Union of Concerned Scientists Global Warming

Throughout his two terms, Governor Gavin Newsom has driven California to the top of the world in clean transportation policies that will improve air quality and fight the climate crisis. Under Newsom, California passed policies to get the state to 100% zero emission vehicle (ZEV) sales, transition large truck fleets from dirty diesel to zero emissions, and fund billions of dollars in incentives and infrastructure for clean transportation.  

But California can’t take the foot off the gas (or uh, accelerator) now and neither can Newsom. As these policies change our transportation future, new hurdles arise, and we need new solutions to address them. 

EVs are abundant in much of the state, but polluting, old vehicles remain in lower-income neighborhoods. They demand electricity to charge while climate-fueled disasters are jeopardizing energy reliability. And there is a snowball of retired EV batteries on the horizon without a responsible party in charge of recycling them. 

Luckily, these new challenges have proven solutions and – look at that! – they were approved by the legislature and are now sitting on Newsom’s desk, awaiting his signature to become law.  

Focus clean vehicle incentives on replacing the oldest, most polluting cars

UCS sponsored AB 2401 by Assemblymember Ting, which would expand the state’s Clean Cars 4 All program to help low-income and high-mileage drivers replace their older, polluting gas cars with EVs. This common-sense, data-backed bill received ZERO “no” votes from any lawmaker and is awaiting a green light from the state’s top executive.  

The bill responds to research conducted by UCS and The Greenlining Institute showing that while pre-2004 vehicles account for fewer than 20% of the cars on California’s roads, they emit nearly 75% of the smog-forming nitrogen oxides emissions. These dirty vehicles are overrepresented in low-income neighborhoods and disproportionately impact the health of these already overburdened communities.  

Adding insult to injury, the state has had several difficult budget cycles in recent years and is bracing for more. This has meant decreasing or cutting funding for clean vehicle incentive dollars that would normally help replace these old vehicles with cleaner alternatives.  

AB 2401 would help California’s limited incentives go further and focus them on the communities that need them the most.  

Use batteries for more than just driving

What if EVs weren’t just a clean transportation solution, but a clean energy solution too? UCS sponsored SB 59 – authored by Senator Skinner – to explicitly give the state the authority to require that all EVs are “bidirectional”, meaning they would have the ability to power homes, appliances, or even the grid with the power stored in their batteries.  

As California rightly electrifies its homes, buildings and vehicles, the state must produce more electricity to meet this new demand. And as demand is increasing, climate-fueled extreme heat and wildfires are straining grid reliability.  

By signing SB 59, Newsom could turn the clean transportation future he was instrumental in building into a clean energy reliability asset. That certainly sounds a lot better than turning to a bunch of new diesel generators for backup power, doesn’t it? 

Recover minerals from old batteries  

UCS has provided a science-based explanation on how EV batteries can and should be recycled, which underpins SB 615 by Senator Allen. This bill would ensure that all EV batteries are reused, repurposed or recycled by: 

1. explicitly making automakers responsible for their products at the end of the products’ lives,
     
2. requiring robust reporting and tracking of EV batteries, and  
   
3. setting up a process to ensure batteries are being sent to cleaner, more efficient recyclers.  

Between now and 2030, battery retirements will increase rapidly and if we do not have a strong policy in place – such as SB 615 – we could end up with batteries in landfills or being abandoned all together.   

By signing SB 615, Newsom can plan ahead for the safe recycling of EV batteries so critical minerals can be recovered and reused, reducing the amount of mining necessary for fully electrifying our cars and trucks over the coming years 

So, Mr. Governor, would you like to borrow a pen? 

It’s been a great year for California policy: we are providing sensible, science-backed solutions to move us from a dirty, extractive economy to a clean, sustainable one. All that needs to happen now is for Newsom to continue his climate leadership.  

It’s hard to keep up with the latest stories on extreme heat.  2023 was the world’s hottest year—a record that is likely to be broken by 2024. And just last month, NASA recorded the hottest day on record ever on July 22, the latest in a 13-month stretch of consecutive record-setting weather. These events are part of an upward march in extreme heat in the US that has turned summer into a veritable danger season. And what gets lost as we confront these record-breaking conditions is the reality that heat—like many other effects of climate change—has a disproportionate impact on older adults. But the good news is that when we center our heat response and broader climate resilience efforts in reducing the impacts to older adults, we also create safer communities for all.

Unique risks

The toll that climate change is taking on older adults is evident in the fatality rates recorded from an array of climate-fueled disasters:

• In July 2024, older adults accounted for 75% of the fatalities resulting from power outages following Hurricane Beryl in Texas. The deaths occurred in the days and sometimes weeks after the storm during which people were unable to cool their homes and power in-home medical equipment.
• In December 2023, atmospheric rivers hovered over Ventura County, California, flooding nearly 500 homes largely occupied by low-income households, undocumented people, and older adults. The relatively small size of the event failed to trigger traditional FEMA disaster relief, and many older residents lack the savings to rebuild or the willingness to take on a loan that may result in the loss of their largest remaining asset.
• A year ago, older adults represented 73% of the fatalities in the Lahain’a wildfires, in large part because they live with mobility challenges because of advanced age or disability, or the economic vulnerability that comes with living on a fixed income with little or no retirement savings.

Heat may be the topic that captures our attention this summer—and deservedly so.  For older adults, hotter weather poses unique risks because older bodies are less able to regulate heat. They may also have pre-existing health conditions or take medications that make them more vulnerable to rising temperatures.  That helps to explain why 80% of the 12,000 heat-related deaths each year in the US are among people over 60.

Higher costs

But a hotter planet threatens older adults in other ways, too.  More hot days also mean greater demand for cooling, which in turn leads to higher utility bills that people of limited incomes can rarely afford. Already, low-income people pay 8% of their income on utilities—2.5 times more than the national average. For the 15% of older adults who live near or below the poverty line, this remains an untenable expense.

More extreme weather also means more frequent and deadly hurricanes, and increased flooding— and therefore higher insurance premiums as the insurance market adjusts to our new climate realities. Together, the rising cost of utilities, insurance, and rent or mortgage means that older adults are more housing cost-burdened than ever before. Today, more than half of all older renters pay more than one-third of their income on housing, as do more than one-quarter of older homeowners.

The effects of climate change on older adults are rarely made a centerpiece of climate resilience planning—despite the fact that people over 65 years of age are the fastest-growing demographic in the US. By 2030, older adults will outnumber children for the first time ever, a demographic shift that Newsweek described as a “population time bomb,” and one that will coincide with the growing risks of climate change.

Few communities consider the needs of older adults when planning for climate disasters if they plan for these disasters at all. While some communities and states have committed to becoming more “age-friendly” in an effort to create places where people of all ages can thrive, not nearly enough consider the climate-related impacts on housing, transportation, and connectedness that will shape how or if older adults can safely age in place.

Plan for an aging US

It’s not too late to get ahead of this challenge.  Communities must learn from our recent experience of how climate change differently impacts older adults, and commit to climate resilience planning that centers their needs.  When local and state leaders embrace solutions that work for older adults—like incentives to make homes more energy-efficient to reduce utility costs, and public transit systems that work better for non-drivers in times of emergency—benefits accrue to all.

It all begins by getting to know who the older adults are in your community and what they need.  That means looking well beyond the two percent of older adults who live in nursing homes and assisted living, and identifying the housing, transportation, communication, and service needs of the 98% who live in the community, often alone.  Invite older adults—and those who represent them, like Area Agencies on Aging—to be a part of climate resilience planning. Leverage resources such as those offered by AARP and FEMA on the topic of disaster resilience for older adults  to start a broader conversation on climate risks to older adults, and how those risks can be mitigated—before, during, and after disasters. There are two things that we can be sure of:  our hottest days are yet to come, and we (as individuals and as a nation) will continue to age.  Let’s take action now to address the ways in which those two trends intersect.

Rising temperatures = rising costs

The heat is on: it’s burning down forests and towns, it’s melting down grids, and it’s making hard jobs even harder. Beyond the staggering human and environmental toll of danger season’s extreme weather, there are rising costs associated with climate damages. And those costs are not being borne equitably. California has taken important steps to address some of these equity concerns—and now has another big opportunity to pass the water and wildfire bond, which will be on the ballot this November as
Proposition 4.

As one example of these rising costs, Californians’ electricity bills have been skyrocketing over the past few years. This is concerning not only because people are struggling to pay their utility bills, but also because increasing rates are starting to become a barrier to transitioning to electric vehicles for some families and individuals.

There are multiple reasons why bills are increasing, but the main driver is costs related to reducing wildfire risks, according to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Climate-caused hotter, drier conditions are leading to longer, more intense wildfire seasons in many parts of California . Worryingly, the Commission notes that only a few wildfire-related expenses have made it onto customer bills, namely increased costs for vegetation management and wildfire insurance. There are many more capital costs likely coming. And we know that as our climate warms further—driven by burning fossil fuels—the risk of large wildfires will only grow.

To-date, the public narrative has largely focused on the narrow issue of rates, or how costs are distributed among different customers. Equitable rate structures are important to ensure affordability. Yet, danger season means costs are rising overall and will continue to drive up the revenue requirement, or the total amount of money that utilities are allowed to collect across all their customers.

Right now, increased costs associated with larger and more intense wildfires are mostly borne individually or by the most impacted regions. It’s a starkly regressive way to pick up the tab. That’s why California is taking, or should take, these steps:

Sue the fossil fuel industry for damages

Extensive scientific research has shown how fossil fuel companies have contributed to worsening climate change impacts. A UCS report, The Fossil Fuels behind Forest Fires, calculates that about half of the rise in fire-danger conditions in western North America since 1901 can be traced to carbon pollution from 88 fossil fuel companies and cement manufacturers. This alarming finding clarifies the significant role and responsibility of fossil fuel companies to not only stop their harm moving forward, but also to address damage they have already done. This science has been incorporated into dozens of lawsuits filed by cities, counties, and states to collect damages from fossil fuel companies. Last year, California filed the most significant lawsuit addressing climate deception and damages. But the wheels of justice can turn slowly, and in the meantime, costs are racking up.

Ensure affordability in rate structures

Earlier this year, the California Public Utility Commission passed new requirements to ensure electricity rate structures address growing affordability concerns by incorporating an income-based monthly charge that more equitably shares the costs for electricity infrastructure while also supporting the transition from fossil fuels to clean electricity. The new rate structure guidance lowers electricity bills on average for lower-income households and those living in regions most impacted by extreme weather events.

Develop more equitable ways to share rising costs

Now more than ever, wildfires are affecting all of us whether they are burning through our neighborhoods, shutting down our power supplies, keeping us indoors for days, or sending people to the hospital with asthma attacks. One way California has financed shared resource management challenges is through general obligation bonds. General obligation bonds allow us to spread out costs across all taxpayers and incorporate affordability by applying taxable income tiers in repayment. This is why UCS supports California’s water and wildfire bond, which will be on the ballot this November as
Proposition 4.

Reduce the rate of return to investors to limit rising costs

Beyond finding more equitable financing methods, the state should also consider limiting how much money utility investors or shareholders receive, known as the rate of return, included in the revenue requirement. Recent analysis from the Haas School of Business finds “that over recent years, utilities have earned sizeable regulated rates of return on their capital assets, particularly when set against the unprecedented low interest rate environment from 2008–2022. When the economy-wide cost of capital fell, utilities’ regulated rates of return did not fall nearly as much. This gap raises the prospect that at least some of the growth in capital spending could be driven by utilities earning excess regulated returns.” They conclude that excess rates of return have important implications beyond just the additional cost they place on consumers. From a distributional standpoint, higher rates create a transfer of wealth from ratepayers to shareholders. From a societal standpoint, expensive energy can discourage electrification, which is a key component of our efforts to tackle climate change.

Achieve our clean energy goals to limit rising costs

Over the long-term, the only way to significantly reduce the costs associated with worsening wildfires is to limit climate change impacts. California has passed the nation’s most ambitious climate change emission reduction goals. And, while we have made important progress, to achieve our goals we need to roughly double the amount of clean energy coming online. We have previously blogged about solutions to overcome the top three clean energy barriers: the need for more transmission capacity; delays in the interconnection process; and permitting difficulties.

What you can do: Vote yes on Proposition 4 this November

California has already done a lot to get us on the right path by filing lawsuits against big oil companies to recoup damages and by reforming electricity rate structures to ensure affordability. Right now, we now need to focus on passing Proposition 4 this November. Moving forward, lawmakers should consider limiting the rate of return that is authorized by the California Public Utilities Commission and addressing barriers to clean energy. We cannot afford to be distracted by temporary fixes that will raid our state’s preeminent climate mitigation and adaptation programs. California has always led the way by investing in the future rather than stealing from the past—this time should be no different.

On August 13, Tropical Storm Ernesto rapidly intensified just before hitting Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The intensification and trajectory merited a hurricane warning for the Virgin Islands as well as the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra. Despite not making landfall in either archipelago, Ernesto brought with it winds of up to 50 miles per hour (80.5 kilometers per hour) and up to 10 inches (25.5 cm) of rain to Puerto Rico. The next day, Wednesday, August 14, Puerto Rico woke up with 728,000 clients (almost half) without electricity, thousands without drinking water (because many communities rely on electricity to pump water), and flood warnings throughout the island. 

Fortunately, no deaths were reported due to the passage of the storm. But the fragile state of Puerto Rico’s energy infrastructure is not lost on anyone. Seven years after hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico and resulted in the largest power blackout in U.S. history (80% of power was knocked out and some residents didn’t get power back for a year), once again the island’s residents have been forced to experience a crippling power outage affecting at least half the population. Our population is forced to throw away perishable foods, cannot use dialysis machines for patients at home, and cannot cool their homes from the dangerous heat after the storm.  

Private electricity companies operate with zero accountability for non-compliance with minimum performance conditions 

LUMA, the private consortium in charge of electricity distribution, is not capable of reliably maintaining vital electric service on the island. The most recent proof of this prior to tropical storm Ernesto occurred in June of this year, when more than 340,000 subscribers were left without electricity in the midst of a terrible heat wave. This prompted the energy regulatory body, the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (NEPR), to demand explanations from LUMA for the 19% increase in power outages between 2023 and 2024.

And why so many outages? Laughably, LUMA says it took on the task of removing overgrown vegetation, since this is “the main cause of service interruptions in Puerto Rico,” a misleading statement according to the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI). According to LUMA, if the foliage is not to blame, then the fauna is: mice, iguanas, cats, and monkeys are all suspected of causing the blackouts on the island. Everything except its own incompetence and negligence.  

It is infuriating that seven years after Hurricane María, after the $750 million cushion that taxpayers in Puerto Rico were forced to contribute so that LUMA could enter the market, after firing the experienced line workers and dismissing their union contracts, after at least seven increases in the electricity rates (after LUMA promised that there would be no such increases), Puerto Rico does not have reliable electricity at prices that the majority of our people can afford. 

One reason is that LUMA is allowed to operate in the most outrageous way possible, starting with all the irregularities mentioned above related to the contract and workforce, to its regulatory entities, the NEPR and the Authority for Public-Private Partnerships (AAPP), who are very soft in their oversight of LUMA.

LUMA fails by far in its performance metrics. For example, the average duration of blackouts in Puerto Rico between April 2023 and March 2024 was 1,414 minutes, or almost 24 hours (the average in the United States in 2022 was almost 6 hours). The NEPR established that for LUMA to be in compliance, it must not exceed 1,243 minutes (20.7 hours).

The CPI investigated to find out what would happen in case of non-compliance with the minimum performance conditions that would cause the cancellation of the LUMA contract, but the NEPR and the AAPP passed the hot potato to each other and avoided answering clearly and accurately how long LUMA can breach its contract without its being cancelled. At the moment, LUMA operates under an extension without a term to the original contract that expired in November 2022 granted by Governor Pierluisi, a contract that does not have any penalty for non-compliance to LUMA. It is truly crazy. 

What awaits Puerto Rico with Genera in charge of electricity generation?

After Hurricane María, the federal government and the Fiscal Oversight Management Board (FOMB, appointed by Congress through the PROMESA law), decided that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) should be privatized before funds from FEMA and other federal agencies for grid reconstruction could be disbursed (read here, in Spanish the story of the politicization and slow-motion destruction of PREPA since the 1950s that led to the privatization of the energy system). This was an ill-advised move given the disastrous privatization experience with not one, but two water utility management private companies in the 1990s.

Back then, those contracts were canceled by the Puerto Rican government for failing to improve service and meet minimum performance standards. That was only possible because the privatization contracts had clauses that allowed Puerto Rico to rescind them in case of bad performance, and at least those two companies had actual experience in managing water delivery systems. But those lessons were not heeded, and in June 2023, PREPA handed over the operation of its generation fleet to the private company Genera.  

New Fortress Energy (NFE), Genera’s parent company, has no experience with renewables and specializes in methane gas. NFE highlighted four themes in their pitch as selected by the AAPP. First, they said, consumers would reap significant cost savings through fuel management and operations optimization. Second, they promised improved reliability and efficiency of the generation system with a focus on distributed energy and microgrids; Third, they said they would retire obsolete plants while simultaneously ensuring reliable, low-cost, and cleaner generation at load centers to support the transition to renewable energy; and fourth, they made a commitment to local hiring and plans to recruit, train, and incentivize employees.  

