You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
Of all the eerie paradoxes of climate change, one of the most unsettling has got to be Christmas shopping in wildfire smoke.
This weekend, ice skaters seeking early holiday cheer in New York’s Bryant Park did so not to the usual scent of honey-roasted nuts but to the reek of brush fires burning in New Jersey, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. When workers hoisted the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree into place on Saturday, they did so in a strange golden wash of sunlight defused through smoke. In Queens, I received an air quality warning while deleting early Black Friday emails from my phone.
The driest October in New York history turned the region into a tinderbox that has produced a whopping 600 fires in the past month. After one erupted in Prospect Park on Friday, the city banned outdoor grilling and told nearby residents to keep their windows closed. An 18-year-old New York State Parks employee died over the weekend while clearing dry underbrush to help fight the 3,000-acre Jennings Creek Fire in the Hudson Valley. And when rain finally did arrive Sunday evening, it marked the first measurable precipitation in the tri-state area since late September — but the 0.18 inches wasn’t enough to alleviate the 6- to 7-inch deficit that has built up over the past two months, city officials have asked New Yorkers “not to flush unnecessarily.”
New Yorkers will be piqued to learn their experience isn’t singular. The U.S. Drought Monitor’s most recent report found that as of the first week of November, every state except Alaska was experiencing “moderate drought” conditions or worse — the greatest number since the Monitor’s record-keeping began.
Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center, which runs the Monitor, told me it’s understandable to wonder where all the rain has suddenly gone. “Three months ago, we only had a little over 21% of the country in drought, and in three months, that’s jumped to just under 52%,” he said.
Much of the country has been warmer than usual since the start of fall, with some areas 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit above average “consistently,” Fuchs went on. “I’m in Nebraska, so typically in the fall, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, it’s going to be cool in the morning, I’ll grab a jacket, and maybe some nice sun in the afternoon will warm it up, and then it’s cool in the evenings.’ And a lot of the country has not had that. They’ve really had an extended summer.” Those increased temperatures have also meant increased moisture loss, which is what triggers a formal drought designation.
But while 2024 is on track to be the hottest year on record, the United States is not, in fact, in one giant drought. Rather, “there are different factors” driving several droughts happening simultaneously, Fuchs explained. “It’s not all tied to the same mechanism.”
In the Northeast, for example, the drought is linked to eastward-tracking storms dissipating before they reach the region, as well as activity in the tropics during late September and October, which robbed the atmosphere of moisture and contributed to “a stronger upper high-pressure area dominant over the Ohio Valley, Midwest, Great Lakes,” Paul Pastelok, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, wrote to me in an email on Friday. That high-pressure area has acted “like a block to prevent any significant precipitation for weeks in these areas.” It’s also why drought experts expect “potential improvement” in the coming weeks.
There are severe drought conditions across the Southeast, too, which may be a surprise if flooding from Hurricane Helene is still top of mind. But much of that water quickly ran off into streams, rivers, and the ocean, and “since then, there has not been a lot of rain in this area, and the top soil has dried out,” Pastelok said. Other areas experiencing drought include the Southwest, where a mild summer monsoon season has extended emergency declarations, and the central and northern Plains, which have been dry since early September and where drought conditions are expected to last through at least the early winter. Reservoirs in California, meanwhile, are in “great shape” after last winter’s snows; still, due to “months without rain in many areas, the topsoil has dried out, resulting in an abnormal dryness level — a lower category of drought,” Pastelok said.
Brett Anderson, another senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, pointed out that drought is a natural part of the climate cycle, and reassured me, “This is not unprecedented.” He added that there is “no real trend in U.S. drought severity over the past 25 years.”
That doesn’t mean these droughts don’t bear signs of climate change. Fuchs noted that “rapid swings from very wet conditions to very dry conditions, right on top of each other,” is a pattern associated with global warming, and one that can be seen both in the post-Helene dry spell in the Southwest and the deluge last week that broke up a drought in Oklahoma and Missouri, which are having some of their wettest Novembers on record. Anderson also noted that the unusual warmth in many parts of the U.S. has led to “much higher evaporation rates compared to normal,” which also feeds the development of droughts.
