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Climate

A Weekend of Deadly Weather

On a devastating landslide, the most active storm day of the year so far, and more.

City in the morning.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Early summer heat wave threatens the South • Temperatures climb to a near-record 125 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan • It’s 60 degrees and rainy in Paris where the French Open is underway.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Over 2,000 people buried by landslide in Papua New Guinea

A massive landslide reportedly buried alive more than 2,000 people in northern Papua New Guinea on Friday. Over 670 people have already been reported dead but experts warn the death toll will rise far higher as rescuers pick through the devastation. Aid workers have also reportedly struggled to reach the affected area with roads blocked and the ground still unstable.

2. At least 23 killed by weekend storms in the South

Severe storms killed almost two dozen people across the southern United States over Memorial Day weekend and left hundreds of thousands without power. Arkansas reported eight dead, Texas seven, Kentucky five, and Oklahoma two, with the causes of death ranging from falling debris to a weather-induced heart attack. With 622 preliminary reports of severe weather, including 14 tornadoes, Sunday was the most active severe storm day of the year so far.

3. Biden administration sets principles for voluntary carbon markets

The Biden administration on Tuesday released a joint policy statement and a set of seven principles for voluntary carbon credit markets. Highlighting the discrepancies among crediting methodologies and the resulting doubts about the credits’ integrity, the documents are intended to serve as guidance for credit buyers and sellers and will shape how the U.S. government interacts with the market.

The “voluntary principles” include:

1. Carbon credits should meet credible standards and represent real decarbonization.

2. Credit-generating activities should avoid environmental and social harm.

3. Corporate buyers should prioritize credits that reduce emissions from their own value chains.

4. Users should publicly disclose the credits they’ve used.

5. Users should be precise about the climate impact of credits and should only rely on credits that meet high integrity standards.

6. Market participants should contribute to efforts that improve market integrity.

7. Policymakers and market participants should work to make the market more efficient and cheaper to use.

4. EPA denies Alabama coal ash plan

The EPA rejected Alabama’s plan to manage its coal waste last week, with federal officials deeming the state proposal “significantly less protective of people and waterways than federal law requires.” The decision comes amid a push from the agency to strengthen its oversight of the toxic coal ash stored in ponds and landfills around the country. Only three states — Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia — have secured permission to run their own coal ash programs. Alabama is the first state to have its plan rejected. The EPA cited “deficiencies in Alabama’s permits with closure requirements for unlined surface impoundments, groundwater monitoring networks, and corrective action (i.e., investigation and clean up) requirements” as reasons for the denial. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has said it will appeal the decision.

5. Study: Communities will benefit from electric school buses

Electrifying school bus fleets is good for health and the climate, a new study found. Researchers at Harvard University’s school of public health determined that replacing the average diesel school bus in the U.S. with an electric version yields $40,400 per bus in climate benefits and $43,800 per bus in health benefits. The health benefits of replacing particularly old and polluting diesel buses in urban areas could amount to more than $200,000 per bus. But electric buses will still cost schools an estimated $156,000 more over their lifetimes compared to new diesel buses, according to the study. “In a dense urban setting where old diesel buses still comprise most school bus fleets, the savings incurred from electrifying these buses outweigh the costs of replacement,” said Kari Nadeau, a professor of climate and population studies, in a statement.

THE KICKER

On Saturday, NASA launched the first of two small satellites that will study heat loss at the poles and collect data that can be used to refine climate models.

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Economy

AM Briefing: Liberation Day

On trade turbulence, special election results, and HHS cuts

Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Loom
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: A rare wildfire alert has been issued for London this week due to strong winds and unseasonably high temperatures • Schools are closed on the Greek islands of Mykonos and Paros after a storm caused intense flooding • Nearly 50 million people in the central U.S. are at risk of tornadoes, hail, and historic levels of rain today as a severe weather system barrels across the country.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump to roll out broad new tariffs

President Trump today will outline sweeping new tariffs on foreign imports during a “Liberation Day” speech in the White House Rose Garden scheduled for 4 p.m. EST. Details on the levies remain scarce. Trump has floated the idea that they will be “reciprocal” against countries that impose fees on U.S. goods, though the predominant rumor is that he could impose an across-the-board 20% tariff. The tariffs will be in addition to those already announced on Chinese goods, steel and aluminum, energy imports from Canada, and a 25% fee on imported vehicles, the latter of which comes into effect Thursday. “The tariffs are expected to disrupt the global trade in clean technologies, from electric cars to the materials used to build wind turbines,” explained Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief. “And as clean technology becomes more expensive to manufacture in the U.S., other nations – particularly China – are likely to step up to fill in any gaps.” The trade turbulence will also disrupt the U.S. natural gas market, with domestic supply expected to tighten, and utility prices to rise. This could “accelerate the uptake of coal instead of gas, and result in a swell in U.S. power emissions that could accelerate climate change,” Reutersreported.

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Yellow
Podcast

The Least-Noticed Climate Scandal of the Trump Administration

Rob and Jesse catch up on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund with former White House official Kristina Costa.

Lee Zeldin.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Inflation Reduction Act dedicated $27 billion to build a new kind of climate institution in America — a network of national green banks that could lend money to companies, states, schools, churches, and housing developers to build more clean energy and deploy more next-generation energy technology around the country.

It was an innovative and untested program. And the Trump administration is desperately trying to block it. Since February, Trump’s criminal justice appointees — led by Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — have tried to use criminal law to undo the program. After failing to get the FBI and Justice Department to block the flow of funds, Trump officials have successfully gotten the program’s bank partner to freeze relevant money. The new green banks have sued to gain access to the money.

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Funding Cuts Are Killing Small Farmers’ Trust in Climate Policy

That trust was hard won — and it won’t be easily regained.

A barn.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Spring — as even children know — is the season for planting. But across the country, tens of thousands of farmers who bought seeds with the help of Department of Agriculture grants are hesitating over whether or not to put them in the ground. Their contractually owed payments, processed through programs created under the Biden administration, have been put on pause by the Trump administration, leaving the farmers anxious about how to proceed.

Also anxious are staff at the sustainability and conservation-focused nonprofits that provided technical support and enrollment assistance for these grants, many of whom worry that the USDA grant pause could undermine the trust they’ve carefully built with farmers over years of outreach. Though enrollment in the programs was voluntary, the grants were formulated to serve the Biden administration’s Justice40 priority of investing in underserved and minority communities. Those same communities tend to be wary of collaborating with the USDA due to its history of overlooking small and family farms, which make up 90% of the farms in the U.S. and are more likely to be women- or minority-owned, in favor of large operations, as well as its pattern of disproportionately denying loans to Black farmers. The Biden administration had counted on nonprofits to leverage their relationships with farmers in order to bring them onto the projects.

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Green