In a report this year to its shareholders, New Fortress Energy leadership stated its plan to replace the aging generating fleet in Puerto Rico with methane gas units, saying that solar power and storage would be complementary to the generation mix. Clearly, there is not a clear pathway for Genera to advance the transition towards renewables that is critically needed in the Puerto Rican grid and is also mandated by the 2019 Energy Public Policy Law. 

One year after taking over, Genera says that fuel management and operations optimizations will produce savings of $875 million between now and 2028 and that half of the savings would go to PREPA to reduce consumer bills. The company says it is focused on stabilizing and increasing generation, which fluctuates widely and often causes blackouts when aging generating units go out of service. But the fact is that Genera, like LUMA, does not have the personnel with the knowledge to operate and maintain the plants because they fired them, ignoring PREPA labor union UTIER’s collective bargaining agreements. And their specialization in methane gas means that they have an obvious incentive to promote fossil fuels and not renewables.  

After Tropical Storm Ernesto passed, the generation deficit that Genera seems unable to overcome was evident. On Thursday night after Ernesto, a fire at a substation left nearly 100,000 customers without service in the Carolina region. The next day, the Aguirre power plant in the south went offline, leaving around 100,000 more customers without power. To top it off, on Tuesday, nearly a week after Ernesto, another 100,000 were left without power during peak consumption hours in a repeat of the failures at Aguirre.

What do LUMA and Genera do with the money they receive from Congress and the people of Puerto Rico?

LUMA’s budget for fiscal year 2024-2025 is $693 million, provided by the government of Puerto Rico and earmarked for the operation and maintenance of the electric transmission and distribution system. LUMA also charges an annual fee to operate the system, the total of which is expected to add up to $500 million between 2021 and 2025. However, LUMA has postponed its maintenance plans, as in June it suspended plans to make improvements to some 100,000 lighting poles, repair underground circuits, and mitigate fires, a project valued at $65 million due to “budgetary problems.” LUMA says that in addition to those $65 million, they are missing another $45 million to be able to carry out the improvements.  

Genera’s contract provides $15 million for transition expenses and an annual fee of $22.5 million for the first five years, which will be reduced after the fifth year to a minimum of $5 million. It also includes incentives of up to $100 million for savings on operating expenses, compliance with occupational safety standards and environmental and fuel purchase recommendations. What the contract does not include are incentives or penalties related to meeting renewable energy generation goals of a minima of 40% by 2025, 60% by 2040 and 100% in renewable sources by 2050, as mandated by the 2019 Energy Public Policy Act.

Generation units will continue to be owned by PREPA because Genera will only be responsible for the operation, maintenance and eventual retirement of obsolete units, which raises much concern about the emphasis that Genera will place on the development of renewable energy. 

Puerto Rico needs renewable energy

The climate crisis, public debt, rate hikes, and dependency on fossil fuels strangle the bottom line for Puerto Ricans. The mismanagement and lack of oversight of the Puerto Rican energy system occurs in the context of an unprecedented climate crisis that brings more destructive storms to the Caribbean, which intensify rapidly in short periods of time, and which bring more rain.

The islands, sovereign or not, pay high and highly variable costs for fossil fuels, largely due to the volatility of their prices in global markets. Fossil fuels account for 94% of electricity generation in Puerto Rico. These costs are the main reason for the multiple increases in rates according to LUMA. Agreed. So, why not transition to renewable sources? Renewable energy can solve the uncertainty in the face of fluctuating fossil fuel prices.  

The following graph shows the cost per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity consumption in Puerto Rico and the United States. Clearly, these costs are much higher in Puerto Rico. These prices include increases in bills and fuel costs. 

Residential electricity rates costs have increased dramatically in Puerto Rico and are much higher than the average in the United States. Note the sharp jump just after Hurricane Maria and the upward trend since 2021. Energy Information Administration Form https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861m/  Priorities must be established that benefit the people of Puerto Rico, not private interests

Another important context is that the FOMB, which has absolute control over Puerto Rico’s budgets and plans, prioritizes Puerto Rico’s creditors and not the energy system. In its fiscal plan to restructure PREPA’s debt, the FOMB recognizes that rate increases could be used to transform the energy grid into a modern, efficient, and clean (i.e., fossil-free) entity. But in the same statement they choose to use the money from the rate increases to pay creditors. One of the principles of a bankruptcy plan should be to give PREPA the necessary resources to provide quality electric service, so the board should set aside funds for this before paying creditors. 

LUMA, Genera, the FOMB, lack of accountability, climate change. The unsustainable situation in the electrical system and the risks to which it exposes the population of Puerto Rico have been aggravated by handing over the electric generation, transmission and distribution resources to private interests with zero accountability mechanisms, who were welcome with open arms to come and profit from the millions of dollars allocated by FEMA after Hurricane María. Even though Puerto Rico’s 2019 Energy Public Policy Act mandates substantial progress in renewable energy goals sources by 2050, it barely reaches 5% today.  

Currently, Puerto Rico has 14 billion dollars ($14,000,000,000) in federal funds to rebuild the electrical grid. The problem is not so much the availability of funds, but rather the implementation by the public and private agencies mentioned, which obtusely ignore studies such as Queremos Sol and PR100 that demonstrate the viability of reducing hydrocarbon imports while meeting energy demand in Puerto Rico. 

Clearly, the privatization of generation, transmission, and distribution into private hands has contributed to exacerbating the underlying problem, which is the stubborn insistence on hydrocarbons and the lack of investment in the transition to renewable sources. By handing over the grid to private interests, as recent administrations in Puerto Rico and the FOMB have done, they have enabled the parent companies of LUMA and Genera to profit from millions of federal dollars without having the authority or willingness to address the underlying issues in terms of the needs of Puerto Ricans. 

The energy crossroads in which Puerto Rico finds itself is complex, and here I have only outlined some of its characteristics. The solutions lie within a large and complex web of federal and Puerto Rican agencies, multinational companies, and communities in Puerto Rico, but they should follow a very simple logic: prioritize the stability of the electrical system to ensure its functionality both in everyday life in Puerto Rico and during emergency situations such as storms, hurricanes, and floods—events that will become increasingly destructive as climate change progresses. 

Here are some potential solutions:

• The combined $14 billion dollars available to LUMA and Genera must be spent wisely so that PREPA can be resourced to provide adequate electricity services; 

• NEPR and AAPP have to fulfill their oversight function, clarify the minimum performance conditions to maintain the LUMA and Genera contracts, and establish and enforce penalties for poor performance;  

• Respect UTIER’s collective bargaining agreements and rehire Puerto Rican union workers with the experience and knowledge to keep the system running;  

• The FOMB must allocate, in its debt adjustment plan, a sufficiently large amount to enable the transition of the AEE to a modern and efficient company, with a clear path towards compliance with the Energy Public Policy Act.  

• Integrate into the search for renewable energy solutions the community-led expertise and science in studies such as Queremos Sol and PR100, made up of broad coalitions of vulnerable communities, scientists, community-based renewable energy experts, and private sector actors. 

El 13 de agosto, la tormenta tropical Ernesto se intensificó rápidamente justo antes de pegarle a Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. La intensificación y trayectoria merecieron aviso de huracán para las Islas Vírgenes tanto como para las islas municipio de Vieques y Culebra.

A pesar de no tocar tierra en ninguno de los dos archipiélagos, Ernesto trajo consigo vientos de hasta 50 millas por hora (80,5 kilómetros por hora) y hasta 10 pulgadas (25,5 cm) de lluvia en Puerto Rico. Al día siguiente, Puerto Rico amaneció con más de 728.000 abonados (casi la mitad del total) sin servicio eléctrico, miles sin agua potable (debido a que muchas comunidades dependen de la electricidad para bombear agua), y alertas de inundación a través de toda la isla.  

Afortunadamente no se reportaron muertes debido al paso de la tormenta. Pero no pasa desapercibido el frágil estado de la infraestructura energética en Puerto Rico. Siete años después de que el huracán María devastara a Puerto Rico y resultara en el apagón más grande y extenso en la historia de Estados Unidos (80% de la población se quedó sin luz y algunas comunidades no se les restableció el servicio por un año), una vez más la isla se enfrenta a debilitantes apagones que afectan la mitad de la población.

Nuestra población se ve forzada a tirar a la basura alimentos perecederos, muchos no pueden usar equipo médico para dializar pacientes en casa, o no pueden refrescarse en sus hogares ante el calor peligroso tras la tormenta.  

Empresas privadas eléctricas operan sin fiscalización ni penalidad alguna por incumplimiento de obligaciones y niveles de servicio 

LUMA, el consorcio privado encargado de la distribución eléctrica, no es capaz de mantener de manera confiable el vital servicio eléctrico en la isla. La prueba más reciente previo a la tormenta tropical Ernesto ocurrió en junio del corriente, cuando más de 340.000 abonados se quedaron sin luz en medio de una terrible ola de calor. Esto preocupa al ente regulatorio energético, el Negociado de Energía de Puerto Rico (NEPR), quien recientemente exigió a LUMA explicaciones ante el incremento de 19% registrado en interrupciones en el servicio eléctrico entre 2023 y 2024.

¿Y porqué tantas interrupciones? Risiblemente, LUMA dice que se dio a la tarea de remover la vegetación descuidada ya que ésta es “la causa principal de las interrupciones de servicio en Puerto Rico“, declaración engañosa según el Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI). De acuerdo con LUMA, si la culpa no la tiene el follaje, la tiene la fauna: ratones, iguanas, gatos, y monos son todos sospechosos de causar los apagones en la isla. Todo menos su propia incompetencia y negligencia. 

Enfurece que a casi siete años del Huracán María, del colchón de $750 millones que los contribuyentes en Puerto Rico fueron forzados a aportar para que LUMA entrara al mercado, de haber despedido a los celadores de línea cuyos contratos sindicales fueron desconocidos por LUMA, de por lo menos siete alzas en las tarifas por kilovatio-hora (después que LUMA prometiera que no habrían dichas alzas), esta es la hora que Puerto Rico no tiene luz de manera confiable ni a precios que la mayoría de nuestra gente pueda pagar. 

Y es que a LUMA se le permite operar de la manera más descabelladamente posible, empezando por todas las irregularidades mencionadas anteriormente relacionadas al contrato y personal, hasta las entidades fiscalizadoras, el NEPR y la Autoridad para las Alianzas Público-Privadas (AAPP), quienes son muy blandengues en su fiscalización de LUMA. LUMA incumple por mucho en sus métricas de rendimiento.

Por ejemplo, la duración promedio de los apagones en Puerto Rico entre abril de 2023 y marzo de 2024 fue de 1.414 minutos, o casi 24 horas (el promedio en Estados Unidos en 2022 fue de casi 6 horas). El NEPR estableció que para LUMA estar en cumplimiento no debe rebasar los 1.243 minutos (20,7 horas).  El CPI indagó para saber que pasaría en caso de incumplimiento con las condiciones mínimas de rendimiento que provocarían la cancelación del contrato de LUMA, pero el NEPR y la AAPP se pasaron la papa caliente uno al otro y evitaron contestar con claridad y exactitud hasta cuándo puede LUMA incumplir su contrato sin que el mismo sea cancelado.

Al momento LUMA opera bajo una extensión sin término al contrato original que expiró en noviembre de 2022 y otorgada por el gobernador Pierluisi, contrato que no cuenta con penalización alguna por incumplimiento a LUMA. Es una verdadera locura. 

¿Qué le espera a Puerto Rico con Genera al mando de la generación eléctrica? 

Después del huracán María, el gobierno federal y la Junta de Control Fiscal (en inglés Fiscal Oversight Management Board, FOMB) establecida por el Congreso mediante la ley PROMESA, decidieron que la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica (AEE) sería privatizada antes de que pudiera recibir fondos federales de FEMA y de otras agencias federales para reconstruir la red (lean aquí la historia de la politización y destrucción en cámara lenta de la AEE que llevó a la privatización del sistema energético).

Esta fue una decisión imprudente, dado el desastroso experimento de privatización con no una, sino dos empresas privadas de gestión de servicios de agua en la década de 1990. En ese entonces, esos contratos fueron cancelados por el gobierno de Puerto Rico por no mejorar el servicio ni cumplir con requisitos mínimos de rendimiento. Eso solo fue posible porque los contratos de privatización incluían cláusulas que permitían al gobierno de Puerto Rico rescindirlos en caso de mal desempeño; por lo menos esas dos empresas tenían experiencia en la gestión de sistemas de agua potable. Pero esas lecciones no fueron tomadas en cuenta, y en junio de 2023, la AEE entregó las operaciones de su flota de generación a la empresa privada Genera. 

New Fortress Energy, la empresa matriz de Genera, no tiene experiencia en energía renovable y se especializa en gas metano. New Fortress resaltó cuatro temas de la propuesta seleccionada por la AAPP. Primero, señaló que lograría un ahorro significativo de costos en beneficio de los consumidores mediante la gestión de combustible y la optimización de operaciones. Segundo, que mejoraría la confiabilidad y eficiencia del sistema de generación con un enfoque en energía distribuida y microrredes. Tercero, que retirará centrales obsoletas, garantizando simultáneamente una generación confiable, de bajo costo y más limpia en los centros de carga para apoyar la transición a las energías renovables. Por último, dijo tener compromiso con la contratación local y planes para reclutar, capacitar e incentivar a los empleados.

En un informe este año a sus accionistas, el liderato de New Fortress Energy declaró su plan de reemplazar la flota generatriz obsoleta en Puerto Rico con unidades de gas metano, y que la energía y almacenamiento solar sería complementaria. O sea, que no se puede vislumbrar claramente cómo la gestión de Genera adelantará el mandato de un mínimo de 40% para el 2025, 60% para el 2040 y 100% de generación en base a fuentes renovables para el 2050, contenido en la Ley de Política Pública Energética de 2019.

A un año de asumir, Genera dice que a través de la gestión de combustible y optimización de operaciones producirían ahorros de $875 millones de aquí al 2028 y que la mitad de los ahorros irían a la AEE para reducir costos a los consumidores. La empresa dice estar enfocada en estabilizar e incrementar la generación, la cual fluctúa mucho y provoca apagones a menudo cuando las obsoletas unidades de generación salen de servicio. Pero el hecho es que Genera, al igual que LUMA, no cuenta con el personal con el conocimiento para operar y dar mantenimiento a las plantas porque los despidieron al desconocer los acuerdos de negociación colectiva del sindicato de trabajadores UTIER. Y su especialización en gas metano es un incentivo obvio para promover la ampliación de combustibles fósiles y no de fuentes renovables.  

Pasada la tormenta tropical Ernesto, el déficit de generación que Genera no parece poder superar quedó evidenciado. Durante la noche del jueves después de Ernesto, un incendio en una subestación dejó sin servicio a casi 100.000 abonados en la región de Carolina, y al día siguiente la Central Aguirre en el sur salió de servicio, dejando sin luz a unos 100.000 abonados. Para rematar, el martes, casi una semana después de Ernesto, otros 100.000 quedaron sin luz en horas pico de consumo cuando se repitieron las averías en Aguirre.

¿Qué hacen LUMA y Genera con el dinero que reciben del Congreso y del pueblo de Puerto Rico? 

El presupuesto de LUMA para el año fiscal 2024-2025 es de $693 millones, es aportado por el gobierno de Puerto Rico y está destinado a la operación y manutención del sistema de transmisión y distribución eléctrica. LUMA también cobra una tarifa anual por operar el sistema, el total de la cual se espera sume $500 millones de dólares entre 2021 y 2025.

Sin embargo, LUMA ha postergado sus planes de mantenimiento, ya que en junio suspendió planes para hacer mejoras a unos 100.000 postes de alumbrado, reparación de circuitos soterrados, y mitigación de incendios, proyecto valorado en $65 millones de dólares por “problemas presupuestarios”. LUMA dice que en adición a esos $65 millones, le faltan otros $45 millones para poder llevar a cabo las mejoras. 

El contrato de Genera le otorga $15 millones para gastos de transición y una tarifa anual de $22,5 millones durante los primeros cinco años, la cual se reducirá después del quinto año hasta un mínimo de $5 millones. También incluye incentivos de hasta $100 millones por economizar en gastos operacionales, cumplimiento de normas de seguridad ocupacional y recomendaciones ambientales y de compra de combustible. Lo que no incluye el contrato son incentivos ni penalidades relacionados al cumplimiento de metas de generación con recursos renovables como lo manda la Ley de Política Pública Energética. Las unidades de generación continuarán siendo propiedad de la AEE porque Genera sólo se encargará de la operación, mantenimiento y eventual retiro de las unidades obsoletas, lo cual contribuye a la preocupación en cuanto al énfasis que Genera pondrá en el desarrollo de energía renovable.  

Puerto Rico necesita energía renovable 

La crisis climática, la deuda pública, las alzas sin fin en tarifas y la dependencia en combustibles fósiles estrangulan a las y los boricuas. Todo este mal manejo y falta de fiscalización del sistema energético boricua ocurre en el contexto de una crisis climática sin precedentes que trae al Caribe tormentas más destructivas, que se intensifican rápidamente en cortos períodos de tiempo, y que traen más lluvia.

Las islas, soberanas o no, pagan altos y altamente variables costos por los combustibles fósiles, en gran parte por la volatilidad de sus precios en los mercados globales. El 94% de la generación eléctrica en Puerto Rico se lleva a cabo con combustibles fósiles. Estos costos son la razón principal de los múltiples aumentos en tarifas según LUMA.  De acuerdo. Entonces, ¿por qué no transicionar a fuentes renovables? La energía renovable puede solucionar la incertidumbre frente a la fluctuación de los precios de los fósiles. 

