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University announces new BA, after survey found most 14- to 18-year-olds want more rigorous climate change education

The University of Sussex will introduce what it says is the UK’s first undergraduate degree focused on climate justice.

The BA course, called “climate justice, sustainability and development”, will begin in 2026. The university says it will equip students with a blend of expertise in climate politics, activism and environmental human rights.

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The administration is setting the stage for Congress to repeal a longstanding waiver that allows California to set its own pollution standards. State officials say the effort is illegal.

Officials are seeking to boost competitiveness and reduce the regulatory burden on businesses during what a European commissioner called a “perilous” time.

A first-of-its-kind analysis found that people living in hotter areas experienced more molecular changes than those in cooler places.

Climate scientists caution, however, that even weakened currents would cause profound harm to humanity

Vital Atlantic Ocean currents are unlikely to completely collapse this century, according to a study, but scientists say a severe weakening remains probable and would still have disastrous impacts on billions of people.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a system of currents that plays a crucial role in the global climate. The climate crisis is weakening the complex system, but determining if and when it will collapse is difficult.

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Thomas Woldbye says ministers must commit to plans, with decision on second Gatwick runway due this week

The boss of Heathrow has said there is room for both of London’s biggest airports to expand significantly if the government can guarantee steps to a third runway, with ministers expected to approve Gatwick’s second runway this week.

Thomas Woldbye said Heathrow would be seeking government commitments on the airport’s funding model and changes to airspace before construction of a new runway could start.

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Analysts and investors have long trumpeted ‘climate-proof’ US communities, but recent disasters show the need for a different way of thinking

A few years ago, while visiting a tiny village, I toured a grand old community hall scheduled to be demolished after a historic flood. Across the street, a phantom row of eight buildings had already come down. Next to go was this beloved structure, built with local lumber by the craftsman grandfathers of the people who still lived there. One of the two local officials escorting me had been married here, she told me. There was a plan to repurpose the six soaring arches, the other official said, gazing towards the ceiling. “The other part of it, knocking the rest of it down … ,” he trailed off, emotionally. “I won’t be in town to see that.”

This village isn’t located on the rapidly eroding Gulf coast, or any coast. It isn’t on the edge of a drought-stricken wildland. It isn’t anywhere typically named as existentially threatened due to the impacts of climate change. Forever altered by floods, the village of Rock Springs, in my home state of Wisconsin, is instead located smack in the middle of what’s often been called a “climate haven”.

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Workers at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fear crackdown will have global fallout

The Trump administration has set its sights on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency, with significant cuts and a political crackdown on climate science. As Trump takes aim at the agency, the impact is likely to be felt across the US and around the world.

Noaa provides essential resources to the public and has helped make the US a scientific leader internationally. Operating 18 satellites and 15 research and survey ships, the agency’s scientists, engineers and policy experts issue forecasts relied on by aviation, agriculture and fishing industries; ocean floor mapping depended upon for shipping; advises on species protection, and increasingly precise and accurate modeling on what to expect as climate crisis unfolds.

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It’s time to rethink how climate action succeeds. The key is to acknowledge that it’s never the sole force driving political decisions

We are witnessing the most devastating climate disasters on record: wildfires ravaging Los Angeles, deadly floods in North Carolina, and global temperature records shattered month after month. We have officially surpassed 1.5C of warming, a critical threshold scientists have long warned against. At the same time, the US is scaling back policies, freezing critical programs and shifting priorities away from climate action.

But now isn’t the time to give up on climate action. Instead, it is high time to rethink how it succeeds.

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Photographs from across the globe capture the impact of people on the climate – and of the climate on people

The word anthropocene has been proposed to denote an ongoing epoch in which human activity is a primary driving force of geological change. Although the word has caught on like wildfire in a colloquial sense, it was ultimately rejected as a descriptive scientific term, not so much because it was inaccurate but because of disagreements over when exactly it would have started – 1945, marking the unlocking of nuclear power; 1610, which may be the first time human activity affected the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; 1964, when the so-called Great Acceleration may have begun – or some other date altogether?

These questions point to deeper challenges in understanding just what the Anthropocene is: do we think of it in terms of nuclear fallout, the composition of the atmosphere, the size of the human population, or so many other worthy metrics? Hoping to help us better understand this substantial concept, the Cantor Arts Center’s new exhibition Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene brings together 44 photographic artists from across six continents, offering breathtaking and provocative looks at what humanity has wrought on this earth.