As for New York City — again under a red flag warning, this time through Tuesday — there is no rain in the forecast through at least next weekend. If you were looking for a beautiful bluebird day to go ice skating (and can ignore that it’s almost 70 degrees out), then now’s your chance.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Since August, climate policy optimists have pointed to a letter sent by 18 Republican members of the House of Representatives to Speaker Mike Johnson imploring him to preserve the energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act.
As of January, however, some of them will no longer be Johnson’s problem.
Two signatories from newly redrawn House districts in New York, Marcus Molinaro and Anthony D’Esposito, are out of a job already, beaten by Democrats Josh Riley and Laura Gillen, respectively, each of whom received an endorsement from the New York League of Conservation Voters. Also definitively leaving the House is Utah Republican John Curtis, founder of the Conservative Climate Caucus, who is headed across the hall to the Senate.
Of the remaining 15 Republicans, four are in races that still have not been called, and three look to be in moderate-to-severe jeopardy. The current chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus, for instance, Iowa’s Mariannette Miller-Meeks, is leading challenger Christina Bohannan by just 0.2% — i.e. 799 votes — with all precincts reporting. The state has no automatic recount law, but candidates can request one at little to no expense when the margin is within 1%; a spokesperson from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office told a local TV network that if a request comes in, it’ll likely be after the results are certified early this week. As Heatmap’s Jeva Lange wrote in our climate election tracker, “Bohannan has attacked Miller-Meeks for slow-walking action on addressing climate change through her soft hand with the oil and gas industry,” and as of the final weeks of the race was out-raising Miller-Meeks by a 2-to-1 ratio, E&E News reported.
Another seat Democrats saw an opportunity to flip was Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, where letter signatory Juan Ciscomani has, as of this moment, squeaked out ahead of Democrat Kirsten Engel by 0.6% after appearing to trail for much of last week, though that could change again as more votes are counted. The news is worse for Oregon’s Lori Chavez-DeRemer, however, who with 87% of precincts reporting is behind Democrat Janelle Bynum in the vote by close to 3%.
If all these races were to be certified as they currently stand, that would leave 14 of the original group of 18 representatives still in Congress. If all the House races with results still outstanding fall into line per their current leanings, then Johnson will have just an 11-vote majority. That means this group of lawmakers can still derail the House’s agenda if they so choose, though just barely.
As for the three House seats Republicans have flipped so far, two are in Pennsylvania and one is in Michigan, both states Biden won in 2020. The victors in the two Pennsylvania races, campaigned against the “radical climate agenda” and the “climate crazies,” respectively. Yet the new representative from Michigan’s 7th district, Tom Barrett, has earned a score of 32% from the Michigan League of Conservation Voters during his time in the state Senate, making him a potential Conservative Climate Caucus recruit. The group’s current chair, Miller-Meeks, has a LCV score of just 12%.
So where does that leave us? About where we started, with the politics of repeal teetering on a wind turbine blade-edge. It’s one thing to campaign against the IRA, but the actual business of gutting is another thing entirely. On election night, my colleague Robinson Meyer cited a Washington Post analysis showing that Trump 2020 districts have received three times as much funding from Biden’s signature climate law as those that went the other way. Though that won’t necessarily convince every voter to welcome solar developments in their backyard, when the margins of victory are this slim, every tenth of a percent of the vote counts.
On tough climate talks, Trump’s energy czar, and New York fires
Current conditions: Outdoor activities are banned in Pakistan’s Punjab province as air pollution worsens • An atmospheric river is hammering the Pacific Northwest • The Taurid meteor shower will peak today and tomorrow.
The UN COP29 climate summit starts today in Baku, Azerbaijan. It’s being called “the toughest climate talks in almost a decade,” as countries work to set a new finance target to help developing nations adapt to climate change. In 2022, industrialized nations pledged to provide $100 billion annually for climate finance, and the new goal could run into the trillions of dollars. Clashes are expected over how much money should be paid and by whom, plus the mechanisms for managing and structuring the funding. Donald Trump’s election win looms large at the event, with the world’s largest economy and the second largest greenhouse gas emitter expected to slow climate action under the next administration. Still, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said the finance target was the meeting’s top priority. Negotiators are also likely to put the finishing touches on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which calls for the creation of a global carbon credit market. And there will be a big push to get nations to outline their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), or emissions reduction plans, well ahead of the February deadline.