La siguiente gráfica muestra el costo por kilovatio-hora para consumo eléctrico residencial en Puerto Rico y Estados Unidos. Claramente, se puede ver que estos costos son mucho más altos en Puerto Rico, debido en gran medida al costo de comprar combustibles fósiles—algo que LUMA no controla.

Los costos de las tarifas residenciales por consumo eléctrico han aumentado dramáticamente en Puerto Rico y son mucho más altas que el costo promedio en Estados Unidos. Nótese el salto vertiginoso justo después del Huracán María y la tendencia al alza desde 2021.  Fuente de datos: Energy Information Administration Form https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861m/  Las prioridades deben ser establecidas en beneficio del pueblo de Puerto Rico, no de intereses particulares 

Otro contexto importante es que la Junta de Control Fiscal, quien tiene control absoluto sobre los presupuestos y planes de Puerto Rico, prioriza a los acreedores de Puerto Rico y no al sistema energético. En su plan fiscal para reestructurar la deuda de la AEE, la Junta reconoce que las alzas en tarifas pudieran ser usadas para transformar la red energética en una entidad moderna, eficiente, y limpia (i.e., libre de fósiles). Pero en la misma declaración optan por usar el dinero del alza en las tarifas para pagar a los acreedores.  Uno de los principios de un plan de quiebra sería dejarle a la AEE los recursos necesarios para proveer un servicio eléctrico de calidad, de manera que la Junta debería reservar fondos para ello antes de pagar a los acreedores.  

LUMA, Genera, la Junta, falta de fiscalización, cambio climático. La situación insostenible en el sistema eléctrico y los riesgos a los que expone a la población de Puerto Rico han sido agravados por la entrega del sistema de producción, transmisión y distribución energética a intereses particulares sin fiscalización real, a quienes se les abrió las puertas para venir a lucrar con los millones de dólares asignados por FEMA después del Huracán María. A pesar de que la Ley de Política Pública Energética creó mandatos para incrementar sustancialmente la generación en base a fuentes renovables para el 2050, apenas llega hoy día al 5%.  

Al presente, Puerto Rico cuenta con 14 mil millones de dólares ($14.000.000.000) en fondos federales para reconstruir la red eléctrica. El problema no es tanto la disponibilidad de fondos, sino la implementación por parte de las agencias públicas y privadas mencionadas, las cuales obtusamente ignoran estudios como el de Queremos Sol y el de PR100 que demuestran la viabilidad de reducir las importaciones de hidrocarburos a la vez que se cumple con la demanda energética en Puerto Rico.  

Claramente, la privatización de la generación, transmisión y distribución a manos privadas ha contribuido a acrecentar el problema de fondo que es la necia insistencia en hidrocarburos y la falta de inversión en la transición hacia fuentes renovables. Con la entrega a intereses privados que los gobiernos recientes en Puerto Rico y la Junta han hecho del patrimonio energético, han posibilitado el que las empresas matrices de LUMA y Genera se lucren con millones de dólares federales pero sin facultades ni disposición de atender los problemas de fondo en función de las necesidades de las y los puertorriqueños.  

Soluciones

La encrucijada energética en la que se encuentra Puerto Rico es compleja y aquí apenas he esbozado algunas de sus características. Las soluciones radican en una madeja grande y complicada de agencias federales y puertorriqueñas, empresas multinacionales y comunidades en Puerto Rico pero las mismas deberían seguir una lógica muy sencilla: priorizar la estabilidad del sistema eléctrico en función asegurar su funcionamiento tanto en la vida cotidiana en Puerto Rico como durante situaciones de emergencia como tormentas, huracanes, inundaciones—eventos que serán cada vez más destructivos en la medida que el cambio climático avanza.  

Aquí propongo unas posibles soluciones 

• Los 14 mil millones de dólares disponibles para LUMA y Genera deben ser invertidos de manera prudente para que la AEE tenga los recursos necesarios para proveer un servicio eléctrico confiable;
• NEPR y AAPP tienen que cumplir su función fiscalizadora, clarificar cuáles son las condiciones de rendimiento para mantener los contratos de LUMA y Genera, y establecer y hacer cumplir penalidades por bajo rendimiento; 

• Respetar los acuerdos de negociación colectiva de UTIER y contratar a los trabajadores sindicalistas puertorriqueños con la experiencia y conocimiento para mantener el sistema en funcionamiento; 

• La Junta de Control Fiscal debe destinar, en su plan de ajuste de la deuda, una partida suficientemente grande como para posibilitar la transición de la AEE a una empresa moderna y eficiente, con una trayectoria clara hacia el cumplimiento de la Ley de Política Pública Energética.; 

• Integrar en la búsqueda de soluciones de energía renovable la experiencia comunitaria y la ciencia de estudios como Queremos Sol y PR100, conformados por amplias coaliciones de comunidades vulnerables, científicos, expertos en energía renovable a nivel comunitario y actores del sector privado.

It is halfway through August and this year’s Danger Season, the period between May and October when climate change makes summers extremely hot and brings more intense hurricanes, heat waves, flooding, and wildfires. Just this past week, the US was hit with record heat, wildfires, and a hurricane, with 2024 already ranking second for the number of billion-dollar disasters recorded. 

In our Danger Season tracker, we are keeping tabs on how many people in the US, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands have been under heat, storm, flooding, or fire weather alerts issued by the National Weather Service.

Danger Season got a quick jump start early this year. By May 7, nearly one-third of the population had been under at least one alert, a number that jumped to half the population (nearly 170 million persons) by May 20. Extreme weather alerts continued to spread quickly throughout the US. On June 2, 75% (three-quarters) of all people in the country had faced at least one alert, and by June 22 that number reached 95%.

As of August 13, nearly everyone in the US has faced an extreme weather alert, and we still have most of August, as well as September and October to go. Only 79 counties and municipios (the county equivalent in Puerto Rico) throughout the country representing about 1% of the country’s population and located mostly in Michigan, Minnesota, Alaska, and Wisconsin have not faced an alert as of August 13. 

Who are most vulnerable and most impacted? 

In 2022, we reported that counties with at least 21 heat alerts (amounting to nearly three weeks’ worth of heat alerts though not necessarily in a row) were mostly in a handful of states in the Midwest and South. In these communities, poverty levels tend to be higher than the national average, and many communities lack the economic means to protect themselves during extremely hot weather and any other type of extreme weather.  

To determine which populations may be more vulnerable to the extreme climate impacts that occur during Danger Season, I relied on the White House’s Climate Justice and Economic Screening Tool (CEJST). CEJST does not include race or ethnicity, instead classifying communities as “disadvantaged” if they meet at least one of multiple categories of climate and economic burdens such as expected losses from flooding, as well as disparities related to energy, health, housing, and transportation. Though it omits race and ethnicity, the tool’s results confirm what environmental justice advocates have said for a long time—that race is the strongest predictor of climate and pollution burdens.  

In 2024, many counties that have at least 25% or more of their communities deemed disadvantaged also had at least 21 days of extreme heat alerts so far this Danger Season. And many of these counties have large metro areas where lots of Latinos, African Americans, and other people of color live. And on August 2, Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index reminded us how much climate change is responsible for the brutal heat, as nearly half of the US population was under heat alerts that were three times as likely to exist due to climate change.  

Many disadvantaged communities across the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and parts of the Great Plains and the South have faced multiple extreme heat alerts between May 1 and August 13 of 2024.

Not just heat, but atmospheric conditions that lead to wildfires prevailed in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest. Fire weather alerts are issued by the National Weather Service when the atmospheric conditions that make wildfires more likely are ripe, such as low humidity, temperatures above 75⁰F, and wind speed in excess of 15 miles per hour. And similar to heat alerts, most places with a high total number of fire weather alerts (I picked 14 in this case, or two weeks’ worth of alerts—again, not necessarily consecutive) are also home to many disadvantaged communities. Indeed, in July, large wildfires broke out across these regions and forced thousands to evacuate. These fires destroy people’s homes and other property, and their risks and costs keep climbing.  

Many disadvantaged communities across the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest have faced multiple extreme fire weather alerts between May 1 and August 13 of 2024.

As I write this, rain has been pouring almost uninterruptedly in Washington, DC and the surrounding suburbs where I live, as Tropical Storm Debby makes its way northeast. It’s much worse in South Carolina, where people faced record rainfall, extensive flooding, and tornadoes. Unfortunately, it’s not the first time this year that a storm has pummeled communities. In late April and the first days of May, eastern and southeastern Texas was flooded with heavy rains. Then Hurricane Beryl, after a long tour that began early in the southeast part of the Atlantic, ran roughshod across Houston and other nearby parts of Texas, knocking out power for 2.7 million folks across the state and costing upwards of one billion dollars in grid repairs.  The map below captures areas that have had at least 7 flood alerts so far this Danger Season. 

Many disadvantaged communities across coastal and inland areas faced multiple flood weather alerts between May 1 and August 13 of 2024.

During Danger Season, many of these impacts occur simultaneously. Just on August 9 alone, millions of people were under heat flood alerts from most of Texas through the South and Southeast and under flood alerts in most of the Eastern Seaboard. And some counties such as Florida were under both types of alerts on the same day.

Danger Season alerts on Friday, August 9, 2024. Heat alerts in yellow cover a large swath including the Southwest and Southeastern US, while flood alerts (in green) show widespread threats from Tropical Storm Debby across the Eastern Seaboard. Blue counties in Florida indicate where heat and flood alerts were issued on the same day.  What could be in store for the rest of the 2024 Danger Season?  

August through September are peak hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. NOAA just revised down their May hurricane season forecast slightly, but it still expects an above-normal season with 8 to 13 hurricanes (and 4 to 7 of these predicted to be Category 3 or higher), a worrisome number of potentially catastrophic events. At the moment, Tropical Storm Ernesto has prompted a tropical storm watch for Puerto Rico and a hurricane watch for the US Virgin Islands and the islands Vieques and Culebra, two inhabited islands that are part of the Puerto Rican archipelago.

In terms of wildfires, the National Interagency Fire Center’s outlook for August through October—a time that is often the height of the wildfire season—shows significant potential for wildfires in the Pacific Northwest and parts of the Southwest. And we are not out of the hot season yet—the National Weather Service’s Heat Risk tool is forecasting moderate or worse heat-related impacts mostly in some parts of the Southern United States for this week, and it’s too early to tell with certainty what temperatures will look like before the end of Danger Season in October.

We need immediate and sustained action

Climate change is fueling this new dangerous regime of extreme weather. Our government and industries need a sustained and steep downward path to reduce heat-trapping emissions, and we also need continuous resources and additional measures such as investments to protect people from the Danger Season impacts that are happening now. In addition, our own UCS experts have recommendations across these climate impacts from how to redress injustices brought on by hurricanes and heat in coastal regions, to protecting people and property from climate-fueled wildfires, as well as the critical infrastructure on which we rely to conduct our daily lives.

Steve Kress’s smile lit up the dusk as research assistants at least 50 years younger than him regaled him with tales of their vigilance to save tern chicks on Stratton Island, Maine.

For an hour, all talk centered around a mortal enemy of tern chicks: the black-crowned night heron. The latter is a beautiful, stocky wetland bird with glowing red eyes and two delicate white plumes shooting out the back of its head. A nocturnal hunter, lucky photographers can catch it at dusk or dawn along rivers and ponds snapping fish out of the water in a split second.

The black-crowned night heron, which hunts tern chicks as well as fish, keeps Audubon Seabird Institute researchers on edge on Stratton Island, Maine. Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson.

Stratton Island is three miles out to sea from Orchard Beach, Maine. The Audubon Seabird Institute, formerly known as Project Puffin, began restoring terns here in the 1980s. Kress founded the project in 1973.

On this island, in the dead of the night, the heron has other prey on the menu. It includes a precious colony of least terns, the smallest tern in the world, with a striking black cap and bright yellow bill. The tern was nearly wiped out on the East Coast in the late 19th century for hat feathers.

Despite their recovery from that slaughter —a recovery aided by the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty—least terns are listed today as an endangered bird in Maine. It nests on sandy beaches, which often puts it in competition with human development and recreation. That fragility makes it critical to keep herons out of tern colonies as one heron can kill many chicks in hours. In 2022, just 14 chicks fledged out of 91 nests on Stratton. Last year, maybe four chicks survived to fledge off Stratton.

The team of Ben Becker, Kay Garlick-Ott, Tiffany Christian, Ellie Bretscher, Katelyn Shelton, and Joe Sweeney told Kress they are always “on edge” for the heron attacks and do everything possible to scare off herons. They use lights and lasers and make every kind of noise possible with bangers, screamers, and pot banging.

Kress chimed in that crews have also tried (in vain) to use a mannequin to startle the herons. There was one researcher years ago who dressed up as the action film character Rambo to hunt a heron that was terrorizing chicks. Another attempt to use lights to see herons resulted in federal authorities roaring out to Stratton in a boat, on a tip that it was a landing strip for drug runners.  

Sadly, right after this visit, a heron evaded the crew and unleashed another lethal attack, reducing the number of least tern chicks from more than 60 to less than 20. The moment was symbolic of how Kress’s original vision for Project Puffin evolved dramatically over the years.

A least tern and its chick on Stratton Island, Maine. Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson. Protecting tern chicks from predators and other threats

All Kress had wanted to do a half-century ago was restore just one species, the Atlantic puffin, to Eastern Egg Rock, one small island off the coast of Maine. Puffins were hunted off nearly every island in Maine in the 1880s. Kress hoped that once he re-established the bird, with chicks translocated from Canada, it could maintain itself and that would be the end of the project.

He came to realize that breeding puffins and eventually other birds, such as terns, requires people to guard them for the entire 3 to 4 months of their breeding season. Whatever the ecosystem was centuries ago that allowed puffins and terns to thrive in Maine, now there are just too many threats. Some threats are other birds that thrive thanks to major conservation victories. For example, herring gulls, which also were slaughtered for hat feathers, recovered with the 1918 treaty. Bald eagles and peregrine falcons are flourishing again after the 1972 banning of the pesticide DDT. Other threats are tied to human sloppiness: Gulls went beyond recovery to crowding out other birds on Maine islands, boosted by banquets of coastal landfills and fishing waste.

It may all be part of a larger struggle of birds competing for dwindling habitat in the face of development, climate change, pesticides, industrial agriculture, and pollution. A 2019 study in the journal Science found that North America has lost more than a quarter of its bird population since 1970; there are nearly 3 billion birds less than there used to be.

“I had no idea we would face this complexity of the ongoing need for management,” Kress said. “It’s a myth that islands are separate from everything else. We can’t walk away from [the restorations], or they would eventually unravel.”

A murre, restored to Maine by Project Puffin, joins a group of puffins off the coast of Maine. Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson. Passing on the torch at Project Puffin

They have not unraveled. The project has had at least 700 research assistants. At 28 years old, Becker, Garlick-Ott, and Christian are the same age that Kress (now 78) and his colleagues were when they started Project Puffin 51 years ago. The half-century age gap punctuates the success of Kress effectively sharing his vision with young researchers and entrusting them to carry out the mission. (That is exceedingly elusive in other spheres. For example, a 2008 Harvard Business School paper estimated that 4 of every 5 founders or co-founders are eventually forced out as CEOs. The long list includes founders or co-founders of Apple, JetBlue, Tesla, Zipcar, Twitter, Uber, PayPal, OpenAI, and Yahoo!.)

As Kress’s co-author and photographer on two books about Project Puffin, this aspect, the passing on of the founder’s torch, has enthralled me as much as the birds. Garlick-Ott, a former island supervisor who studies tern aggression on Stratton for her doctorate at the University of California Davis, said, “You get a quick sense that the torch is constantly being passed. It’s empowering and humbling at the same time. I feel like I have a purpose and a place in this project. When I became a supervisor, I wanted so badly to do what my supervisor did. I really wanted to be like her.”

Keenan Yakola, 31, is in his 11th summer with Project Puffin and the Seabird Institute. A former island supervisor and now a doctoral student at Oregon State University, he leads the GPS tagging of puffins, terns, and storm petrels to study where they feed. The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest warming seas on Earth. He hopes the tracking will indicate how seabirds adapt to ocean heatwaves and help offshore wind developers site facilities to avoid conflict with birds.

Yakola said he learned early on that Project Puffin patiently welcomed innovation by college-age assistants. Perhaps that was because Kress himself almost did not get the chance to restore puffins. At first, a top Canadian official balked at the idea that Newfoundland puffin chicks would return to Maine as adults. Even after getting permission, it took eight years until Kress, then an Audubon camp bird instructor, reestablished puffin breeding on Eastern Egg Rock. His first artificial burrows for chicks were too hot or they flooded. The puffin chicks he raised in 1973 and 1974 disappeared into the Atlantic, never to be seen again.    

“My first summer on the project, I didn’t feel I had a particular contribution to make other than to be a good intern and collect data,” Yakola said. “I just thought it was cool being with birds. But when I asked about analyzing diet data for my undergraduate thesis [at the University of Massachusetts Amherst], Paula [Shannon, the institute’s seabird sanctuary manager)] simply said, ‘Yeah, sure. Just ask Steve.’”

Shannon, 48, a former island supervisor who first began working with the project in 2002 and co-authored a 2016 paper with Kress showing how puffin diet was changing with the warming Gulf of Maine, seconded Yakola. She talked about how crews kept repositioning common murre decoys on Matinicus Rock until the first egg in more than a century was laid on that island in 2009. A cousin of the puffin, common murres, were also hunted in the 1800s until there were no breeding pairs left in Maine. Last year, a dozen murre chicks fledged off Matinicus Rock.