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Wildfires are devastating Patagonia. In response, Argentinian authorities are removing environmental protections and raiding Indigenous communities

Soraya Maicoñio lives in Mallín Ahogado, a rural area in the Comarca Andina,a region of sparkling rivers, mountains, lakes and lush forests in Argentinian Patagonia. It is an area well-known for its small-scale agriculture, forestry and tourism.

In recent weeks, however, the region, which spans the provinces of Rio Negro and Chubut, has been in the news for its large-scale wildfires – and the authorities’ crackdown on the local population.

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He said Peter Dutton was trying to kill everyone on Earth with his energy policy

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A new ‘golden passport’ scheme aims to raise funds to relocate people inland as climate change raises sea levels

The Pacific island nation of Nauru is selling citizenship to fund its retreat from rising seas, the country’s president, David Adeang, announced on Tuesday, opening a contentious “golden passport” scheme as climate financing runs dry.

The low-lying island nation of 13,000 residents is planning a mass inland relocation as the human-caused climate crisis raises global sea levels, eating away at the country’s fertile coastal fringe.

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Climate Change Committee issues advice to government on meeting carbon emissions target by 2050

• What would reaching net zero mean for life in 2040s Britain?

Giving up two doner kebabs’ worth of meat a week will be enough to keep the UK within safe climate limits by the end of the next decade, as more drastic changes in behaviour can be avoided if the government takes action on greenhouse gases from energy, transport and industry, the UK’s climate advisers have said.

People would need to change their behaviour in some ways, such as by eating about 260g less meat each week, but this was likely to happen gradually and in line with health trends. “We are absolutely not saying everyone needs to be vegan. But we do expect to see a shift in dietary habits,” said Emily Nurse, head of net zero at the Climate Change Committee, which on Wednesday published its official advice to the government on meeting the UK’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

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The Trump administration has set its sights on high speed rail in California and congestion pricing in New York, worrying transportation experts.

The Trump administration’s deep cuts to clean-energy programs are raising concerns about U.S. commitments to the lender.

More and more communities across the United States are being exposed to extreme weather and fossil-fueled climate disasters. In 2024 alone, 27 declared disasters caused over one billion dollars in damage. Growing physical risk from extreme weather is colliding with the nationwide shortage of affordable housing. A thoughtful and equitable reimagining of our disaster response and recovery system has never been more urgent. But the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal agencies and programs responsible for disaster response puts Americans everywhere at extraordinary risk and will hamper state and local government’s ability to prepare for and recover from disasters.  

Cuts to HUD will hurt disaster recovery and affordable housing 

The Trump administration has signaled that it plans to reduce the workforce at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by half. One of the targets within HUD for layoffs is the Office of Community Planning and Development—a leaked document suggests 84% of the staff in the office will be terminated. Staff in that office run the Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) which support states and local governments to rebuild homes, public infrastructure, and fund economic development activities in areas where disaster has been declared. The Office of Community Planning and Development also administers the Continuum of Care program, which funds nonprofits and local governments in their response to homelessness—which is at a record high. Staff terminations will cause delays in these crucial programs.   

Within a week of HUD Secretary Scott Turner’s confirmation, details about climate-specific research and programs have disappeared from the HUD website. Advocates are raising concerns about the agency’s failure to disperse the most recent tranche of funding for the Green and Resilient Retrofit program, which supports improvements to federally-financed, affordable apartments.  

FEMA cuts harm communities pre- and post-disaster 

The Trump administration has also announced significant layoffs and cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA has the sole mission to help people before, during, and after disasters. As my colleague Shana Udvardy notes, the agency needs both competent leadership and funding to accomplish its mission. Unfortunately, we are seeing the exact opposite right now.  

Currently, FEMA is operating under an interim head who has little experience in emergency management or disaster response. Adding to that, recent layoffs to an already understaffed agency means decreased capacity to respond to increasingly frequent disasters. In addition to disaster response, risk reduction and resilience efforts also seem to be on the chopping block. FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities and Flood Mitigation Assistance programs have obligated over 1.6 billion dollars nationwide in the last five years. Although both programs existed before the creation of the Biden administration’s Justice40 initiative, their designation as Justice40 programs in light of recent rollbacks raises questions about the continued funding despite enormous need for resilience investments.  

