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Climate

The U.S. Grounds Its Climate Scientists

On trouble with the IPCC, Germany’s big election, and a cold start to the year.

The U.S. Grounds Its Climate Scientists
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions:Waves off the coast of Washington could reach 25 feet tall as the atmospheric river peaks in the Pacific Northwest • It’s down to 87 degrees Fahrenheit in Rio de Janeiro, which has been enduring its hottest temperatures in a decade • Valentine, Nebraska, will be near 60 degrees on Monday after a -33 degrees day last week, a swing of 93 degrees.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Germany ousts its ‘climate chancellor’

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz conceded defeat in the country’s national elections on Sunday, marking the end of what Politico has described as “one of the world’s most climate-ambitious governments.” Under Scholz, Germany significantly reduced its emissions with renewables and became the European Union’s leader in producing solar and wind technologies. The country’s next chancellor is expected to be Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, which earned about 28% of Sunday’s vote. In the run-up to the election, Merz had excoriated the coalition government of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party and the Greens, arguing that Germany’s economic policies have been “almost exclusively geared toward climate protection,” and that “we will and we must change that.” Alternative for Germany, the nation’s populist far-right party that rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, earned the second-biggest share of the votes in Sunday’s election, about 20%.

2. IPCC meeting ‘in limbo’ after Trump orders U.S. scientists to stay home

A meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scheduled to take place this week in Hangzhou, China, is now “in limbo” after the Trump administration forbade the meeting’s co-chair, NASA Chief Scientist Kate Calvin, and other U.S. scientists from attending, CNN reports. The meeting was to discuss the steps to developing the IPCC’s next report, which assesses the state of global warming and is due out in 2029. Calvin had been the head of the working group on mitigation, one of the three main sections of the IPCC report. NASA also canceled a contract to provide technical support for the report.

3. Hochul pitches congestion pricing in the Oval Office

New York’s Governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul, met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last Friday to make the case for continuing New York City’s congestion pricing. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said last week that he would rescind the U.S. Transportation Department’s approval of the program, a move Hochul initially responded to by vowing to “see you in court.” Per the Associated Press, Hochul subsequently visited Trump in the Oval Office to show him a 22-page presentation boasting of the program’s benefits during its first month of operation, including reductions in traffic and boosts to businesses in the congestion pricing zone. Hochul told CBS’ Face the Nationon Sunday that she was unsure whether she had convinced Trump and predicted, “It’s going to the courts, and I believe we will be victorious in the courts, and this program will continue.”

4. It’s not all in your head: The U.S. is ‘unusually’ cold

Only five countries in the world have been more “unusually” cold than the United States so far this year, according to The Washington Post. (Those would be the much smaller nations of Turkmenistan, Belgium, France, Uzbekistan, and Iran.) More than 30 states have recorded below-average temperatures since the start of the new year, with at least 108 million Americans enduring subzero temperatures at some point. The reason for the chill is high-pressure zones that have lingered to the west of North America and Alaska, pushing polar air further south than normal; though much of the country will warm up this week, forecasters expect another polar vortex in early March. Meanwhile, if you live in Alaska, Florida, or Hawaii, count yourselves as comparatively lucky — they’re the only three states with higher-than-usual temperatures this year.

5. ICYMI: GSA pulls the plug on EV chargers at federal buildings

Beginning this week, the General Services Administration will instruct workers to shut off EV charging stations at all federal buildings, The Verge reported on Friday. The EV chargers — totaling about 8,000 all across the nation — had serviced both official government vehicles as well as employees’ private cars. “We have received direction that all GSA-owned charging stations are not mission critical,” reads an email that has already gone out to some workers. The decision follows an earlier move by the Department of Transportation to suspend the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, which provided funding to states to deploy charging stations.

THE KICKER

On Saturday, Yosemite National Park staffers hung an American flag upside down from the face of El Capitan as a distress signal in protest of the Trump administration’s deep cuts to their workforce.

El Capitan displays a massive American flag upside down—the traditional signal of distress or extreme emergency.

[image or embed]
— Alt National Park Service (@altnps.bsky.social) February 23, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Yellow

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Spotlight

The Moss Landing Fire Is Radicalizing Battery Foes

From Kansas to Brooklyn, the fire is turning battery skeptics into outright opponents.

Texas battery project.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The symbol of the American battery backlash can be found in the tiny town of Halstead, Kansas.

Angry residents protesting a large storage project proposed by Boston developer Concurrent LLC have begun brandishing flashy yard signs picturing the Moss Landing battery plant blaze, all while freaking out local officials with their intensity. The modern storage project bears little if any resemblance to the Moss Landing facility, which uses older technology,, but that hasn’t calmed down anxious locals or stopped news stations from replaying footage of the blaze in their coverage of the conflict.

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Hotspots

Trump May Approve Transmission Line for Wind Project

And more on the week’s conflicts around renewable energy.

Map of renewable energy conflicts
Heatmap Illustration

1. Carbon County, Wyoming – I have learned that the Bureau of Land Management is close to approving the environmental review for a transmission line that would connect to BluEarth Renewables’ Lucky Star wind project.

  • This is a huge deal. For the last two months it has seemed like nothing wind-related could be approved by the Trump administration. But that may be about to change.
  • The Bureau of Land Management sent local officials an email March 6 with a draft environmental assessment for the transmission line, which is required for the federal government to approve its right-of-way under the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • According to the draft, the entirety of the wind project itself is sited on private property and “no longer will require access to BLM-administered land.”
  • The email suggests this draft environmental assessment may soon be available for public comment, which is standard practice and required under the law to proceed. BLM’s web page for the transmission line now states an approval granting right-of-way for the transmission line may come as soon as this May.
  • We’ve asked BLM for comment on how this complies with Trump’s executive order ending “new or renewed approvals” and “rights of way” for onshore wind projects. We’ll let you know if we hear back.
  • It’s worth noting, however, that BLM last week did something similar with a transmission line that would go to a solar project proposed entirely on private lands. Could private lands become the workaround du jour under Trump?

2. Nantucket County, Massachusetts – Anti-offshore wind advocates are pushing the Trump administration to rescind air permits issued to Avangrid for New England Wind 1 and 2, the same approval that was ripped away from Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm last Friday.

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Q&A

What’s the Deal with Battery Storage Regulation?

A conversation with Nikhil Kumar of GridLab

Nikhil Kumar, program director at GridLab
Heatmap Illustration

Today’s sit-down is with Nikhil Kumar, a program director at GridLab and an expert in battery storage safety and regulation. Kumar’s folks reached out to me after learning I was writing about Moss Landing and wanted to give his honest and open perspective on how the disaster is impacting the future of storage development in the U.S. Let’s dive in!

The following is an abridged and edited version of our conversation.

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