Current conditions: Dangerous flash flooding could hit the south-central United States today, with some areas facing the potential for 8 inches of rain in 12 hours • The U.N. is warning countries in Northwest Africa that weather conditions are favorable to locust swarms • Temperatures in parts of Pakistan today will approach 122 degrees Fahrenheit, the global record for April.
THE TOP FIVE
1. How Trump’s first 100 days impacted the climate industry
After 100 days in office, President Trump has the lowest job approval rating of any president at this point in their tenure in the past 80 years. “Chaos, uncertainty, ‘we don’t know yet.’ These are words I’ve heard more during Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in the White House than I’ve heard at any other time as a reporter,” my colleague Emily Pontecorvo writes for Heatmap (something I can vouch for, too). From his slashing of the federal workforce to regulatory rollbacks to his unpopular tariffs and targeted attacks on “climate” in every form, Trump is reshaping the economic and policy environment from the top down.
Emily put together five charts yesterday to help visualize the impact of Trump’s second term to date. Some of the most striking takeaways include:
- At this point in Trump’s first term, he’d signed 24 executive orders total. As of today, he has signed 20 executive orders related solely to environmental policy — and more than 100 in total. (He’s also fulfilled about 40% of Project 2025’s wishlist.)
- Trump’s tariffs are a “catastrophe” for the oil industry, Robinson Meyer has written, but Emily put a chart to it: Intermediate crude oil has been trading below the new drilling profitability benchmark of $65 a barrel since April 4 — right after Trump announced his most sweeping tariffs. So much for “drill, baby, drill.”
- Cancellations of clean manufacturing investments are way up, especially for factories that would have produced batteries. But the picture is a little muddled when you try to pin that one entirely on Trump.
You can read Emily’s full story — with charts! — here.
2. Transportation Committee releases draft budget, takes bite out of IRA
Emily also reviewed the first draft of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s budget, which was released on Tuesday. “Remember, the name of the game for Republicans is to find ways to pay for Trump’s long list of tax cuts,” she writes. In the proposed budget, the Transportation Committee puts forward one new revenue-generating program — an annual fee of $200 on electric vehicles and $20 on conventional gas-powered cars to pay into the Highway Trust Fund — plus a list of “rescissions” of unobligated funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. That list includes efforts to claw back more than $1.7 billion for improving the efficiency of government buildings, as well as whatever remains of the $3.2 billion allocated to the Federal Highway Administration to promote improved walkability and transportation access, along with five other key IRA grant programs. But “this is just a first pass,” Emily reminds us, “and this is all subject to change.”
3. COP30 president: It will be harder to convince nations to lower emissions if the U.S. drops out
COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago warned that as the U.S. retreats from the fight against global warming, it will become increasingly difficult to persuade other countries to commit to the energy transition. Speaking at the BloombergNEF Summit in New York, approximately six months out from COP30 in Belém, Brazil, Corrêa do Lago stressed that “There is obviously some that say ‘God, how am I going to convince my people to lower emissions when the richest country isn’t doing the same.’”
It is unclear what sort of delegation the U.S. will send to COP30, given the Trump administration’s severing of global climate research and its exit from the Paris Climate Agreement. China, meanwhile, has announced its intention to commit to stricter climate goals ahead of the November meetings in Brazil. “China is demonstrating an absolute conviction that it's the right way to go,’’ Corrêa do Lago said.
4. Ford announces breakthrough in battery cell chemistry
Ford’s director of electrified propulsion engineering announced on LinkedIn that the company has made a significant breakthrough in battery technology, the Detroit Free Press reports. “This isn’t just a lab experiment,” the director, Charles Poon, wrote. “We’re actively working to scale [Lithium Manganese Rich] cell chemistry and integrate them into our future vehicle lineup within this decade.” LMR replaces commonly used nickel and cobalt with manganese, which Poon says costs less and helps approach “true cost parity with gasoline vehicles” as well as “higher energy density” that “translates to greater range, allowing our customers to go further on a single charge.”
Many companies have made advances in LMR, which is not a new technology, but Ford clarified in comments to the Free Press that it has overcome some of the technical challenges of LMR, like voltage decay, while “not sacrificing energy density.” Still, Ford was short on details, leaving some skeptical of the supposed revolution in battery technology. Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, thinks Ford “found a workaround, but this is far from a breakthrough,” according to Autoevolution. “However, such efforts are welcome as carmakers try to push the envelope of current battery technology.”
5. Canada’s biggest bank, RBC, backs out of sustainable finance goals
The largest bank in Canada, the Royal Bank of Canada, announced on Tuesday that it is “retiring” its sustainable finance goals and will not disclose its findings on how its high-carbon energy financing compares with its low-carbon energy financing, according to the Canadian Press. Per RBC, the move is due to regulatory changes, including Canada’s Competition Act, which was designed to prevent corporate greenwashing by requiring climate reporting to be backed by internationally recognized measures, The Globe and Mail explains.
By backing off its target, RBC is abandoning a $500 billion commitment to sustainable finance this year. The bank previously exited the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a global initiative spearheaded by Mark Carney, who was elected to a term as prime minister earlier this week. While “campaigners worry banks are seizing on a shift in the political climate, particularly under U.S. President Donald Trump, to dilute commitments to act quickly on decarbonising their portfolios” — per Reuters — RBC said it has not abandoned its intentions of addressing climate change and that it should be considered the “bank of choice” for the energy transition.
THE KICKER
A startup in Switzerland is installing removable solar panels in the unused space between train tracks. The company, Sun-Ways, says that if it installs panels across the entire 3,300 miles of the Swiss rail network, it could generate one billion kilowatt-hours of solar power per year, equivalent to approximately 2% of the nation’s electricity needs.