A pattern of politicizing disasters 

While the level of funding and personnel cuts may be unprecedented, the politicization of aid by President Trump is not. During his first term, Trump used the Office of Budget and Management (run then as now by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought) to delay obligated disaster recovery funding to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017. This weaponization of aid has continued into the second Trump administration, as evidenced by his threats to withhold aid to California after the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles, and FEMA acting administrator Cameron Hamilton’s refusal of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s request to extend the 100% federal cost share for continuing Hurricane Helene clean-up efforts. 

Ripple effects of uncertainty in federal disaster funding 

The politicization of disaster aid doesn’t just delay recovery and increase near-term risk, it poses longer-term threats to frontline communities. One such threat is the impact on municipal bond markets, which provide debt securities for state and local governments to finance everything from day-to-day operations to critical infrastructure investments needed for climate adaptation. Until recently, the municipal bond market has been slow to reflect climate risk, in part because of information gaps and in part because federal investments in disaster response and recovery can help reduce future risks and thereby ameliorate the negative impacts of these disasters on local communities’ creditworthiness.   

Federal aid to state and local governments both directly increases resilience through disaster recovery grants, and indirectly by reducing the riskiness of municipal bonds through reducing climate risks to communities. The worst thing that could happen to communities hit by a climate disaster would be to then find their credit rating hit too, through no fault of their own. Investments in climate resilience pay off—for communities and for their ability to raise money through bond funding. Slashing disaster aid and resilience programs based on political whims will inject uncertainty into municipal bond markets that state and local governments simply can’t afford.  

Rethinking local climate planning as defense 

Already, state and local governments are mounting legal challenges to this administration’s rollbacks. Outside of the courts, state and local governments will need to take a more expansive view of planning for climate change, beyond emissions reductions. These expanded goals should be pursued with all available financing options before investor confidence in municipal bonds wanes drastically.

Investments in meaningfully affordable housing—from the building of new homes in less risky places to weatherization and upgrades to existing single and multi-family housing—will increase resilience. Policy changes should co-occur with investment. For example, adopting stronger building codes will help homes withstand increasingly severe storms, and developing tenant protection policies will ensure that well-intentioned investments in housing won’t inadvertently spur displacement. As property insurance premiums increase and put greater strain on homeowners and affordable housing developers, regulators on the state level could compel insurers to report more thorough data on rate increases and policy cancellations with the goal of moving towards risk reduction partnerships.    

While state and local governments can play important defense against resilience policy and funding rollbacks at the federal level, they can do much more with the funding, strong standards, and technical assistance from the federal government. As the US Congress enters budget reconciliation, lawmakers should fight tooth and nail for agencies like HUD and FEMA, federal workers, and funding that communities across the country rely on.

Amid the Trump Administration’s illegal moves to freeze Congressionally-authorized funding, shutter Congressionally-authorized agencies, and fire civil servants for political reasons, budget reconciliation looms.

Does Congressional budget reconciliation even matter right now given our unfolding Constitutional crisis?

Yes, it does. Budget reconciliation is a legislative tool with the power to fundamentally reshape federal spending for a decade if Congress and the President manage to deploy it successfully. And unlike much of what the Trump administration has sought to do so far, it is allowed by law. As a result, even as President Trump and Elon Musk continue sowing dangerous, illegal chaos, it is important to spare some energy to crawl into the weeds on budget reconciliation and understand what awaits us in the months ahead.

Who is responsible for Congressional budget reconciliation?

While both the US House and White House play critical roles in budget reconciliation, this is really all about the Senate.

Most commonly, there are two ways to move legislation through the Senate: unanimous consent or a vote of three-fifths of the Senators (60 out of 100) called a supermajority. The history and legitimacy of the supermajority requirement in the Senate are topics for another day. For our purposes, the thing to know is that requiring a supermajority vote makes enacting sweeping, partisan legislation, especially when it comes to rearranging tax and spending priorities, exceedingly difficult.

What is budget reconciliation?

Enter the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (CBA). Passed by the 93rd Congress and signed into law by President Ford, the CBA governs all aspects of the federal budget process. Among the law’s most important provisions is a rule that if the House and Senate can agree on a budget resolution, legislation implementing the spending levels in that resolutioncan pass the Senate by a simple majority vote (51 out of 100 senators). Such legislation is called a budget reconciliation bill because it is supposed to reconcile actual spending and revenues with the new budget resolution.

Reconciliation is unworkable when the two political parties share control of the federal government. During unified control of the Executive and Legislative branches, as is the situation currently with the Republicans controlling the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate, budget reconciliation offers a rare opportunity for the party in control to reshape the federal government for years to come.