Kress once asked Shannon and others a question about an extinct bird.

“What would you do if a Great Auk showed up with the puffins?” he said.

She laughed and replied to him, “We’d probably take a picture and send the bird on its way because no one would believe us.” The question was both in jest and a suggestion that trying new things can have unforeseen victories in science.

The Great Auk indeed will never come back, but Kress’s restoration of puffins and murre have helped conservationists all over the world bring back seabirds from the brink of extinction. One or more of the methods used by Project Puffin, such as the translocation of chicks, decoys, taped bird calls, and mirrors, have now been used in more than 850 projects in 36 countries to restore (or relocate from danger or competition with other animals), 138 seabird species. Some restored species were thought to be extinct, such as the Chinese crested tern.

Sue Schubel, 62, has been associated with the project for most of the last 40 years. In 1996, she advised the placing of murre decoys, mirrors, and recorded calls atop a northern California sea stack. A colony of 2,900 breeding murre had been wiped out by an oil spill a decade earlier. The day after decoys were installed, murres returned and began breeding again.

Affectionately known as Seabird Sue, current research assistants say they are inspired by her ceaseless energy. She is an assistant sanctuary manager, decoy project manager, a logistics expert for all the boats that get crews, provisions and gear on and off the islands, public educator, and artist. When she first joined the project, she herself fed off the sense that “everybody was willing to do everything for the birds.”

A culture of caring for the birds, for each other

Kress and Schubel came out to Eastern Egg Rock this summer to see what has become of his original project island. The crew of supervisor Theresa Rizza, 28, and assistants Arden Kelly, 25, Coco Deng, 19, Camryn Zoeller, 20, and Anson Tse, 27, said they know they are in a special world.

“This is an island and project of hope,” Zoller said. “The fact that this project is a success is a reason to not get distraught about all the destruction all around us.”

Rizza added, “The puffins are proof that as long as someone wants to try, good things can happen.”

Arden said, “You really see the can see the passion that is still in their eyes. You want to be your own Steve Kress.”

(Left to right, top row) Stratton Island supervisor Ben Becker, Project Puffin founder Steve Kress, former Eastern Egg Rock supervisor Kay Garlick-Ott, and research assistant Joe Sweeney. (Left to right, bottom row) Research assistants Katelyn Shelton, Tiffany Christian and Ellie Bretscher. Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson.

The sentiments were echoed 32 miles away in the Gulf of Maine out on Seal Island, another island where puffins were restored after a century’s absence. The crew there consisted of supervisor Coco Faber, 30, and assistants Amiel Hopkins, 19, Liv Ridley, 26, Reed Robinson, 19, and Nacho Gutierrez, 24.

Faber, in her ninth summer with the project, has seen some of the most volatile years of boom and bust for seabirds with the warming Gulf of Maine. “With climate change, the threats feel so amorphous and big, it’s hard to know where to go,” she said. “There are no more normal years. I now wonder every summer, what am I going to witness. When I [feel] down, I think of Steve and all his optimism, and how he threw spaghetti at the wall to bring these birds back.”

Ridley added, “They say one person can only do so much,” Ridley said, “But here, with [Kress’s] legacy you know you’re carrying on. You’re inspired to say I’m going to give my life to seabirds.”

Kress retired from the project in 2019, handing it over to Don Lyons, a tern researcher from Oregon State. Lyons said Kress left behind “community and continuity” that he could not find a comparison to.

“Steve is very focused on thanking people for their contributions,” Lyons, 59, said. “That includes a new researcher who lugged a boat up onto rocks or other seemingly menial tasks like data entry. It makes people feel valuable.”

So valuable that back on Stratton Island, Tiffany Christian, who lives the rest of the year in the Chicago area and is in her first summer on a Maine research island, said the magic of being surrounded by seabirds on an island was like being in “an ornate castle built in the sky.” She said the project’s legacy and the camaraderie “gives me a new awareness of what I want to do in the future.”

Kress himself said he did not intentionally set out to pass on a culture of such caring, but as it turns out, he looks at that culture as the “greatest hope” for seabirds. “Wherever I go, China, Ecuador, I see the same type of person,” he said. “There is this idea of healing the earth. I sure didn’t create that, but perhaps there’s something about this project that captured that.

“It helps that this project is such a conspicuous success that people are today surrounded by come-back birds, baby birds, all this life. I hope that future generations of seabird stewards  continue this amazing story. You can’t avoid the feel-good part of it. I don’t need to say anything. The birds constantly remind the researchers that they are part of a miracle.”

Read more about Puffin Island and the efforts to save seabirds in Maine here and here.

This post was co-authored by UCS Principal Climate Scientist Kristina Dahl.

Last week, we participated in an IPCC plenary meeting held in Sofia, Bulgaria. Delegates from around the world convened with three main, substantive tasks: approving outlines for a new special report on cities and climate change; approving outlines for a methodology report on short-lived climate pollutants; and agreeing on a timeline for the publishing the three main IPCC working group reports for the organization’s seventh assessment cycle.

As the IPCC has a consensus-based decision-making system, the days involved long, detailed, intense debates. At times, it seemed as though consensus would be impossible to achieve. But as IPCC Chair Jim Skea remarked, the plenary process is about delicate compromise. And in most instances, compromise prevailed. We wished for more ambitious outcomes, but we were heartened to witness the collaborative decisions the IPCC ultimately reached.

So, who is actually making these decisions? What was decided? And, as delegates from UCS, which is an observer organization, what did we observe?

Who is making decisions at IPCC meetings?

The IPCC is a collaborative panel consisting of 195 member governments.  Representatives of these member governments convene in Plenary Sessions, like the one we just attended. Each country sends delegations that can include both government officials and scientific experts, collectively forming the Panel. Additionally, roughly 200 observer organizations, such as UCS, can send delegates who watch and weigh in as well.

During these sessions, the Panel makes every decision by consensus. That means that every decision—from the titles and outlines of reports to the budget—must be agreed upon by all delegations. Importantly, though, the Panel is not involved in developing the content of the special reports, methodology reports, and working group reports. That work is left to scientific experts, and governments only review and adopt the reports after the experts have done their work.

What did the IPCC decide at the meeting in Sofia?

At the start of this meeting, the Panel was given draft outlines for two reports that were developed by groups of experts from around the world tasked with identifying the key research needing to be assessed for their respective reports. The Panel was also given a draft schedule for the IPCC’s next working group reports. Starting with these proposals, where did we land?

Outline of a Special Report on Climate Change and Cities

Delegates dissected the proposed outline for the Climate Change and Cities report over several days. Comments from the country delegates and observers led to some helpful improvements, notably:

• A more even balance of how cities can contribute to mitigating climate change and how they can adapt to it;
• Careful language that ensures the report will be relevant to policymakers without prescribing or suggesting specific policies; and
• Increased prominence of losses and damages cities are facing. During late-night sessions, delegates successfully worked to find compromises for how to treat topics such as physical and social tipping points and maladaptation.

In the end, the Panel approved an outline for the report that we think will serve urban decisionmakers well. The report will assess and discuss:

1. The wide range of climate risks and vulnerabilities cities face, including losses and damages.
2. Historical and current climate trends, urbanization patterns, and the interaction of local and global risks.
3. Actions and tools for reducing urban emissions and adapting to climate risks in the context of sustainable urban development.
4. Accelerating change through innovative planning, governance, and finance while addressing social equity and justice.
5. Solutions—including addressing losses and damages—tailored to different city types, regions, levels of development, and other characteristics.

The call for authors for the Cities report will take place between August 9-September 20 of this year with expected final report review by the Panel in March 2027.

Outline of a Methodology Report on Short-Lived Climate Forcers

Since 2006, the IPCC has provided methodologies that governments around the world use to estimate their greenhouse gas emissions. This methodology report will be the latest in a series of updates to those methodologies and will offer extra guidance on assessing emissions of pollutants, including nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs), sulfur dioxide (SO2), ammonia (NH3), black carbon (BC), and organic carbon (OC), with BC and OC including emissions of particulate matter. After intense discussions about whether there is sufficient certainty on hydrogen’s effect on the climate, the Panel also decided that there will be an appendix that discusses hydrogen (H2) in this report.

Past methodology reports like this one have commonly included appendices on gases where the science is still evolving, and, when appropriate, subsequent reports have built out fuller methodologies. The Panel also decided that while the science on the health impacts of particulate matter exposure are real and significant, a technical methodology report like this one that focuses simply on estimating greenhouse gas emissions is not the place to elaborate on those health impacts.

The IPCC will issue a call for authors in the upcoming weeks with expected publication of the report in the second half of 2027.

When will the IPCC’s Next Working Group Reports be Published?

Following on the conversations at the IPCC’s last plenary meeting in Istanbul, there continued to be heated and drawn-out debates about the timeline for the schedule for writing and releasing the three IPCC working group reports that make up the core of each assessment cycle.  At the core of the debate was whether the IPCC should aim to publish its main reports before the UNFCCC Global Stocktake (GST) in 2028, a key moment in global climate policy. The arguments were divided into two main camps.

One group contended that the proposed timeline was too short, which would compromise the quality of scientific inputs and hinder inclusive participation from experts from developing countries.  

The opposing group believed that the proposed planning schedule was consistent with previous cycles and would meet one of the IPCC’s primary charges: to provide timely, policy-relevant assessments of the state of climate science.

The Panel agreed to delay a decision about the report schedule until its next plenary meeting. The hope is that with more information from experts on what these reports will contain, the Panel will FINALLY be able reach consensus around the schedule. We are still assessing whether this will affect the timeline for the publication of the reports, but we will know more later this year when IPCC leaders will once again review a proposed report schedule.

In-the-room observations

Like UCS, the IPCC aims to produce rigorous science that can feed into public policies. As an observer, part of UCS’s role in this space is to encourage the use of the best-available science and to ensure that there is no policymaker interference in the scientific process. To that end, we had a few key observations and contributions:

1. The most frightening moment for us was when some countries tried to institute a mid-report review by governments on one report, essentially deciding whether scientists could proceed with their research.  As this would constitute policymaker interference in the scientific process, this was incredibly problematic and would have set a terrible precedent. Ultimately, and to our great relief, science prevailed.
2. We intervened when the debate veered into specific scientific questions, particularly the question of whether wildfires are being influenced by climate change. UCS clarified that climate change is, indeed, worsening wildfires, so including PM2.5, a short-lived climate forcer generated by wildfires, is important to include in the methodology report under consideration during this meeting. In these moments, the panel should rely on the expertise of specialists.
3. We used the meeting as an opportunity to personally encourage the co-chairs of the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories to include experts on the social, legal, political, and ecological implications of carbon dioxide removal and carbon capture utilization and storage among those determining the content of a forthcoming report on the topics.

The days were long, and results were mixed, but at the end of the week, key decisions were made to move the IPCC process forward. While we face constant impacts of climate change around the world, it can be painful to sit in these rooms and feel like things are moving incredibly slowly, but we are grateful for the process that brings together people from nearly 200 countries and enables them to talk about and embrace the climate science.

This post was co-authored with Natalya Gomez, Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Geodynamics of Ice sheet – Sea level interactions at McGill University.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet faces an uncertain future under climate change. As the Earth’s air and oceans warm, the ice sheet is starting to melt at an ever-faster rate. As it melts it contributes to sea level rise, causing harm to coastal and island communities around the world.

To more accurately project how sea levels will rise in the future, scientists also need to consider the structure of the solid Earth that the ice sheet rests upon. This often ignored variable plays an important role in how the ice sheet responds to warming—and how much, and how quickly, sea levels rise in the years ahead. Our new research, published in Science Advances, investigates ice sheet and solid Earth interactions, and underscores that making steep cuts in heat-trapping emissions now is crucial to prevent high sea level rise later.

Connecting the ice and the Earth below

You may remember from taking science classes that the interior of the Earth is not completely solid. There is a viscous (meaning flowy or squishy) mantle under the Earth’s crust. In some places, the mantle is squishier than in others, and this is true for several key areas under the Antarctic Ice Sheet. That squishiness, it turns out, is a significant factor in determining the rate of ice sheet loss under different scenarios.

Our research, led by Dr. Natalya Gomez at McGill University, uses computer models to simulate interactions between the ice sheet and solid Earth, and the resulting sea level responses. We compared simulations which use different models of the Earth’s interior—one which includes new observational evidence of the Earth’s structure, allowing us to consider where it is more or less squishy, and some where we neglect squishiness all together or simply assume the Earth’s interior structure is the same everywhere. We then test each version under different heat-trapping emissions scenarios to understand possible future sea level responses.

The physical dynamics of ice sheet loss

Our simulations show that there are two main mechanisms— the sea level feedback and water expulsion effect—at play as the solid Earth and ice interact in Antarctica. These mechanisms influence how much sea levels rise, on average, along global coastlines away from Antarctica.

To understand how the first mechanism, the sea level feedback, works, we need to know a little more about ice sheets. The Antarctic Ice Sheet has grounded ice, which is ice that sits on the solid Earth below it and ice shelves, which extend out from the grounded portion and float on the ocean surface. The floating ice shelves stabilize the grounded ice behind them. If ice shelves melt away, the grounded ice behind them flows more quickly out to sea, contributing to sea level rise.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is a marine-based ice sheet, meaning there are places where the grounded ice is meeting the solid Earth below the ocean surface. When the ocean warms and the ice sheet starts to melt, the depth of this water determines how quickly the ice sheet ‘retreats’ into the grounded sections. When we run our models and simulate how the ice sheet responds in a warming world, if we neglect the Earth’s interior structure and the solid Earth beneath the ice sheet stays rigid in the model, then the depth where the ice sheet is grounded doesn’t change. We can see this in the top left panel of Figure 1.

But if we use a realistic model of the Earth’s interior informed by observations, then in places where the Earth is squishier under the ice sheet, the Earth’s crust can rebound as the ice sheet’s enormous mass melts off it and stops providing a force pushing the Earth’s crust down. We can see this in the bottom left panel of Figure 1. The rate of ice sheet melting, and flow of grounded ice, depends on how deep the water is where the ice meets the Earth below it. Ice sheets grounded in deeper water flow faster. If the ice sheet melts back and the Earth that used to be beneath it springs up in response, then the ice sheet in that region suddenly finds itself in shallow water, which slows the flow of grounded ice out to sea. This is what is called the sea level feedback. The name comes from how far below the sea surface the grounded portion of the ice is, and how much that changes as the ice sheet melts and the solid Earth responds by rebounding upwards.

Figure 1: Left panels show how the sea level feedback works when we use a simple rigid Earth model (top) versus when we use a realistic three-dimensional model of the Earth’s interior (bottom). The panels on the right show the water expulsion effect with a rigid Earth (top) and a realistic Earth structure (bottom). In all panels the solid Earth is shown in brown, ice sheet in white, and ocean in blue. The dotted lines represent where each of these are at the start of experiments showing a schematic version of how each one evolves under different circumstances. The arrows represent the direction changes are happening in. Schematic produced by Eva Goblot.

The second mechanism is called the water expulsion effect. We have discussed how Antarctica is a marine-based ice sheet where parts of the ice sheet meet the solid Earth below sea level. This means when the ice sheet melts away, those places are now ocean. These are called marine basins. But recall that, as the ice sheet melts away, the Earth below it that was previously pressed down by its weight now springs up when it is removed. As the Earth rises, the water in exposed marine basins needs to go somewhere. It gets expelled out into the global oceans causing sea levels to rise farther from the ice sheet, as waters get shallower close by the ice sheet.

How do heat-trapping emissions factor in?

When we run our models with low emissions scenarios, the planet doesn’t warm as much or as fast and the ice sheet melts relatively slowly. In these scenarios, the solid Earth starts rising as the ice sheet melts, which lifts the ice sheet up, reducing contact with the warming waters and slowing the melt and the seaward flow of the grounded ice. The sea level feedback is the dominant factor here and it helps protect the ice sheet. We find that global average sea level rise is up to 40% lower in this scenario. That makes a huge difference to coastal communities around the world impacted by flooding, storm surge, and saltwater contamination of fresh water sources.

In high emissions scenarios, the Earth warms quickly and substantially, and the ice sheet melts quickly, moving into grounded sections and rapidly raising sea levels. In this scenario, the ice sheet melts too quickly for the sea level feedback to provide much protection. Instead, the water expulsion effect dominates, and sea levels rise substantially. This is a terrible scenario for communities around the world because not only does sea level rise much higher, but it rises so quickly that it becomes much harder to implement adaptation strategies.

Mapping where sea level rise is highest

The Earth’s interior, the ice sheet, and the global oceans all interact in complex ways, and interactions between them have a large influence on sea level responses. While so far, we have been discussing the impact of ice sheet and solid Earth interactions on average sea level rise, sea levels experienced along the global coastlines will be spatially variable. Regionally, sea levels differ from the average value due to a variety of effects. As an ice sheet loses mass, the solid Earth beneath rebounds in response, the Earth’s gravity is altered (massive ice sheets pull water towards them), and the Earth’s rotation axis shifts position redistributing water around the globe. Our models simulate these effects.

