Tropical Cyclone Chido’s Horrifying Destruction

Current conditions: A rare tornado caused damage in Northern California over the weekend • Severe flooding continues in southern Thailand • It is chilly and cloudy in Washington, D.C., where lawmakers have reportedly decided not to include permitting reform in the year-end spending package after a weekend of tense talks.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Tropical Cyclone Chido brings destruction to French islands of Mayotte

Thousands of people could be dead in the small island region of Mayotte after Tropical Cyclone Chido swept through on Saturday. The islands, home to some 300,000, are French territory but located in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and the east coast of Africa. Sources have reported apocalyptic scenes of destruction, with entire neighborhoods gone and essential infrastructure wiped out. “There is nothing left,” a local hotel owner told CNN. “It’s as if an atomic bomb fell.” The cyclone struck as a Category 4 storm, with 136-mph winds, making it the strongest storm to hit the islands in nearly 100 years. So far 14 people are confirmed to have perished, but that death toll is expected to rise. According to CNN, the worst damage is in slum regions where thousands of undocumented migrants reside.

2. Climate decisions to watch from the last days of the Biden administration

With the end of President Biden’s term rapidly approaching, his administration is racing to finalize some key environmental decisions and finance deals. For example, the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office has a handful of “conditional” commitments for clean tech (like a $6.6 billion loan to Rivian, and a $7.5 billion loan for a battery plant built by the Stellantis and Samsung joint venture) that are in limbo and could be nixed by the Trump administration. Officials are “working hard to make the loan guarantees and loan agreements as airtight as possible,” a former policy adviser for the LPO told Bloomberg. Here are a few other decisions to look out for in the coming weeks:

• California’s gas-powered car ban: A decision is expected as soon as this week from the Environmental Protection Agency on whether California can ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. Reports suggest the agency will grant its approval, which would also apply to about a dozen other states. Trump is expected to reverse the rule, likely setting up a long legal battle.
• Final rules on green hydrogen tax credits and “tech-neutral” clean power tax credits: Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Heatmap back in October that the long-awaited rules governing the new clean hydrogen tax credit would be finalized before the end of the year. The Department will also publish the final guidance for the technology-neutral clean power tax credits by that time.
• LNG impact report: The Department of Energy’s long-awaited report on the environmental impacts of liquefied natural gas exports is expected this week (although it was also expected last week, and the week before that…). Trump is likely to end the DOE’s pause on LNG export approvals.

3. Trump transition team recommends pulling the plug on Biden’s EV push

Relatedly, President-elect Trump’s transition team is recommending he “cut off support for electric vehicles and charging stations and to strengthen measures blocking cars, components, and battery materials from China,” Reuters reported, citing a transition document seen by the outlet. Funds for the EV transition would be redirected toward national defense. Such recommendations wouldn’t be entirely surprising, though the team is also suggesting Trump bring in tariffs on all imported battery materials. The $7,500 EV tax credit is also on the chopping block, as are the Biden administration’s tailpipe emissions standards.

4. COP16 on desertification ends without a deal

The UN COP16 summit on addressing desertification and land degradation concluded over the weekend without producing an agreement on how nations should respond to drought. Representatives from nearly 200 countries attended the two-week-long gathering in Saudi Arabia. Poorer countries had hoped the summit would result in a legally-binding agreement that would require wealthier nations to fund drought resilience in developing countries. “I fear the UNCCD COP16 has suffered the same fate as the biodiversity and climate COPs this year,” Jes Weigelt of European climate think-tank TMG Research told The Associated Press. “It failed to deliver.” The next round of these talks will be held in Mongolia in 2026.

5. Study: Dozens of Miami beachfront condos are sinking

Many condos along Miami’s beachfront are sinking at “unexpected” rates, according to a new study published in the journal Earth and Space Science. Between 2016 and 2023, some 35 buildings – including Trump Tower III and Trump International Beach Resorts – subsided by up to three inches. “Almost all the buildings at the coast itself, they’re subsiding,” Falk Amelung, a geophysicist at the University of Miami and an author on the study, told the Miami Herald. There are several factors contributing to the sinking, but experts told the Herald that one could be rising sea levels, which are speeding up the region’s coastal erosion. “The study underscores the need for ongoing monitoring and a deeper understanding of the long-term implications for these structures,” said Farzaneh Aziz Zanjani, the study’s lead author.

THE KICKER

“The man who once had the key insight that the way to fight climate change was to make EVs cool now thinks nothing is cooler than getting retweets and likes from the right-wing trolls who consider him their king.” –Paul Waldman writing for Heatmap about how Elon Musk broke bad on climate