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Climate

Trump Yanks Revolution Wind Permits

On $20 billion in lost projects, Alligator Alcatraz’s closure, and Amazon state’s rally

Trump Yanks Revolution Wind Permits
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: The highest wave measured from Hurricane Erin was 45 feet by a buoy located 150 miles off North Carolina’s Cape Hetteras • Intense rainfall is flooding Rajasthan in India • Wildfires continue raging across North America and southern Europe.


THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump halts Orsted’s project off Rhode Island

The Trump administration issued a stop-work order to halt construction of Orsted’s flagship project off the coast of Rhode Island. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management halted work on the Revolution Wind project while its regulators were “seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States,” a letter from the agency stated. The project was nearly completed, and already connected to the grid. The Danish state-owned Orsted said it was “evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously.”

Earlier this month, the company put out a bid for $9.4 billion from the stock market to fund its work in the U.S. amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown. As Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin wrote of the sale, “While the market had been expecting Orsted to raise capital in some form, the scale of the raise is about twice what was anticipated,” causing its stock to plunge almost 30%. The White House has aggressively targeted policies that benefit wind energy in recent weeks. Following the Friday announcement, shares in Orsted tumbled 17% to a record low.

2. Trump’s restrictions on renewables have killed $19 billion in projects

Trump’s clampdown on wind and solar has sent the industry spiraling in recent weeks as federal agencies limit access to clean energy tax credits and rework rules to disfavor the industry’s two largest sources of energy. Already, $18.6 billion worth of clean energy projects have been canceled this year, compared to just $827 million last year, according to data from Atlas Public Policy’s Clean Economy Tracker cited in the Financial Times.

Trump has blamed renewables for the rising price of electricity. But data Matthew covered last week showed that renewables are, if anything, correlated with lower prices. Instead, he wrote, at the “top of the list” of reasons electricity prices are surging “is the physical reality of the grid itself,” the poles and wires required to send energy into people’s homes and businesses. “Beyond that, extreme weather, natural gas prices, and data center-induced demand growth all play a part.”

3. Environmental lawsuit kills ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

The entrance to Florida's state-managed immigrant detention facility. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Together with the state of Florida, the Trump administration rushed to build what it calls “Alligator Alcatraz,” a detention facility designed to hold several thousand migrants at a time in southern Florida. In its haste to complete the facility, however, the government failed to conduct the proper environmental reviews, according to a federal judge who ordered its closure late last week, The Wall Street Journal reported. Back in June, a pair of nonprofits filed a lawsuit alleging that the government had failed to conduct assessments of what impact the facility would have on endangered animals such as the Florida panther and the Florida bonneted bat. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida later joined the lawsuit.

The Trump administration argued that the law in question, the National Environmental Policy Act, only applies to federal projects, whereas this one was state-driven, an argument Judge Kathleen Williams rejected, according to the Journal. “Every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades,” she wrote. “This Order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”

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  • 4. Amazon states rally behind COP30

    The eight countries that ring the Amazon rainforest pledged support over the weekend for a global pool of financing for conservation. In a joint declaration, the Amazonian nations — Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela — expressed support for preserving the rainforest but stopped short of endorsing any curbs on fossil fuels. The statement comes as South America has emerged as the world’s hottest oil patch, with new discoveries moving forward off the coasts of Guyana and Brazil and Argentina advancing plans for a fracking boom.

    5. Antarctica is facing grave new climate perils

    “Abrupt changes” like the precipitous loss of sea ice are unfolding in Antarctica, highlighting the growing threat global warming poses to the frozen continent, according to a new paper in the journal Nature. These changes could push the Antarctic ecosystem past a point of no return, the authors wrote.

    “We’re seeing a whole range of abrupt and surprising changes developing across Antarctica, but these aren’t happening in isolation,” climate scientist Nerilie Abram, lead author of the paper, told Grist. “When we change one part of the system, that has knock-on effects that worsen the changes in other parts of the system. And we’re talking about changes that also have global consequences.”

    THE KICKER

    Bad news for vegans who evangelize their diets on good health grounds: New research found no increased risk of death “associated with higher intake of animal protein. In fact, the data showed a modest but significant reduction in cancer-related mortality among those who ate more animal protein.” That, however, doesn’t change the huge difference in emissions between red meat and plant food products.

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    AM Briefing

    Strait Through

    On New England data centers, ITER’s appetite, and Chinese solar

    A Qatari Gas Tanker Passed the Strait of Hormuz
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    Current conditions: Temperatures are climbing to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Las Vegas as a heat wave settles over the Southwest • In India’s northwest Gujarat state, thermometers are soaring as high as 112 degrees • Fire season in the U.S. state of Oregon has officially begun, weeks ahead of usual.


    THE TOP FIVE

    1. A Qatari gas tanker passes the Strait of Hormuz

    A tanker carrying liquified natural gas from Qatar has appeared to transit the Strait of Hormuz, marking the country’s first export out of the Persian Gulf since the Iran War started. On Sunday, Bloomberg reported that the Al Kharaitiyat had successfully passed through the narrow waterway near the mouth of what’s traditionally the busiest route for oil and gas in the world. As of Sunday evening, the vessel en route to Pakistan from Qatar’s Ras Laffan export plant had reached the Gulf of Oman. The ship, the newswire noted, “appears to have navigated the Tehran-approved northern route that hugs the Iranian coast through the strait.”

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    Podcast

    What Has All This Back-and-Forth Climate Legislating Bought Us?

    Rob takes stock of both Biden and Trump’s climate legacies with John Bistline and Ryna Cui.

    Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, researchers estimated it would cut U.S. carbon pollution by more than 40% by the mid-2030s. Then President Trump and a GOP majority partially repealed the law, and many of those emissions declines looked doubtful. What will U.S. carbon emissions look like after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act?

    We’re starting to get a sense. On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob talks with John Bistline and Ryna Cui about a new paper they coauthored modeling the Inflation Reduction Act and One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s combined effects. Bistline is the head of science at Watershed and a former researcher at the Electric Power Research Institute. Cui is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and the research director for its Center for Global Sustainability.

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    Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
    Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

    This transcript has been automatically generated.

    Subscribe to “Shift Key” and find this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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