Our study also looks at where sea level rise impacts from the Antarctic Ice Sheet effects are projected to be highest. Two sea level maps from the paper are in Figure 2. These show projected sea level rise at the year 2150. The map on the left shows the low emissions scenarios, where the sea level feedback dominates, and sea level rise is minimized. The darker blue is higher sea level rise. Looking at the two darkest shades of blue, we see the highest projected sea level rise (0.33-0.35 m or 1.1-1.5 ft above levels at the year 2000) is in the Indian Ocean basin, southwest and northeast Pacific, and the North Atlantic and Caribbean. The map on the right is the high emissions scenario where the water expulsion effect dominates, and sea level rises substantially more. Here, the highest projected impacts occur across almost the entirety of ocean basins above the equator, with particularly high impacts in the Pacific and North Atlantic. Note that the darkest blue is 3.6 m of sea level rise, or 11.8 ft! That would be a devastating situation for coastal communities to deal with, especially for low lying and atoll nations who have been sounding the alarm on climate change and sea level rise for decades, and are not responsible for rising emissions. This is a clear case of climate injustice.

Figure 2: Both maps show sea level rise projections at the year 2150 in the simulations where we use the realistic Earth structure. Darker blue means higher sea level rise. On the left is a map of how sea level rise changes in the low emissions scenarios. Take note that in the low emissions scenario, the highest sea level rise is 0.35 m or 1.5 ft. On the right is the high emissions scenario: note that the darkest blue is 3.6 m of sea level rise, or 11.8 ft! Credit: Gomez, et al., 2024; produced by Shaina Sadai. It’s not too late to slow sea level rise

Last year was the hottest year in recorded history and this year is again looking like it will break that record. We just experienced the hottest days ever recorded, though those records may also break yet again as we head into August. The record high temperatures are impacting Antarctica as well. Since 1992, ongoing international negotiations have led to global agreements to address climate change and reduce the heat-trapping emissions that have been rising over the past few centuries. Unfortunately, nations have failed to live up to their commitments under international climate agreements, and heat trapping emissions have continued to rise over the past 30 years.

Sea level rise is just one of the devastating impacts of climate change, but it is one that will haunt us and future generations far into the future. The policy choices that are made now will determine how ice sheets respond for centuries to come. We need political leaders to make the right choices and reduce heat trapping emissions now. We need a fast, fair phaseout of fossil fuels, and steep reductions in methane emissions—including from agriculture and oil and gas operations— to keep the Paris Agreement and Global Methane Pledge on track. The time for action is now.

Dearest blog readers, I’m attending my first meeting of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and it is so. dang. fascinating. For twenty-ish years, I’ve relied on the IPCC’s reports countless times, and in countless ways. But seeing the IPCC’s consensus-based decision-making process in action is giving me a new perspective on the incredible amount of work that goes into producing each of the organization’s reports. Here are some observations that have particularly struck me as a newbie to the world of the IPCC while attending its 61st session in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Coming to consensus takes more time than you can possibly imagine

There have been Friday nights when my four-person household has failed to come to consensus on what movie to watch, and we all end up sourly reading our own books instead. I served on a PTA board where we nearly failed to come to consensus on whether to fund a teacher appreciation luncheon. Only threats of resignations saved us. And heck, I still haven’t managed mediate a consensus between the different parts of my brain so that I can finally choose a paint color for my home office.

So perhaps it should not have come as a surprise that getting the delegations of the nearly 200 IPCC member countries to come to a consensus on anything is a Herculean task. But, for as many times as I had heard someone say something to the effect of, “The IPCC operates via a consensus decision-making process” over the years, I hadn’t fully appreciated what that meant.

What that means is that a carefully developed five-page outline for a future report—something I might review and say, “hey, this looks great” about—will be discussed over the course of roughly two full days until everyone can live with what is in the outline (and what is not). It means that there will be long discussions that might seem like they’re about semantics—is there a difference between a “resource document” and a “reference document?”—but they’re actually about how this body operates and what becomes part of its operating procedures. And it means that everyone is heard until everyone is reasonably satisfied.

When you have about 400 people in the room who represent hundreds of different countries and observer organizations (of which UCS is one), a range of scientific and policy perspectives, and a range of priorities, real consensus takes a long time to build, even if it’s for something that may seem trivial when written on an agenda.

The level of commitment to the tasks at hand is exceptional and inspiring

I’ll admit that there have been points when my attention flagged during each day’s discussions, and I had to take a break from the listening to delegation after delegation reporting their perspectives and concerns to the larger group. But as an afternoon session that, to me, felt particularly long and difficult dragged past the 5:00pm mark, I looked around the room and it was full. Full of people who traveled halfway around the world to be here. Full of people who were probably just as hungry and ready for some fresh air as I was. Full of people who, even in their most impassioned pleas, always kept their comments respectful and measured.

And in that moment, my heart swelled because I could see the room for what it was: a room full of some of the most dedicated people in the world committed to tackling the climate crisis.

Hungry, jet-lagged, tired of meetings—and still deeply committed to the process. Photo credit: Kristy Dahl.

When people have asked me if it’s frustrating to be a climate scientist, I always answer truthfully that yes, it sometimes is, but I don’t know anyone who has ever left the climate movement. At the IPCC meeting, I’m seeing anew what it means to stay in and to keep showing up in service of progress. It’s deeply inspiring.

There is a lot of impressive real-time decision making happening

The current chair of the IPCC, Dr. Jim Skea, is the one wielding the gavel and keeping to the agenda during this meeting. What that also means, though, is that for any given agenda item, he has to synthesize all of the comments from any representatives who spoke and figure out—in that moment—how the panel can move forward.

For example, in the initial discussions of the outline for the Climate Change and Cities report, two themes emerged from the dozens of comments from national representatives. It was clear that the broader discussion of the outline couldn’t move forward until these two issues were resolved, but there was not time to resolve them in that moment. So Dr. Skea hit pause on hearing any more comments, briefly conferred with the leaders who had drafted the outline, and came back to the panel with a proposal to hold smaller group discussions on each of those issues the following day.

He then opened the floor up for a discussion of that proposal until he could make a real-time decision on when it seemed like a refined plan could be articulated. Again, after a brief conference, he came back to the panel with a refined proposal, which was amenable to all. It’s impressive to watch someone take in so much information, so many perspectives, and so many areas of disagreement, and figure out how to steer the meeting accordingly.

Timelines for IPCC reports are long—even longer than I’d realized

On the first day of this IPCC meeting, there was a clear call for the IPCC to produce reports that are actionable and timely. Until this meeting, I’d mostly thought about the amount of time between major IPCC reports—typically 6-7 years—as simply the amount of time it would take a large group of scientists from around the world to assess all the latest climate research and put it into coherent reports, each pushing the 1,000-page limit.

But what I learned during this meeting is that the timeline for the IPCC’s special reports—including the forthcoming Climate Change and Cities report and the Methodology Report on Short-lived Climate Forcers that we discussed at this meeting—is so long that it calls into question whether the processes by which the IPCC currently operates lend themselves toward the production of “timely” and “actionable” content.

Way back in April 2016, the IPCC decided that they would produce a report on climate change and cities as part of this seventh assessment cycle. Eight years later, part of our job during this meeting was to finalize an outline. And if all goes well, the report itself will be published in 2027. That’ll be fully 11 years from inception to publication. While good science and good scientific assessments take time, I am left wondering what has been happening on this front over the last eight years and why it has taken so long to get here.

It has been an incredible privilege to be here in Sofia, Bulgaria, to take part in this IPCC meeting, and I’m grateful to my colleague, Dr. Delta Merner, for the wealth of knowledge about international climate diplomacy that she has shared with me throughout the meeting. I’m coming away from the meeting with a deeper appreciation of the IPCC’s accomplishments over the last 30+ years. And I’m closing out my time in Sofia with hope, because I just watched 400 people from around the world gather and talk respectfully to one another for a full week in service of protecting our shared home.

I was a young’n when I first saw Twister in the 90s. Even though we rarely had tornadoes in my hometown in Kentucky back then, it left an impression. The opening scene shows a young girl losing her dad to a tornado as he gets her to safety, and it absolutely terrified me. Every time we had a severe storm or tornado warning, I would grab my flashlight and beg my dad to get us all into the basement so we could be safe. Nearly thirty years later, I’m still afraid of tornadoes, there’s a new Twisters movie out in theaters, AND Tornado Alley has shifted to where I live.

I saw Twisters on opening weekend, and here’s what I took away (minor spoilers ahead):

1. Hillbillies, data geeks, and city folk—oh my!

When I saw the movie trailer, I knew there was going to be a line about hillbillies, and sure enough, there was. The scene isn’t that hard to imagine: a group of folks show up in a big ole truck, blasting country music, saying yee-haw, and wearing cowboy hats. Who are they? “Hillbillies with a YouTube channel,” says one of the clean-cut data guys.

First, being from Kentucky, I gotta speak out about terms like “hillbillies” and “rednecks.” Often people use these terms as insults (and I’ve been on the receiving end of them myself). Doing so ignores the systems of oppression and disenfranchisement that have affected, and continue to affect people living in the south and Appalachia.

Though let me be clear: there are some folks who use these terms to excuse their racism and bigotry, and that is never okay.

I love to see people who are proud of their hillbilly roots and are shifting the narrative, like a mutual aid group in Eastern Kentucky who calls themselves “Hillbillies Helping Hillbillies.” They’re the ones making sure their neighbors have food, water, and shelter, especially after disaster—be it floods or a tornado—strikes. You see this in the film: once the storm clears, neighbors come together to help each other pick up the pieces.  

From this early scene it seems like the film is going to be a classic, stereotypical “scientists” (data geeks) versus “non-scientists” (hillbillies) story. Luckily, that’s not the case!  

2. Science is for everyone. What matters is what you do with it

Everyone in the film is an expert or a scientist, really. The Storm Par team mostly went to Ivy League schools; Tyler, the tornado wrangler and cowboy scientist, trained as a meteorologist; Dexter is a scientist; Lilly brings her technical expertise as the drone operator; and Kate has some educational training, but also relies on what she learned growing up in Oklahoma. There are many types of knowledge, and you don’t have to have a formal academic education to be an expert. Lived experience is expertise. In the film, it’s that lived expertise that makes Kate a better storm chaser.

This is vital to understand in the real world, because Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the lived experiences of community members in environmental justice and frontline communities, for example, are valid and deserve to be considered in decision-making spaces.

The tornadoes are not the “bad guy”—they’re a mighty force of nature. The true villain in the movie is a predatory developer who wants to use Storm Par’s data so he can swoop in and buy land from folks affected by tornadoes, offering “all cash offers” to people who are “underinsured.” Disasters make people more vulnerable to displacement, and the process of rebuilding after a disaster can take a long time—and shouldn’t be subverted by profit-hungry corporations looking to make a buck.

This conflict is driven home when an exploding oil refinery creates a fire tornado and Javi, storm chaser and founder of Storm Par, must decide between saving his company’s data or rushing ahead to warn people in the path of the storm. This is his defining moment: Will he choose good, or greed?

3. Investments are needed to keep people safe

Twisters is filmed in Oklahoma, which has been the epicenter of Tornado Alley. In recent years, tornado activity may be shifting eastward—making tornadoes in places like Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, where people are less prepared, more likely. The film shows that even people who live in places where tornadoes are common often don’t have access to safe shelter during severe storms, which can come on quickly with little to no warning.

We know that investing in resilience is smart: every dollar invested in disaster mitigation saves $6. As my colleague Brenda Ekwurzel wrote after the historic tornado outbreak that ripped across the Midwest and Appalachia in December 2021:

“It is more than worth it to invest in ways to improve weather forecasts and communication of the risks with such powerful extreme events. Just as important is investing in improving the factors on the ground that reduce exposure and vulnerability, especially for communities that may be exposed to greater risks as tornado activity increases for different areas.”

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are responsible for weather forecasts and severe storm warnings, information we likely take for granted. I think it’s really cool that NOAA scientists were consulted on Twisters to make sure the film was accurate and realistic because, “Just like the characters in the movie, real NOAA scientists are focused on saving lives in the face of these potentially lethal storms.” I hope movie viewers will be encouraged to learn more about the important work NOAA scientists do to keep us all safe, and to push back against efforts from those (including the folks behind the anti-science, anti-democratic Project 2025) who seek to dismantle NOAA and privatize weather data.

After the movie ends: the real-life work of disaster recovery

There are lots of efforts for disaster recovery and relief that take place after a storm. Twisters only briefly gives us a look into this work. Here in Kentucky, Governor Andy Beshear established the Team Western Kentucky Relief Fund, which raised over $52 million to provide survivors of the December 2021 tornadoes with housing, rent, and funeral expenses. The Kentucky Housing Coalition has also provided ongoing resources to Kentuckians in need. Sadly, in May of this year, another tornado ripped through western KY and destroyed homes that had only recently been rebuilt. While it’s great to see folks come together, we must do more to prepare before storms hit to reduce the loss of life and damage.

Tornado damage near the author’s home in Kentucky. Photo credit: Alicia Race/UCS.

Tornadoes and severe storms are hitting closer to home for me, literally. I want everyone to feel and be safe when threatened by severe storms. There is a real need and opportunity to invest in people, and communities—and scientists, government agencies, community leaders, mutual aid groups, and more folks must work together on solutions. Local government leaders, for example, can take advantage of federal programs like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program to invest in disaster preparedness and risk reduction.

Something we can all do is talk about these issues with our friends and families! Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe asserts that talking about climate change is the most important thing we can do. After seeing the film, ask your friends: “Is Twisters a climate change movie?”

So, grab your cowboy hat, get to your local movie theater to see Twisters, and enjoy the ride. And then, let’s continue the work to keep people safe.

My colleague Dr. Kristy Dahl and I arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria, last week for the 61st session of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We are here to engage in early discussions about timelines and content for this cycle of IPCC reports. Over the next week, we will hear delegations and organizations from all across the world discuss, debate, and make decisions that will set the stage for this 7th cycle of the IPCC.

For me, this planning is deeply personal and vital to my work. As a scientist, I rely heavily on the IPCC’s reports. These documents offer an internationally accepted summary of the state of climate science, and form the backbone of many legal briefs I prepare. The IPCC enables decision-makers to move beyond fossil fuel industry-generated deception and disinformation about climate change, providing them with the science needed to make informed decisions.

It’s crucial that our leaders have access to comprehensive and accurate science to guide their choices. This is why ensuring that the IPCC reports include robust and diverse scientific insights is so vital.

Decisions we make now will guide upcoming IPCC reports

We are gathering in Sofia to shape key decisions about the upcoming IPCC reports. Among the primary discussions is the outline for the Special Report on Cities and Climate Change. This report is especially significant given the growing impact of urban areas on global emissions, and the unique challenges cities face in adapting to climate change. We will also tackle the outline that will guide the Methodology Report on Short-Lived Climate Forcers. Short-lived climate forcers are pollutants, including aerosols and particulate matter, that remain in the atmosphere for a shorter period than carbon dioxide but have a potent impact on global warming and air quality. Developing robust methodologies to measure and mitigate their effects is important for our overall climate strategy.

The three working group reports, which are well known as the core of the IPCC’s outputs, are also on the agenda. These reports, which cover a wide array of scientific, technical, and socioeconomic aspects of climate change, are still awaiting definitive timelines. During the last meeting there was extensive debate about the timing of these reports, as a looming question remains: Will the IPCC working group reports be completed in time to inform the UNFCCC Global Stocktake (GST)? The UNFCCC GST is a process for assessing collective progress towards achieving the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement, with the second GST taking place in 2028. During the opening session there was a clear call for actionable, timely science. The IPCC is not policy-prescriptive, but with emissions growing and climate action lacking, there is a need to align the timing of these reports with key global decision making.

What we’re watching for

In addition to the set agenda, based on comments from the opening day, we expect these key areas to be discussed and debated among the experts and delegates here:

• Encouraging Diverse and Inclusive Participation

A significant aspect of this session is the call to diversify IPCC authors. During the 6th assessment report cycle, over 100,000 scientific papers were assessed by 796 authors, 59% of whom were from developed countries and 67% of whom were male. There’s a strong need to continue diversifying IPCC authors geographically and by gender. This diversity ensures that the IPCC assessments are more comprehensive and inclusive, reflecting a wide range of perspectives and expertise.

• The Importance of Adaptation

Adaptation—which involves adjusting systems and practices to minimize the adverse effects of climate change, and is crucial for developing strategies that protect vulnerable communities and ecosystems—remains a key focus. The very first question to the panel was about the need for robust work on adaptation, echoing powerful calls for a focus on adaptation made during the last IPCC plenary meeting. While adaptation is discussed throughout IPCC reports, this dispersed approach can make it difficult to gain a comprehensive understanding. Is there a better way for the IPCC to uplift research on adaptation?

• Incorporating Broader Knowledge

The IPCC pulls together existing scientific literature on climate change; however, there is additional, robust knowledge that falls outside traditional scientific journals. We expect a continued discussion about increasing the volume of gray literature, especially for the climate change and cities report, where much knowledge resides outside traditional academic publications. During the last meeting, the IPCC committed to working on including more non-English scientific literature and Indigenous knowledge, recognizing that valuable insights often come from diverse sources.

What we’re pushing for

During this assessment cycle, UCS is hoping to see continued and expanded attribution science cited throughout the reports, including source attribution research, which can help to link emissions to specific fossil fuel producers.

There is also a need to ramp up processes to meaningfully incorporate Indigenous knowledge. This is not a simple step, but one that is necessary.

We are also calling for the IPCC to incorporate more of the social science research that is helping us to understand the obstruction of climate science. To understand where climate policy is today, we believe it’s essential to have a clear understanding of the ways that bad actors, including the fossil fuel industry and its surrogates, have sought to confuse the public and policymakers about climate science and delay necessary action. Decisionmakers need to consider this evidence of interference when shaping policies. We are also watching for evidence that vested interests of industries such as fossil fuels and agribusiness may be trying to influence this IPCC cycle.