More than 100 heads of state are expected to be in attendance at COP29, but this year’s event has already been defined by the long list of important people who aren’t attending. Absent are President Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. A bunch of banking bigwigs have also bowed out. So who is going?
President-elect Donald Trump is considering North Dakota’s Republican governor Doug Burgum for a position as “energy czar,” the Financial Timesreported. The role would replace that of National Climate Advisor – created by President Biden and currently occupied by Ali Zaidi – and “coordinate Trump’s deregulatory agenda across a patchwork of agencies including the Department of Energy, Department of Interior, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Environmental Protection Agency.” North Dakota is a major oil producer, and Burgum is an “oil industry favorite” for the role, the FT said.
An 18-year-old New York State parks employee died over the weekend while fighting a fire in Orange County, New York. Dariel Vasquez died when a tree fell and struck him as he was working to clear a wooded area, according toThe New York Times. The blaze, which is also burning in Passaic County, New Jersey, has charred at least 3,000 acres and is 10% contained. It’s one of several recent fires in the drought-stricken region. A brush fire ignited in Prospect Park Friday and burned 2 acres. Air quality warnings were in place over the weekend for the tri-state area. Some rain fell on Sunday but didn’t do much to relieve the dry conditions.
A recent report from the International Chamber of Commerce found that extreme weather related to climate change has cost the global economy more than $2 trillion over the last 10 years. The biggest losses, totaling about $935 billion, were felt in the U.S. And the costs have been growing faster in more recent years. For example, in 2022 and 2023 alone, the economic damages reached $451 billion, up nearly 20% compared to the annual average of the 8 years that came before. And the number of climate-related extreme weather events between 2000 and 2019 was 83% higher than in the years between 1980 and 2000. “Our findings indicate that without enhanced climate action and mitigation efforts, the economic burden of climate-related extreme weather events will persist and likely grow,” the report said. The ICC is a business organization “championing the global economy as a force for economic growth, job creation and prosperity.”
“Trump winning again, this time even the popular vote, has thrown radical uncertainty into America’s international standing — particularly when it comes to climate change and the green economy. It’s a golden opportunity for China, if it cares to seize it.” –Ryan Cooper writing for Heatmap
For decades now analysts of various stripes have been predicting the end of America’s reign as the dominant world power. Some thought the war on terror, in which the U.S. spent on the order of $6 trillion turning half the Middle East into a Stygian wasteland, would crack it. Others thought the financial crisis of 2008 would sour the world on America-centered financial capitalism.
Yet nothing of the sort happened. America is simply so rich that it absorbed the burden of 20 years of war without even raising taxes. There was and is simply no alternative to the U.S. dollar for settling international transactions. The 2008 crash caused a run towards dollars, not away from them, and the U.S. Federal Reserve became the lender of last resort for half the planet — a role it replayed during the initial panic of the pandemic.
And under the Biden administration, American preeminence seemed to have gotten another lease on life. Thanks to his stimulus and industrial policy, the U.S. economy has recovered much faster than any other rich nation. The European Union is stagnating, struggling to escape from its lack of a coherent fiscal system and its decision to depend heavily on imported Russian fossil gas. China’s growth model has crashed into the middle income trap, as it struggles to pivot from an investment-driven model to a consumption-driven one.
That all changes with the second election of Donald Trump to the presidency. Him winning again, this time even the popular vote, has thrown radical uncertainty into America’s international standing — particularly when it comes to climate change and the green economy. It’s a golden opportunity for China, if it cares to seize it.
It has been obvious for years now that renewable energy and green industry are going to be the growth engines of the world economy for the rest of this century at least. Every fossil fuel power plant must be replaced with some combination of wind, solar, batteries, geothermal, or nuclear, and every power grid must be overhauled and upgraded to deal with the intermittency of renewables. All carbon-based industry and agriculture must be modified or replaced with electric-powered versions, requiring a lot more generation capacity.
