Post that former EPA Chief of Staff Mandy Gunasekara—who wrote the chapter on the agency in the right-wing policy agenda Project 2025—has been advising the administration on the potential repeal of the endangerment finding.
Another former official from Trump’s first term, attorney Jonathan Brightbill, is also providing legal advice on repealing the scientific finding, which has provided the basis for federal regulations on automobile, aircraft, and power plant emissions.
By repealing the endangerment finding in place, the administration would throw out thousands of scientific studies showing how fossil fuel emissions heat the planet and are linked to heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, and other life-threatening health problems—and clear the way to overturn climate policies introduced by former President Joe Biden.
Denying the science underpinning the finding, said Green New Deal co-sponsor Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), makes the administration “a danger to our country.”
I challenged Lee Zeldin to his face on the endangerment finding. I knew he wouldn’t stand up to Trump's fossil fuel donors. If this admin wants to say that climate-fueled hurricanes, wildfires & droughts aren't a danger to our country, the admin itself is a danger to our country.…
Rachel Cleetus, policy director with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate and Energy Program, said that any attempt by the Trump administration to gut the endangerment finding would be “fully challenged in court.”
“Eliminating the endangerment finding would be a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry, which has spent decades lying to the public about the harms of their product,” said Cleetus. “The science backing the EPA’s finding is rigorous and unequivocal—heat-trapping emissions pose serious threats to public health and well-being. EPA has the authority and legal obligation under the Clean Air Act to regulate sources of these pollutants, including vehicles, power plants, and oil and gas operations.”
Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, also warned that the organization “will meet [the EPA] in court” if it moves forward with the repeal.
“Lee Zeldin is willing to go so far as to break established law to pay back the corporate executives and polluters who spent millions to get Donald Trump elected,” said Jealous. “This breathtakingly illegal power grab defies both the Supreme Court and Congress, and if Trump agrees to this plan, the Sierra Club will meet them in court. We will never allow any administration to sell out the climate, our health, our clean air, and our future.”
Zeldin is reportedly recommending that the finding be repealed weeks after wildfires destroyed more than 12,000 homes and other buildings in the Los Angeles area and after meteorologists reported a record 143 days last year of 100°F heat or higher last year. More than 100 people were killed last year by Hurricane Helene, which damaged about 74,000 homes.
“If the Trump EPA proceeds down this path and jettisons the obvious finding that climate change is a threat to our health and welfare, it will mean more polluted air and more catastrophic extreme weather for Americans.”
Experts found that the fires that devastated Los Angeles were made 35% more likely by dry, hot weather conditions and that planetary heating made Helene more dangerous and destructive.
“Any recommendation to strike the finding would be a bad-faith attempt to circumvent the law and best available science with the sole aim of boosting fossil fuel use and the profits of polluting companies,” said Cleetus. “Meanwhile, people around the nation, especially in communities acutely exposed to climate impacts or pollution, will pay the price.”
Dominique Browning, director and co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, said the new reporting revealed that Zeldin “is contaminating EPA with a virulent strain of climate denial that has seized hold of many of the Trump administration’s Cabinet members.”
Browning noted that the EPA issued its determination in 2009 in response to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case Massachusetts v. EPA, which established that the agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
“EPA’s action respected the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Browning. “It respected the bedrock science and respected what we all know to be true: Families across the country are experiencing the extreme weather fueled by climate emissions. With every new supercharged wildfire, hurricane, flood, and heatwave, the danger takes on a terrifying intimacy: Think of the summers that have become too hot for children to play outside, of the lifetime trauma of losing a home in a flood or fire.”
“Administrator Zeldin’s recommendation to strike down the endangerment finding will only bolster the billions of dollars of profit being made by the oil and gas industry—while ransacking our children’s safety,” Browning said.
David Doniger, senior strategist and attorney for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Zeldin’s reported plan “only makes sense if you consider who would benefit: the oil, coal, and gas magnates who handed the president millions of dollars in campaign contributions.”
The fossil fuel industry poured nearly $450 million into Trump’s campaign, and the president promised to roll back climate regulations if oil and gas companies donated heavily to him in what critics called a quid pro quo.
“This decision ignores science and the law,” said Doniger. “Fifteen years ago, the EPA determined that climate pollution endangers our health and well-being. The Denali-sized mountain of scientific evidence behind that decision has only grown to Mount Everest–size since then. The courts have repeatedly upheld the EPA’s legal authority and its scientific conclusions.”
“This is the clearest example of the Trump administration putting polluters over people, and that’s saying a lot,” Doniger added. “If the Trump EPA proceeds down this path and jettisons the obvious finding that climate change is a threat to our health and welfare, it will mean more polluted air and more catastrophic extreme weather for Americans. We will see them in court.”
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