Finally, as the IPCC is committed to writing a report on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS), we will be advocating for holistic thinking around CDR and CCUS that pulls from physical and social science and weighs both benefits and drawbacks. All these elements are crucial for creating reports that truly support informed decision-making.

It is an honor to be present at this gathering, where representatives from around the globe have convened with a shared commitment to collaboration, respectful debate, and scientific expertise. Although it’s not without its flaws, the IPCC stands as a unique convergence of country representatives and scientists, working together through a consensus-driven process.

Here’s hoping that we make this session a milestone in the fight against climate change by ensuring that it is inclusive, comprehensive, timely, and willing to address root causes.

Over the past few weeks, many large wildfires have broken out across the Western United States and Canada, forcing thousands of people to evacuate. Hotter, drier conditions driven by climate change are a significant underlying factor in this trend toward larger wildfires and longer, more intense wildfire seasons in the West. And with more people and property located in close proximity to wildfire-prone terrain, the risks and costs are mounting as the erratic and extreme behavior of these fires has grown much more difficult to fight.

Wildfires raging across the West

The largest wildfire in the U.S. right now—the Durkee Fire—is raging in Oregon, while the Park Fire, California’s largest so far this year, is spreading quickly. A large fire in Jasper National Park in Canada has burnt down half the town of Jasper. The map of wildfires today shows an alarmingly active wildfire season underway. The national preparedness level for wildfires is now at the highest level of 5. Current maps also show that smoke from these wildfires is being carried hundreds of miles away to the East Coast.

Source: https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/maps

And that map is matched by sobering statistics for the wildfire season to date.  

The wildfire outlook for August and September looks grim too.

Climate change is fueling a dangerous new wildfire regime

Wildfires have always been an essential feature of the Western landscape and ecosystems. But with climate change, we are in a new regime of catastrophic large wildfires. In addition, decades of aggressive fire suppression and a large swath of trees dead or damaged due to drought and bark beetle infestations has created a tinderbox of ignitable fuel. Alternating cycles of heavy rainfall, which cause grasses to grow, followed by intense hot, dry periods when that vegetation dries up, add to the combustible mix.

This year, even though parts of the West experienced heavy rainfall earlier in the year, they entered the summer in varying degrees of drought and rainfall deficit. And then last month’s intense heatwaves triggered a rapid loss of moisture and drying of vegetation, a phenomenon sometimes called ‘flash drought.’ In particular, the heatwaves have resulted in an increase in vapor pressure deficit (or VPD), which scientists have shown tends to correlate with wildfire burned area on long time scales.

With these background conditions, when human causes or lightning ignite fires, they have an incredible amount of fuel to feed off and grow quickly, as we are seeing in California, Oregon, and Washington. Conditions in Oregon are so extreme that the fires are causing their own weather systems.

And as if wildfires aren’t damaging enough, New Mexico has experienced yet another terrible danger: landscapes denuded by past wildfires experienced heavy rainfall this year, triggering devastating flash floods. The small town of Ruidoso and the Mescalero Apache Reservation have been particularly harshly affected.  

None of this is normal. And it is projected to worsen as our climate warms further. We cannot lose sight of the fact that the extreme conditions we see today are a direct result of burning fossil fuels. Decades of deliberate deception and obstruction of climate action by fossil fuel companies, coupled with insufficient action by policymakers, are to blame for the continued expansion of fossil fuels, still rising heat-trapping emissions, and mounting damages to people, ecosystems and the economy.

People, homes, and critical infrastructure in harm’s way

Development patterns—including sprawl, the high cost of housing in urban areas, and the desirability of living in proximity to forests—are pushing more people and property into harm’s way. Those living near wildfire-prone areas are experiencing firsthand the dangers and costs of changing wildfire patterns. This season’s wildfires have already burned hundreds of homes and structures, forced thousands to flee, forced road closures, damaged critical infrastructure like drinking water systems, and forced power safety shutdowns.

In many places, people are also finding it harder to insure their homes as insurers drop policies, raise rates, or exit markets entirely.

Wildland firefighters are also facing the punishing task of trying to put out large wildfires across lengthy, active fire seasons. Fighting fires in populated areas with many homes can be even more dangerous as there is less space to maneuver safely, and the stakes for protecting lives are high. Year after year, the physical and mental toll is immense and fire fighters are not getting paid fairly for this daunting work, raising the urgency of the passage of a bipartisan bill to help fix this situation.

And it’s not just people right near the fires who are affected—smoke from wildfires is carried hundreds of miles away, and the worsening air quality is a serious public health threat. This image from NASA shows how far east the smoke from the western wildfires has reached already, which mirrors trends from last year.

Source: NASA Earth Observatory Need for action now

The extent of wildfires burning across the West right now is terrifying. The impacts on people and ecosystems are sobering and heartbreaking to contemplate.

The immediate imperative is of course to make sure that people can quickly evacuate out of the path of dangerous wildfires. Immediately heeding the warnings of local emergency authorities is crucial. Better tools and data for prediction, detection and early warning systems—provided for free and made widely available—can all help make this process more effective and safer. California’s Wildfire Smoke and Health Outcomes Data Act is an important example of this type of effort.

Other protective actions—such as building homes with more fire-safe materials; keeping open, vegetation-free defensible space around homes and communities; ensuring proximity to emergency evacuation routes and water supplies; and ensuring a system of checking on neighbors who may be mobility-impaired—are important ways to keep people safe.

In places affected by wildfire smoke, paying attention to air quality alerts and staying indoors and investing in air purifiers can help. Those who are especially susceptible to the ill effects of wildfire smoke, including young children, elderly people, and those with preexisting breathing or heart ailments, need to take special care. UCS also supports two additional California bills that can help mitigate the public health impacts of wildfires.

Outdoor workers, including those who work on farms and in construction, must be protected by their employers from smoke inhalation. Unfortunately, there is still no federal wildfire smoke safety standard, leaving workers dependent on an insufficient patchwork of state-level measures (such as Oregon’s and California’s). FEMA must also move to clarify that wildfire smoke (and extreme heat) do qualify for disaster declarations, as already allowed under law.

Proactive measures to limit the risks and costs of wildfires—such as healthy forest management practices, including controlled burns done with strong safety and ecological standards; changes to land use development and zoning; and robust investments in technology, equipment and resources to keep firefighters safe—must all be part of the solution set that policymakers act on. Adopting the suite of recommendations of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission would be a huge step forward.

After disastrous wildfires, people need help to get back on their feet. Past fire seasons have shown how difficult that can be. When homes and essential infrastructure are destroyed, when places are repeatedly burnt by wildfires, residents may not be able to return to their communities for extended periods. Some may never be able to return.

Policymakers must ensure that disaster aid flows fast to those who need it most, including by quickly appropriating emergency funding, as needed, and by permanently authorizing HUD’s community development block grant disaster relief (CDBG-DR) program to ensure equitable access to resources to rebuild. Over the longer term, investments in receiving communities—including in jobs, schools, affordable housing, and other infrastructure—can ensure people who are displaced can find welcoming places to begin to rebuild their lives. Access to mental health services, both for affected communities and for firefighters, is also very important.

Finally, deep cuts in heat-trapping emissions are essential to limit future climate change, one of the biggest contributors to the dangerous new wildfire regime we are in already. Holding fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in causing these harms must be part of how we start to address them. Right now, people on the frontlines of wildfires, firefighters, and taxpayers are bearing the health costs and footing the bill for harms that are directly attributable to these companies.

As another ‘Danger Season’ reaches its midpoint, the steep toll of wildfires and other climate impacts is another urgent reminder that policymakers must act boldly and decisively now to limit the worst impacts of climate change, and help ensure that communities around the nation are better prepared for the crisis that is already here.

The Summer Olympics are upon us, and I for one can’t wait to watch all the action as athletes from around the world descend on Paris to chase gold for their countries. The Olympics have been one of my favorite sporting events for as long as I can remember, and a younger version of myself dreamed of making the Olympics track and field team.

In my small hometown in Kansas, I was once the fastest kid in my class…of 45 people. Nowadays, I’m relegated to running around the woods where I live in East Tennessee, in my highlighter yellow swim cap, chasing glory in the local Swim-Run. I did pretty well a few weeks ago, but damn, was it hot! So hot that I had to stop running a few times to catch my breath, asking, “was it this hot the last time I did this?”

Well, turns out it wasn’t and, given the pace at which our planet is warming, it’s not likely to get much cooler any time soon.

Brady Watson running in a Swim-Run race, June 2024. Source: Chris Gerard.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself what in the world all this has to do with the Olympics? Well, I may not be an Olympic athlete, but I can certainly attest to how nice it is to go into an air-conditioned room after a hot day outside. Unfortunately, for some Olympians at this year’s Summer Olympics, they will not have that option.

While Paris officials aren’t providing air conditioning, some countries are bringing their own for their athletes. As you may have guessed, it’s the wealthy ones, including the US, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Denmark, and Australia. So, while the athletes of these wealthy nations will be able to cool off after a workout, as they are accustomed to, athletes from other countries who aren’t able to afford their own air conditioning will be forced to sweat it out, creating a potentially unfair advantage for the haves vs the have-nots.

It’s hard to fault the Paris organizers for their intentions. “I want the Paris Games to be exemplary from an environmental point of view,” said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo in the leadup to the games. A part of the organizing committee’s goal is to cut emissions at this Olympics and make Paris the most sustainable games to date. Instead of air conditioning, the organizers have installed a system of water pipes that will run cooled water throughout the Athlete’s Village and should keep the rooms cool, between 73 and 79 degrees Fahrenheit with fans. That doesn’t sound too bad, but it will differ from the training conditions of many of the competitors, and it promises to create inequities that may unequally impact the performance of the athletes—not to mention the health risks that come from the heat of summer. In fact, last year, more than 5,000 people died in France as a result of the extreme heat wave that gripped the continent.

Of course, this also raises questions about the energy consumption from the additional air conditioning units. If wealthy countries just bring their own units to plug into individual athlete’s rooms, the added energy pulled from the grid threatens to negate at least some of the emissions reductions that Paris organizers were hoping to achieve in the first place.

What is happening at the Olympics resembles broader global trends: Wealthy countries and individuals are more likely to be able to afford things, like air conditioning, to keep cool during ever-increasing climate change-fueled extreme heat events, while poorer countries and individuals are often forced to bear the brunt of our warming world with fewer resources to keep cool.

The increase in air conditioning use also drives up energy consumption, which impacts emissions on a broader scale. More efficient heat pumps offer one solution, but we must also work to clean up the grid so that the power running them isn’t adding to our emissions problem. Fossil fuel companies have known for decades that their products were contributing to climate change, including in the power sector. Take action today to help hold them accountable.

As you tune into the Olympics, keep an eye on the air conditioners in Paris and which countries perform the best. Here at UCS we’ll keep an eye on the sustainability outcomes of the games to see if the organizers’ plans to cut emissions worked or came up short of the finish line.

And, if you’re out doing your own version of the Olympics like me, be sure to stay hydrated and don’t get too thirsty, my friends.

I didn’t walk into the movie theater last week, popcorn in hand, expecting Twisters, a summertime action movie about “taming” tornadoes, to be a movie about climate change. And to be clear, at no point did Twisters actually mention climate change. But beneath the cowboy hats, the quotable one-liners, and the impressive special effects, the film mirrors two climate change realities:

1. Communities are deeply unprepared for worsening extreme weather; and
2. There is a growing industry attempting to use data to profit from the risks and consequences those very communities face.

Sure, I left the theater having been entertained. But I also left feeling deeply unsettled. Here’s what Twisters has me thinking about.

The connections between climate change and tornadoes are complicated

Unlike other types of extreme weather, such as heat waves and hurricanes, the influence of climate change on tornado activity is unclear. That’s in part because there are a number of challenges to studying tornadoes. They’re small in scale relative to hurricanes, for example, which means they’re more difficult to detect in observational records. They’re more difficult to simulate in climate models because there are a number of different factors—such as high wind shear and the presence of warm, moist air—that have to come together for a tornado to form. And there is a lot of variability in the number of tornadoes from year to year.

But recent studies suggest that patterns of tornado activity—if not the annual average number of tornadoes—have changed over the last several decades. These changes, summarized by NOAA in the graphic below include:

• An increase in the number of tornado outbreaks with a high number of tornadoes
• An increase in the number of tornadoes in the fall and winter
• A decrease in the number of tornadoes in the summer
• A decrease in the number of tornado days per year
• An increase in the average number of tornadoes occurring on tornado days
• An eastward shift in the region in which tornadoes often occur

But climate change is also increasing the likelihood of conditions that are conducive to tornado formation. Perhaps most importantly, climate change increases the likelihood of high temperatures as well as the amount of moisture in the air.

So when, in Twisters, the protagonist’s mother says something to the effect of, “It seems we’re getting more and more of these storms and floods,” the writers could not have simply inserted a reply such as, “You’re right, Mom, and what you’ve witnessed is backed up by a Dodge Ram-sized trove of climate data.”

But they could have written any number of other replies, and it might have planted a little seed in moviegoer’s minds to grow into a post-viewing conversation.

Over the last several decades, patterns of tornado activity in the United States have been changing, but it is unclear how these changes are connected to climate change. Source: NOAA, 2023. A missed opportunity to get people talking about climate resilience

A movie about extreme weather that gets rolled out in thousands of theaters at the height of Danger Season but doesn’t mention climate change is a missed opportunity to get people thinking and talking about climate change. (But here you are reading this, so maybe a movie doesn’t have to explicitly mention climate change to get people engaged?)

Opinion polling shows that while nearly three-quarters of US adults think global warming is happening, only about one-third of adults discuss climate change at least occasionally or hear about it in the media on a weekly basis. Add to this the decades-long greenwashing campaigns companies like BP, ExxonMobil, and Chevron have waged, and the result is that the public ranks dealing with climate change as one of the nation’s lowest policy priorities.

Fossil fuel industry deception and policymaker inaction have inhibited progress on climate change for decades, and until it becomes something people are regularly discussing and demanding action on, it’s difficult to see that changing. So every movie, every TV show, every book, magazine, and newspaper article about extreme weather should be an opportunity to get people talking.

“Taming” tornadoes is a fantasy; building resilience to them is not.

In Twisters, the protagonist’s main goal is to save lives, homes, and communities by “taming” tornadoes, which she thinks can be done by injecting individual storms with a sequence of chemicals that will essentially cause them to fall apart. There’s some reality to the suggestion that people can modify the weather through fairly widely used methods like cloud seeding.

But there have always been tornadoes. There have always been hurricanes. There have always been wildfires. These are some of the many ways the climate system releases and redistributes energy. We can’t prevent every extreme event, and we certainly can’t shut down extreme events as they’re unfolding, as the movie suggests. But we can be better prepared for them.

We can reduce heat-trapping emissions, which will limit the future worsening of extreme weather events. We can develop strong early-warning systems that enable people to get to safety when an event is expected. And we can invest in programs like FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program to help communities prepare for and better withstand disasters. Estimates suggest that implementing tornado-proofing measures—such as building to stricter codes and using anchors and metal clipping to connect a home’s wood framing to the roof—could cost just $1.50-$2.00 per square foot for new home construction.

To that end, Twisters felt to me like a rallying cry to boost disaster preparedness and recovery resources at every level, from the individual to the global. There’s a sense in the movie that only individuals working apart from our systems and structures can keep communities safe from storms, or help them recover in their wake, a la the amazing Cajun Navy. I agree that we do collectively need to take care of each other. And I was left thinking about the need for more structured support: community-level disaster mitigation plans, the rapid deployment of on-the-ground recovery teams, and the network of resources that’s needed to get people back on their feet over the long haul.

Also: cowboy hats (who says climate resilience can’t also be stylish?).  

When it comes to risk analytics data, who benefits?

If Twisters has a villain, it’s not the tornadoes themselves, and nor is it climate change. Rather, it is the company trying to collect tornado data, so they can swoop in after a strike and profit off of the housing losses in affected communities. Various forms of such disaster capitalism have been documented in the aftermath of events such as Hurricane Katrina, earthquakes in Haiti and Italy, and the COVID-19 pandemic. We must be diligent about who is benefiting in the weeks and months after a disaster.

While what’s depicted in Twisters is essentially disaster capitalism, it’s important to acknowledge that in real life, there’s a growing number of for-profit companies that sell climate risk data—often developed in-house using proprietary methodologies—that purport to help everyone from individual property owners to major insurance companies better evaluate their level of climate risk. On one hand, the holders (or potential holders) of financial assets need to better understand the risks climate change poses to those assets. On the other, without transparency on how these data are being developed, there are many potential pitfalls to its use. Companies could, for example, underplay uncertainty in the climate models they are using, or present a false sense of precision in their data. Either one could lead to poor decision making among users of that data. Moreover, the cost of the data could be a barrier to people and communities with low incomes, leaving them without information that could save them money, their homes, or even their lives.

All of that made for complicated feelings as the movie’s true villain came into focus.

As a summer blockbuster, Twisters likely gives moviegoers what they’re looking for in the moment: an entertaining story, dramatic visuals, and, hopefully, a couple hours in a nice, cool movie theater on a hot summer day. But I hope viewers also walk out of the theater and take a moment to think about—maybe even talk about—what wasn’t said.

When it comes to climate change, we have no choice but to face our fears and to ride ‘em.