It will be a transformation on par in significance with the original Industrial Revolution, requiring trillions in investment per year. Indeed, it is already happening around the world and, given the price trends of renewable energy, it is practically inevitable at this point.
China already has manifold advantages in this area. It is already the workshop of the world, accounting for almost a third of global manufacturing. It produces more than half of the world’s steel and two-thirds of its aluminum. It is also far ahead of anyone else in most green industry. It produces 80% of global solar panels, 80% of lithium-ion batteries, about 60% of wind turbines, and 58% of EVs. It also has installed more solar and wind, both onshore and offshore, than any other country by far.
Frankly, China was already positioned to more or less dominate the green energy and industry space. But under Biden, America has belatedly attempted to stand up a competing green manufacturing base, and it is working. Solar and battery investment is skyrocketing, as is manufacturing.
Trump has promised to flush all that down the toilet. He has promised to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, the keystone Biden climate law, and gut the entire environmental protection apparatus. It’s an open question whether or not he will go that far, but if markets are any judge, the stocks of many American renewable and green industry companies plunged on the news of his victory. If Republicans win the House (which is not yet counted at time of writing), then I suspect at least a partial repeal of Biden’s climate achievements. That is basically what Trump did during his last term.
It might not even take that much. As Robinson Meyer outlines, Trump already strangled an incipient transition to EVs among U.S. automakers during his first term simply with some regulatory adjustments. The ongoing transition has been rocky for some companies, particularly Ford, and it would not take much to tip them back towards traditional cars.
If that happens then China will not have even a potential peer competitor — it will own more or less the whole green economy going forward. European, Japanese, and Korean companies might carve out a modest niche, but Africa, Latin America, and much of Asia will by and large be decarbonized and powered by Chinese products.
China has an even bigger opportunity when it comes to diplomacy. The keystone of American dominance is its alliance system. Its relationships through NATO and with New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, and so on provides a public good of security in which those countries feel less need to spend hugely on defense, in return to submitting to U.S. control of global financial pipelines and other international institutions.
Electing a madman as president back in 2016 led many to question whether America was not too politically rotten to be trusted as world hegemon, and sure enough Trump, with his arrogant, erratic, and supremely transactional diplomacy, deeply alienated much of the EU, the most important ally. Biden successfully patched up the relationship, but a second Trump election could be the final straw. One election could be a fluke, but two is a pattern, and in any case Trump has suggested he might unilaterally tear up NATO. Frankly you’d be a fool to trust American diplomatic promises of any kind from now on, and a huge military buildup among jittery American allies is all but certain. As French President Emanuel Macron recently said at an EU summit, “We cannot delegate our security to the Americans forever.”
This in turn threatens international financial pipelines, either owned or regulated by the U.S. government, like Fedwire, CHIPS, Nacha, and SWIFT, that the U.S. uses for power projection. Sanctions against Russia, for instance, rely on other nations complying with American rules and surveillance on these systems.
Many, many countries are not going to be happy about the prospect of Donald Trump being able to set the rules and conditions on their international transactions. It will be a ripe opportunity for China to step in with an alternative system, and thereby knock out another pillar of American global power.
Let me emphasize that none of this is going to happen automatically. China, with its opaque and autocratic regime, has many serious domestic problems. As noted above, its domestic economy is struggling to rebalance towards consumption, and its population is rapidly aging. That said, the government recently announced a major stimulus package, which should boost consumption to some degree.
If China wanted to replace the dollar as reserve currency, it would have to give up capital controls and currency management, which would require even more wrenching reforms. Similarly, if it wants a lot of uptake on an alternative payments system, it would be well advised to not give in to its usual habit of totalitarian police state surveillance.
But the opportunity still remains. America has been one of the luckiest countries in world history — blessed in its geographic position, resource base, and with a 160-year record of not suffering major wars on its territory. But with sufficient stupidity, even the largest advantages can be canceled out. Electing one of the worst people in the country to the presidency, again, might just do it.