Rising seas threaten the viability of thousands of coastal communities in the US. Encroaching water means higher high tides that seep into streets and first floors, sunny-day flooding, and more water to fuel dangerous and destructive storm surges. So many buildings—homes, schools, hospitals, parks, fire stations—are clustered on our coasts, at risk of being regularly inundated with seawater, and built for a climate that no longer exists.

In some communities, disruptive flooding is already affecting necessary infrastructure, especially housing. This crisis converges with the US housing crisis.

Millions of people in the US already struggle to find adequate and affordable housing, to pay bills and expenses while also paying exorbitant rents or mortgages. They are a personal calamity away from losing their homes. For those with low incomes who rely on public and affordable housing, there’s far more demand than supply: according to the U.S. nonprofit National Low-Income Housing Coalition, there’s a national shortage of more than seven million affordable homes for nearly eleven million extremely low-income families.

The UCS report Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience, which predicts risks across a range of infrastructure such as schools, power stations, and hospitals, finds that public and affordable housing represent the largest category of assets at risk of regular inundation.

Report co-author Rachel Cleetus, Policy Director, and Zoe Middleton, Associate Director of Just Climate Resilience—both for the UCS Climate and Energy Program—took the time to expand on the implications of their findings for public and affordable housing and sound the alarm for policymakers about the waning time to meaningfully address these concurrent crises.

AAS: In your opinion, what’s the worst-case scenario for this intersection of increased coastal flooding and public housing in harm’s way?

Zoe Middleton: We know what happens when public housing is lost, right? We’ve seen it in disasters already. It takes a very, very long time to rebuild. People are frequently displaced from their communities of origin and their support networks. There’s this great family-level disruption, but there’s also a large cultural disruption. And the issue of recovery gets incredibly politicized.

For example, in Galveston, Texas, where most public housing was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008, the reconstruction of units was delayed by more than a decade. And our report found public housing on the island—which has a severe shortage of affordable housing—is at risk again due to high tides and extreme weather.

Rachel Cleetus: The context here is that as a nation, we’ve significantly under-invested in affordable housing. We are in an acute affordable housing crisis across the board, and it has a disproportionate impact on low-income families.

Not only has there been an under-investment in building enough housing, there’s also been a backlog of maintenance that’s been deferred, and a lot of these houses are not in great repair. And so, this is intersecting with the climate crisis and making everything worse because as our study is showing, a lot of this housing is now going to be vulnerable to high tide flooding—even without storms.

In the middle of what’s already an affordable housing crisis, losing any units will be devastating. And just the regular flooding itself can impose further deterioration on this housing stock, along with issues like mold and power outages. All those kinds of things start to have ripple effects.

AAS: Why is it so difficult to build new affordable housing, and make existing public and affordable housing climate-resilient?

Zoe Middleton: It’s very hard to build new public housing because of the 1998 Faircloth Amendment [which caps the number of units that any public housing authority can build]. Instead, there are set-asides for affordable units in developments, and tax credit programs—which are now the biggest vehicle for developing affordable housing. It will take massive investment by the federal government to build the amount of affordable housing we need, and further government action to strengthen housing rights in this country.  

Rachel Cleetus: As Zoe is saying, we’ve shifted to this model where affordable housing units are often privately owned, and there’s a contract with the local municipality or the state that they’re providing some units at an affordable rate. There isn’t a lot of ability to ensure that enough high-quality affordable housing is being provided. And there’s a lot of land zoning that is contrary to providing more space for this—many communities that require single-family zoning and don’t allow multifamily units. And that’s one way of just creating and reinforcing enclaves of privilege. I live in Massachusetts, and even in a forward-looking, fairly liberal blue state, I’m seeing these dynamics of NIMBYism.

You can’t think about housing on its own. We’re talking about a continuum, and it’s part of the system that’s delivering very inequitable outcomes. Housing is connected to transit. It’s connected to jobs. People need opportunities to get jobs easily, to be able to afford to live in the places where they work. And right now, as a nation, we’re creating a society where the people who are doing some of the most critical work cannot live in the communities in which they’re delivering those services, whether it’s teaching our children in schools, or fighting fires, or day laborers who are doing outdoor construction work in our neighborhoods.

With climate risks accelerating, these issues are going to become more and more acute. And it’s important when we think about resources and policies that can help, to not just focus them on people who have political power and relatively more resources. For example, in disaster recovery, often the focus is on single-family homes and homeowners. So, folks who are renters often get left out of critical programs to get back on their feet after disasters. They are subject to the whims of whoever the developers or the landlords are.

AAS: People living in public and affordable housing are often among millions in communities designated by the federal government as “disadvantaged,” overburdened and underserved. Your report found that these communities contain nearly twice as many at-risk assets per capita as non-disadvantaged communities. It’s difficult enough to fund climate resilience measures for privileged communities—what are the challenges for communities with fewer resources?

Rachel Cleetus: In our report, we find that there’s a lot of co-location of affordable and public housing in places that are overburdened with pollution, including in places that were formerly redlined. And this is no accident. The fact that they’re also exposed to flooding is just sadly unsurprising. It’s basically a series of cumulative harms that communities are being exposed to. I think it’s crucial for us to convey that this is not a new problem. There’s now a new risk, and it’s compounding and making worse a system that was already not delivering the needed outcomes.

One other fact in the report, which our colleagues at the National Low Income Housing Coalition flagged for us: that a number of households in public and affordable housing have a member of the household who is mobility impaired in some way. And that can make it even more challenging to prepare for flooding-related disasters. Some people seem to think it’s easy to evacuate, or even move—that you just get up and go. It’s important to recognize who is being served by this housing, and what their needs are.

So how can we now get back to root causes? Why have we as a nation not invested in affordable housing? And as we build climate resilience, we must be mindful of not reinforcing the current crisis of affordability. Climate resilience shouldn’t be the latest frontier of gentrification.

AAS: What are some of the solutions you identify in your report that can help people living in affordable and public housing?

Zoe Middleton: One of the most immediate things we can do is protect and improve existing public and affordable housing. That could look like weatherizing properties for added climate resilience, and investing in clean energy upgrades. Given the dire shortage of affordable housing, governments have an obligation to make sure that resilience measures are accessible and affordable.                                    

Rachel Cleetus: There is an acute affordable housing crisis right now that everyone in the nation recognizes, and it’s time for Congress to put more investment into solving this problem. And as we do it, let’s make sure that we’re targeting resources specifically to the lowest-income households, and those on fixed incomes—the whole range of folks who often are left behind in these conversations. There’s a lot of talk about revitalizing urban spaces, which has often translated into gentrification. Certain policies can sound good, but it’s important to figure out who they’re serving, and who’s benefiting. 

As you see in the report, there’s a twin imperative: we also must cut heat-trapping emissions. Let’s not continue to put more and more people in harm’s way.

Extreme heat and wildfire smoke should of course be defined as major disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. According to the National Weather Service, heat kills more people in this nation than hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and lightning combined. The Washington Post reported that extreme heat killed at least 28 people across the nation in the past week.

Yet, despite several requests from states over the years, most recently California during a 2022 “heat dome” and wildfires, no White House has ever approved a disaster declaration for heat or smoke.

Some states outright ignore the dangers in the name of greed. Over the last 13 months, Texas and Florida have enacted laws that block localities from issuing heat protection rules for workers. Nationally, the Biden administration proposed on July 2 new rules to protect workers from heat. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a host of construction and agricultural lobbying groups have opposed the prospect of rules for months and are sure to oppose them in the courts.

It is clear that the opposition is willing to risk sacrificing lower-wage construction and farm workers to the sun’s brutality as executives count the cash in air conditioned offices. Farm workers make an average $13.59 an hour. Hispanic construction laborers make $15.34 an hour, well below the $25-an-hour living wage for a family of four in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator. Farm workers respectively have 35 times and 12 times higher risk of heat-related injuries than in all other industries.  

Making the latest case for disaster declarations is a consortium of 31 environmental, public health, labor, and justice groups, led by the Center for Biological Diversity. In a June 17 petition to FEMA, the groups warned that the record-breaking heat and fire disasters we are already experiencing are likely only the beginning. The world’s nations, particularly the top burners of fossil fuels such as the United States, have yet to unify to prevent uncontrolled global warming.

“These may be the coolest days and the cleanest air of the 21st century,” the petition said, “and it is already unbearably hot and unsafe for too many Americans.”

The petitioners hope that disaster declarations can unlock federal funds for short-term relief such as cooling centers, water supplies, emergency air conditioning and air filtration systems, and financial assistance for evacuations. Declarations could also lead to money for long-term, proactive mitigation, such as renewable energy storage and microgrids to withstand utility blackouts, and retrofitting of homes and buildings to be more energy efficient and weatherized.

That is vitally important for disadvantaged families who are more likely to live on shadeless, asphalt and concrete “heat islands.” Such communities are often already overburdened with pollution associated with fossil fuel burning and proximity to polluting industries. The petition called extreme heat a “harm multiplier” for these communities because of poor housing stock, difficulty in paying utility bills, and pre-existing poorer health.  

In making their case, the 31 environmental groups cite data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, projecting that financial cost of extreme heat in the United States will explode fivefold to half a trillion dollars a year by 2050.

There is something else that would make their case even stronger: Data on people. The federal government is woefully behind university researchers in calculating the current and future mortality of heat and smoke. 

It should be just as much an emergency for the government to tell us the toll of heat and wildfire smoke. Especially since the government itself says “most heat-related deaths are preventable.”

Death behind closed doors

Property damage from tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods is easy to visualize and leaves the costs of emergency assistance and repair without much question. Because of the nation’s overall wealth, which gives us relatively sturdier dwellings and stronger rebuilds, deaths from those weather disasters are a fraction of the fatalities suffered in lesser resourced parts of the world. For instance, while Hurricane Katrina took 1,400 lives in the US in 2005, Cyclone Nargis in the Bay of Bengal made landfall in Myanmar in 2008 and killed 140,000 people—100 times more people than Katrina.

People perishing by heat or smoke one by one in the privacy of their homes or in the sterility of hospitals is relatively invisible. An analysis of heat deaths by the Cincinnati Enquirer found that about half of heat deaths happen at home, often to people who lack air conditioning, are elderly with pre-existing medical conditions, or who are socially isolated.

The petition by environmental groups points to the current invisibility of heat deaths. It cites federal data saying there were 2,300 deaths last year where heat was listed as a factor on death certificates. That by itself was a record in nearly a half-century of such record keeping. But left as is, that toll would seem to pale next to last year’s nearly 43,000 car fatalities, nearly 43,000 gun-related deaths, or 107,000 drug overdose deaths.

The number of heat deaths is assuredly far more. Heat is often not listed on death certificates as a contributing factor to the final cause of death, such as kidney failure, organ failure, and heart attack. There is no uniform protocol tying together how the federal government, the 50 states, or the nation’s 3,000 counties calculate heat-related deaths.

University scientists and health and safety groups are filling in the gaps as best they can.

In 2020, a study in the journal Environmental Epidemiology determined that 5,600 deaths a year were attributable to heat from 1997 to 2006, eight times higher than federal figures. In 2022, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center calculated that the number of people who died from heat-related causes between 2008 and 2017 was two to three times higher than federal figures. The Penn and Philadelphia VA researchers also found that extreme heat days were associated with “significantly higher” cardiovascular mortality among adults.

This spring, Texas A&M climate scientists Andrew Dessler and Jangho Lee told the Associated Press that last year’s real national annual heat death toll may be 11,000, nearly five times higher than the 2,300 cited by the government.

In the work world, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics says 43 workers died in 2022 from heat. But reports by Public Citizen, the most recent being in May of this year, estimate that as many as 2,000 workers a year (46 times more) die from heat and another 170,000 are injuries triggered by heat, such as becoming dizzy and falling off a roof.

But the injury might simply be listed as a fall without mention of heat. Public Citizen says government figures are “decidedly unreliable” and “notoriously problematic” because they are based on self-reporting surveys of employers and “less than half of employers even maintain the required records.”

No matter what number you’re looking at, all of them are likely to soar much higher without concerted global action on climate change. Without a drastic and immediate cut in fossil fuel emissions, the planet is currently staring at a 5-degree Fahrenheit rise in temperatures this century, with the U.S. being the world’s biggest historical contributor to global warming gases.

According to a study published last year by Lee and Dessler in the journal GeoHealth, the US suffered an average of 36,444 deaths a year from extreme temperatures a quarter century ago, with most of those deaths being cold-related. With a rise of 5 degrees Fahrenheit, that number could explode to 200,000 a year this century, driven significantly by shifts of heat mortality to Northern cities. Among the cities with the highest projected temperature increases are Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Muskegon, Minnesota.

Smoking out data

Parallel to that, and arguably worse, there is virtually no federal data on the fatal impacts of wildfire smoke. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lists a mere 535 deaths directly from wildfires over the last 45 years in its list of “Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters.” But there are likely thousands more from the smoke, which is associated with cardiovascular, ischemic heart disease, digestive, endocrine, diabetes, mental, and chronic kidney disease mortality.

Such smoke is not covered by the Clean Air Act, and there is growing evidence that it is eroding decades of gains in the nation’s air quality under the act. A new study by researchers at UCLA found that the fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) in wildfire smoke that easily passes into the lungs and spreads throughout the body, contributed to the premature deaths of more than 50,000 people in California from 2008 to 2018, with an economic impact of between $432 billion and $456 billion.

Another study this spring by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 16,000 people a year died from smoke PM2.5 across the US from 2011 to 2020. That study found that elevated long-term smoke concentrations “increase mortality rates at both low and high concentrations.” Wildfire smoke, as the nation found out last year with its orange-brown skies that dulled the sun into a moon-like disk, spreads for so many thousands of miles from its source that the study projects a “large mortality burden not only in regions where large fires occur but also in populous regions with low smoke concentrations (e.g., the eastern US).”

Juan Aguilera, a physician researcher at the University of Texas School of Public Health in El Paso, found that wildfire smoke stresses immune systems and triggers inflammation. He told National Public Radio that living in a wildfire-prone area is “something equivalent to smoking like one pack a day, or 10 packs a week.”

Today’s 16,000 deaths a year from wildfire smoke could grow to nearly 28,000 by mid-century under a high warming scenario and take a cumulative 700,000 lives by 2055, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Our research suggests that the health cost of climate-driven wildfire smoke could be among the most important and costly consequences of a warming climate in the US,” NBER scientists said.  

That concern is bolstered by a new study by Australian researchers who found that the number of extreme wildfires has doubled since 2003, with the last seven years including six of the most extreme. Lead author Calum Cunningham told the New York Times last month, “That we’ve detected such a big increase over such a short period of time makes the findings even more shocking. We’re seeing the manifestations of a warming and drying climate before our very eyes in these extreme fires.”

Adaptation could cut into the mortality risk, but it alone is likely not enough, given how Lee and Dessler noted in their study: “Many adaptive responses (e.g., installing air conditioning, improved health care, better urban planning) are too expensive for poorer individuals or communities, so adaptation will necessarily require society to pay for much of the adaptation. This would represent a huge transfer of wealth from richer to poorer members of our society, a dicey proposition in today’s political environment.”

Even better, of course, would be a serious drive toward net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The International Energy Agency says no new gas, oil or coal investment is necessary as renewables, energy efficiency and electrification already can deliver the vast majority of emissions reductions.

New mentality needed at FEMA

Though all heat-related disaster declaration requests to FEMA thus far have been denied, agency spokesperson Daniel Llargues told National Public Radio that “there’s nothing specific” in federal law that precludes such a declaration. “If a circumstance did occur where an extreme heat incident exceeded state and local capacity, an emergency or major disaster declaration request submission could be considered,” Llargues said in an email.

And the White House can make a disaster declaration regardless of FEMA’s recommendation. In May, President Biden overruled a FEMA denial of a major disaster declaration so parts of Massachusetts could get federal aid to recover from severe storms and flooding last September.

The process of FEMA better understanding a “circumstance” where extreme heat and wildfire smoke constitutes a disaster starts with a better understanding of the danger. Some parts of the government are trying to mine the data, such as the National Institute of Health’s Heat Information System.

Extreme heat and wildfire smoke also offers FEMA a fresh chance to create new paradigms of aid, to avoid inequities seen in other disasters. Current FEMA storm funding often maintains systemic racism, putting communities with more white residents and higher property values back on their feet, while low-income people and communities of color, historically hemmed into lower property values by redlining, are left on their knees.  

As Politico wrote in 2022, FEMA grants to help richer families raise homes above flood levels “have helped turn dozens of wealthy or overwhelmingly white areas into enclaves of climate resilience. The communities are seeing rising property values and economic stability, while much of the nation faces devastating effects of rising seas and intensifying floods.”

One can only imagine the results if the same mentality is ultimately applied to communities marooned on “heat islands.” Seniors and Black adults are at disproportionate risk of cardiovascular deaths from extreme heat according to a Penn study last year. A 2022 Penn study warned, “As extreme heat events increase, the burden of cardiovascular mortality may continue to increase and the disparities between demographic subgroups may widen.”

The same can be said for those lower-wage farmworkers, construction workers and other industries where heat is a major risk. Often, the workers in those industries are disproportionately of color and immigrants. Other trades where heat is a high risk include landscaping, and indoor jobs in warehouses, restaurant kitchens, mills, and doing maintenance.

And let’s not forget public school teachers and staff, as huge percentages of the nation’s public school buildings are not equipped for the rising heat.

Better data needed

There are scientists, including UCS’s Juan Declet-Barreto, who have long called for standard methodology to more accurately determine whether excess deaths originated with heat or smoke exposure. Last year, Ashley Ward, the director of Duke University’s Heat Policy Innovation Lab, wrote in STAT that we need much better and uniformed coding for external causes of injuries and incentives for health systems to apply the codes for cases involving extreme heat. Without uniform coding, the public is left to weigh the emerging body of studies that have different estimations and may “add to the incorrect assumption that there is a lack of scientific consensus.”

Seconding the call for data collection is the Federation of American Scientists. Among its major list of recommendations is a “whole-of-government strategy to address extreme heat.”  The federation said that true mortality counts are “essential to enhancing the benefit-cost analysis for heat mitigation and resilience.”

But having heat- and smoke-related mortality data is more than that. Knowing the true toll might help jolt the nation into action on climate change sooner and lessen the mitigation and resilience we will need. One only need think back to the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and how critical data was to devise public health policy. Currently, the federal data on extreme heat and wildfire smoke itself constitutes a major disaster. 

Last Friday, the Supreme Court overruled the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine, fundamentally changing the landscape of federal regulatory power. This decision, reached with a 6-3 majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts, marks a significant shift in administrative law and has profound implications for environmental regulations and climate accountability.

Ironically, the downfall of the Chevron doctrine will give Chevron and other major oil and gas corporations more latitude to slow down and block regulations, allowing them to pollute with near impunity. At the end of the day, this decision means that courts will play a more active role in interpreting regulatory statutes, undermining scientific expertise, slowing regulatory processes, and creating obstacles at a time when urgent action is needed to address the climate crisis.

Understanding the Chevron Doctrine

The Chevron doctrine, established in the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., provided that courts should defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. This deference allowed agencies (e.g., the EPA or FDA), staffed with experts, to interpret and implement laws within their purview effectively.

Under Chevron, when a statute was ambiguous, courts would typically side with the agency’s interpretation, recognizing the specialized expertise of agencies in their respective fields. This doctrine has played a crucial role in enabling agencies to enforce regulations on complex issues such as environmental protection, public health, and consumer safety. The ambiguity in statutes is often intentional, acknowledging that Congress isn’t equipped to design prescriptive policies across the whole suite of issues before them—let alone in a way that can evolve as science and technology evolve over time. This intentional ambiguity enables expertise to shape rulemaking as needed. During the 40 years Chevron was law, federal courts cited the doctrine more than 18,000 times.

The Supreme Court’s ruling

The recent ruling arose from two cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. These cases involved a dispute over a NOAA Fisheries rule requiring herring vessels to pay for onboard monitors to prevent overfishing. Lower courts upheld the rule, citing Chevron deference. However, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority saw this as an opportunity to dismantle the doctrine altogether.

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, declared that courts must now exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, rather than deferring to the agency’s reasonable interpretation. He emphasized that this change does not retroactively affect past cases decided under Chevron deference but will influence all future regulatory interpretations.

Five implications for climate accountability

The elimination of Chevron deference significantly impacts the ability of federal agencies to enforce regulations—particularly those related to environmental protection and climate change, as many of these regulations were crafted to be flexible in interpretation by design. Here’s how:

1. Increased Legal Challenges to Regulations: By removing judicial deference to agency interpretations, the ruling opens the door for increased legal challenges to regulations. Agencies will now face a higher bar in defending their rules, as courts will no longer necessarily defer to their expertise. This means that every regulation, including those aimed at reducing global warming emissions or protecting endangered species, will be subject to more inconsistent, inexpert judicial scrutiny. Under this new reality, oil and gas companies may feel more emboldened to challenge existing regulations hoping to shape the legal landscape to be more favorable for them. Successful court cases could limit the scope of future regulations.
2. Shift in Regulatory Power: The ruling effectively shifts power from federal agencies to the judiciary. Judges, rather than agency experts, will have the final say on the interpretation of ambiguous statutes. This change could result in less predictable and likely less scientifically informed decisions on complex environmental issues, as judges do not have the same level of expertise as agency professionals.
3. Slower Regulatory Process: The decision introduces a new level of difficulty into the regulatory process. Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will need to try to anticipate every potential legal challenge alleging statutory ambiguity and prepare comprehensive justifications that can withstand unbounded judicial scrutiny. This could slow down the implementation of new regulations, as agencies might take more time to ensure their rules can survive such legal challenges. Worse, agencies may decide not to even try.
4. Impact on Existing and Future Regulations: While the ruling does not immediately retroactively affect regulations upheld under Chevron, it will influence future regulatory efforts. For example, regulations under the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which often rely on broad and ambiguous statutory mandates, are now vulnerable to unfavorable rulings at the hand of activist judges. This could hinder efforts to implement climate policies at the federal level.
5. Lobbying for Favorable Decisions: Judges will have more leeway and more need to rely on Amicus, or “Friend of the Court” briefs in writing opinions. Fossil fuel companies and their attorneys will have the incentives and funding to file such briefs aggressively. The views expressed by oil companies will have equal weight compared to agency scientists and experts. It should be noted that the plaintiffs in both cases leading to the overturning of Chevron were represented pro bono by attorneys from conservative law firms with ties to the Koch brothers.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Chevron represents a seismic shift in administrative law with far-reaching implications for climate accountability. By reducing the power of federal agencies to interpret and implement ambiguous statutes, the ruling complicates the path forward for robust environmental action. Oil and gas corporations have long been adept at manipulating the legal system to their advantage. Just hours after the Supreme Court’s decision, corporate lobbyists began strategizing to use the ruling to their advantage, aiming to challenge and reduce regulations in climate, finance, health, labor, and technology.

By employing a range of tactics, these corporations can delay public health and environmental protections, effectively postponing climate accountability cases for years. This strategy not only prevents plaintiffs from achieving justice through the courts but also allows these companies to use the courts to delay essential regulations. During this time, they can continue their operations with minimal restrictions, further exacerbating environmental and public health issues. Overturning the Chevron doctrine underscores the need for continued advocacy and a diversity of tactics to address the pressing challenges of climate change.

A new map tool from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows you where and when critical pieces of coastal infrastructure such as public housing buildings, schools and power plants are at risk of repeated, disruptive flooding due to climate change­­­­­-driven sea level rise.

The map tool is based on data from our new analysis and report, Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience: Rising Seas, Disruptive Tides, and Risks to Coastal Infrastructure. Covering the contiguous United States, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Guam, the analysis finds that by 2050, with a medium sea level rise scenario, seawater would flood more than 1,600 critical coastal infrastructure assets twice or more per year. This scenario projects roughly one foot of sea level rise by 2050 relative to a 2000 baseline and is consistent with the trajectory of observed sea level rise for most regions of the United States.

With the map tool, you can see exactly which facilities in your community are at risk, which we hope sparks discussions and planning around how to cope with future sea level rise and flood risks. In this post, we’ll explore the tool and highlight the types of information it can provide. For those who want to dive deeper, we’ll also show you where you can find even more information that you can use to engage your community, your elected officials, and candidates running for office in conversations about how to plan for sea level rise.

Explore infrastructure at risk from sea level rise through 2050

The first map you’ll come to in the Looming Deadlines mapping tool shows critical coastal infrastructure assets at risk of flooding twice or more per year by 2050 under the medium sea level rise scenario described above. The symbols on the map correspond to the six different categories of infrastructure we included in our analysis:

• Public housing buildings and affordable housing units
• Energy infrastructure, including power plants and electrical substations
• Industrial contamination sites, such as Superfund sites and brownfields
• Public safety and health facilities, such as hospitals and fire stations
• Educational institutions, including K-12 schools as well as colleges and universities
• Government facilities, such as city halls, post offices, and prisons

The new mapping tool from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows critical coastal infrastructure at risk of flooding twice or more per year by the year 2050.

Clicking on any facility will bring up more information, including the name and address of the facility, what subcategory of infrastructure it belongs to (e.g., a hospital or a fire station within the category of public safety and health facilities), and an assessment of how frequently it is expected to flood in the 2050 timeframe. Of the 1,600 assets we identify as being at risk of disruptive flooding by 2050, roughly 1,100 are expected to flood, on average, monthly and more than 900 would flood an average of every other week.

With this information, you’ll be able to see exactly what is at risk—an important first step in thinking through how to make your community more resilient.

Examples of communities with infrastructure at risk from sea level rise

Most coastal communities in the United States have at least some infrastructure assets at risk of flooding due to sea level rise in the decades ahead. Some communities are already grappling with frequent flooding that poses an increasingly real threat to infrastructure with each passing year. The second section of the map tool provides a window into the risks and complexities a few communities are already facing. In doing so, it drives home just how much is at stake along our coasts.

Here’s an example we highlight from Charleston, South Carolina:

The new map tool from the Union of Concerned Scientists highlights how sea level rise is already threatening critical infrastructure in some coastal US communities. Photo credit: Ben Neely/MyCoast.org. Seeing why our choices today matter for our kids and grandkids

The amount of sea level rise expected between now and 2050 is fairly certain because it is largely dictated by how much global-warming pollution we’ve already dumped into the atmosphere. The amount of sea level rise that happens over the second half of the century, however, is much less certain because it will depend on our future emissions of heat-trapping gases as well as how glaciers, ice sheets, and other Earth systems respond to those emissions. The third section of our map tool explores the range of late-century possibilities through the lens of our collective emissions choices.

The new map tool from the Union of Concerned Scientists allows you to compare late-century risks to coastal infrastructure, shown here as circles, under a low sea level rise scenario (on the left) versus a high sea level rise scenario (on the right).

Limiting future warming to 1.5°C or 2°C would improve our chances of limiting future sea level rise. The way to do that is by slashing heat-trapping emissions—by phasing out global fossil fuel use and ramping up clean energy. Under a low sea level rise scenario, our analysis finds that roughly 3,500 critical infrastructure assets along US coastlines are at risk of flooding twice or more per year by 2100. On the other hand, if global emissions continue to rise and global temperatures rise to 3°C or more, there’s an increased chance that a higher sea level rise scenario would come to fruition. Under a high sea level rise scenario, roughly four times as many infrastructure assets—nearly 15,100 total—are at risk of disruptive flooding.

What did you say? You want more data? And ways to act, too?

Our map tool is a great way to start exploring what is at risk as sea level rises, but it contains just a few slivers of the giant data pie that we baked for this report. If you’re hungry for a bigger piece of that pie, our downloadable spreadsheets will no doubt satisfy. These spreadsheets contain:

• Data for assets at risk in 2020 and 2030 as well as in 2050 and 2100.
• Filterable lists of all the assets at risk.
• Data for assets at risk under three different sea level rise and with three different flooding frequencies (2, 12, or 26 floods per year)
• Community-level data summarizing the total assets at risk in each category of infrastructure
• Estimates of the number of people living in communities with infrastructure at risk
• Data on how many of these assets fall into communities designated as “disadvantaged” by the federal Climate and Environmental Justice Screening Tool and what the demographics of affected communities are like.

Our Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience report points to risks to coastal infrastructure that are largely flying under the radar. But it also points to the many solutions already available to communities and the many ways that planners, policymakers, and the private sector can help communities build the resilience they need as sea level rise. For a full set of recommendations, check out the report itself.

Using our new map tool, we can see clearly the problems sea level rise poses for the infrastructure we rely on for homes, electricity, public health, safety, education, and much more. But we can also see a clear path to a coastline dotted with resilient communities. Armed with information from our maps and a set of commonsense recommendations, we hope you can too.

A new analysis out today and led by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) reveals a significant amount of critical infrastructure along US coastlines at risk of disruptive flooding today and in the near future as sea level rises, potentially affecting millions of coastal residents. We unpack the results of our analysis in a new report—Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience—and a slick new interactive mapping tool. Here, I’ll summarize why we did this analysis, what we found, and how the nation can address the risks we’re facing.

Climate risks to critical coastal infrastructure are flying under the radar

Sea level rise is a climate change impact that doesn’t charge into our lives the way a wildfire or a hurricane might—exploding in size and causing catastrophic damage in a short period of time. But over the last century, sea level has risen enough that coastal communities are starting to feel its effects.

In Norfolk, Virginia, the razing of a public housing development due to coastal flood risks has forced former residents of Tidewater Gardens to fight to secure their right to inhabit new affordable housing. Down the coast, in Charleston, South Carolina, sewer overflows due to tidal flooding have sent unhealthy, partially treated wastewater into nearby waterways.

Even without storms or heavy rainfall, high tide flooding driven by climate change is accelerating along US coastlines. It is increasingly evident that many critical infrastructure assets along our coasts—such as power plants, wastewater treatment plants, and schools—that were safe when constructed are now at risk of being regularly inundated with seawater. 

Hundreds of coastal infrastructure assets at risk this decade

To determine where and when coastal infrastructure would be at risk of flooding, we first mapped out areas along the coast that would flood 2, 12, or 26 times per year under a range of different amounts of future sea level rise. We then overlaid those maps with a dataset of infrastructure located along the coast, which included six different categories of buildings and services, from public and affordable housing to schools, hospitals, fire stations, and industrial contamination sites.

Our Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience analysis evaluated where and when assets within six categories of critical coastal infrastructure will be at risk of disruptive flooding due to sea level rise.

Over the course of this decade, our data show a sharp increase in the amount of infrastructure exposed to two or more disruptive flooding events annually, from 904 assets nationally in 2020 to 1,085 assets nationally in 2030. Those assets currently serve communities that are home to 2.2 million people—roughly the population of the fourth biggest city in the country, Houston, Texas.

Some communities will be more affected than others. Atlantic City, New Jersey, for example, is among the hardest-hit communities in this time frame, with 44 public and affordable housing facilities at risk of flooding twice annually by 2030. In the town of Raceland, Louisiana, 16 public housing buildings, an electrical substation, and a sheriff’s office are all in danger of flooding twice annually by the end of this decade. 

Of note, communities designated as disadvantaged by the federal government contain nearly twice as many at-risk assets per capita as nondisadvantaged communities. Additionally, communities in which five or more infrastructure assets are at risk are home to a disproportionately higher percentage of Black residents compared to the national average. This greater potential for disadvantaged communities to be affected by flooding is poised to exacerbate existing, unaddressed inequities caused by environmental racism and toxic pollution.

Major risks within the next 25 years

By 2050, with a medium sea level rise scenario in which sea level rises by roughly one foot, 1,662 critical infrastructure assets are at risk of flooding an average of twice annually. Overall, public and affordable housing, brownfields, electrical substations, wastewater treatment plants, and fire stations are the types of infrastructure with the most facilities at risk.

Between 2030 and 2050, the number of coastal infrastructure assets at risk of flooding twice or more per year increases steeply.

In this midcentury timeframe, disadvantaged communities contain, on average, about twice as many at-risk infrastructure assets per capita as nondisadvantaged communities, and more than 70 percent of the public housing at risk is located in disadvantaged communities. Moreover, disadvantaged communities with at-risk infrastructure are home to significantly higher percentages of people who identify as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, or Native American than the national average. In Maryland, for example, 82 percent of the assets at risk are in disadvantaged communities, where 41 percent of the population identifies as Black or African American, compared with roughly 32 percent of the population in the state as a whole.

Roughly 35% of coastal communities are categorized as disadvantaged by a federal screening tool, but more than 50% of the infrastructure assets at risk through midcentury are located within these disadvantaged communities. Our collective choices now will determine fates later this century

With higher emissions and greater warming, higher amounts of sea level rise late this century become more likely, mostly because there is greater potential for ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica to shrink, adding more water to the ocean. With such scenarios, more present-day infrastructure would be exposed to persistent flooding, with potentially grave consequences for the continued livability of coastal communities. Conversely, lower sea level rise scenarios are more likely if global emissions decrease substantially, and future warming is limited to 2°C or less. With lower sea level rise scenarios, less infrastructure would be at risk late this century.

We found that under a low sea level rise scenario, roughly 3,500 critical infrastructure assets would flood twice annually by 2100—a challenge, to be sure, and a substantial increase from the amount of infrastructure at risk today. Under a medium scenario, roughly 6,500 assets would flood with that frequency. And under the high scenario, that figure jumps to 15,081. 

The low, medium, and high scenarios result in profoundly different implications for the level of adaptation required, for state- and community-level consequences, and for the number of people whose daily lives could be affected.

Funding and leadership are needed now to build coastal resilience

The risks to vital infrastructure and services that millions of people depend on will grow as the global sea level rises in the coming decades, with wide-ranging implications for public health, safety, education, and well-being, and for coastal ecosystems and ways of life. This predicament creates a profound and urgent responsibility for policymakers and public and private decisionmakers to take protective action now, working together with communities. In our report, we outline six recommendations decisionmakers should act on: 

1. Use science and innovation to plan for near- and long-term risks
2. Scale up public and private sector funding for infrastructure resilience 
3. Reduce historical inequities and prevent future harms
4. Protect affordable housing; open just pathways to retreat
5. Start informed, flexible, adaptive planning now for later-century potential outcomes
6. Cut heat-trapping emissions to limit the pace and magnitude of sea level rise

You can read more about each of these recommendations in the report itself or in report co-author Rachel Cleetus’s blog post.

There is a narrow window of time for federal, state, and local policymakers to provide funding and resources and for local decisionmakers to use this backing to make transformative changes to their communities that would help them to withstand future flood risks. Our analysis shows that the scale of the challenge is daunting, but it also points to actionable, science-informed steps that can and must be taken to protect vital infrastructure and services. Investments in resilience, equitably shared, can help build a safer, fairer future for all.