Recent examples of budget reconciliation legislation include the Republican tax cuts in 2017 (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act), the Democratic economic stimulus plan in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 (the American Rescue Plan), and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

Where does budget reconciliation happen?

The budget reconciliation process starts in the House and/or Senate Budget Committees. As of today, each chamber is moving its own, vastly different, budget resolution, each proposing different spending levels across the federal government.

The Senate is considering a narrower resolution that purports to increase energy production and invest in border security, with a second resolution focused on tax policy to come later. The House is resisting the two-step approach in favor of one massive package containing all of President Trump’s planned spending, including permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts.

How will budget reconciliation happen?

Eventually, the House and Senate will have to agree on a single budget resolution or reconciliation will not be triggered (the budget resolution only requires a simple majority for passage and does not require approval by the President). The final budget will include instructions to a wide variety of Congressional committees with jurisdiction over different areas of spending.

For example, the final budget resolution could instruct the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find budget savings within its jurisdiction totaling a specific amount, or the Senate Armed Services Committee to identify provisions in its purview that would increase spending by a certain amount.

Each committee receiving instructions in the budget resolution will then write provisions to comply with its instructions. Finally, the budget committees package all the provisions in one legislative vehicle, which must pass the House and Senate and then be signed into law by the President. It remains to be seen whether the House approach (one big bill) or Senate approach (two smaller bills) will win out.

Senate rules prohibit the inclusion of “extraneous” matters in a budget reconciliation bill. This is enforced through the “Byrd rule,” named for the late Senator Robert C. Byrd. The Byrd rule says the Senate Parliamentarian is required to review budget reconciliation legislation and identify provisions unrelated to the budget. This review is called the “Byrd bath.” Provisions found to violate the Byrd rule are subject to removal from the bill. In other words, anything unrelated to the budget can’t be added to a reconciliation bill. (For a deep dive on the Byrd rule, please see this excellent report from the Congressional Research Service.)

To be clear, budget reconciliation legislation is required to be related to federal spending and revenues, but it is not required to actually save any money, and it rarely does. The current House budget resolution would specifically raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, which is strong evidence that the House majority expects reconciliation legislation to increase the debt, not lower it.

When will budget reconciliation start and be completed?

Great question! Who knows?

The Congressional Budget Act includes deadlines for this process, and the final budget resolution will include dates by which the committees receiving reconciliation instructions should comply, but there are no enforcement mechanisms. The Congressional Research Service summarizes the timing this way (emphasis, mine):

The record of experience with reconciliation legislation over the period since 1980 indicates considerable variation in the time needed to process such measures from the date the reconciliation instructions take effect (upon final adoption of the budget resolution) until the resultant reconciliation legislation is approved or vetoed by the President. The interval for the 24 reconciliation measures ranged from a low of 27 days (for the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990) to a high of 384 days (for the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005). On average, completing the process took about five months (155 days) . . .

Assuming the House and Senate can come to agreement on a budget resolution this spring, a budget reconciliation bill could be expected in the fall.

But don’t forget that this 10-year budget reconciliation process is unfolding while annual spending legislation for the current fiscal year expires March 14. That’s right: Congress and the Administration are focused on a long-term budget plan while they cannot agree on a plan to keep the government open past next month. Ironic, eh?

Why is Congress using the budget reconciliation process?

President Trump and Congressional Republicans hope to use the budget reconciliation process to enact a partisan spending plan that could not pass the Senate under normal rules. Just how extreme that plan will be remains to be seen.

The current Senate budget resolution would pump $150 billion into the already-bloated Pentagon, and another combined $350 billion into law enforcement agencies within the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, ostensibly to curb unauthorized migration.

Meanwhile, the Senate plan claims to defray a tiny percentage of that spending by expanding fossil fuel production from federal lands and waters. Senate Republicans have also indicated they intend to use reconciliation to repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act’s investments in renewable energy and clean transportation, while overturning the Biden Administration’s fee on methane.

The House budget blueprint is even more destructive. It would extend the Trump tax cuts from 2017, which exploded the deficit and were severely skewed in favor of the wealthy. To mask a small percentage of the cost of such a move, the House budget plan would allow cuts to Medicaid, federal student assistance, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Both resolutions, and the reconciliation bill that will result, would redistribute trillions in taxpayer dollars to the already-wealthy, powerful, and politically connected, and away from poor and working-class families, while managing to grow the deficit and debt.

What can we do about this?

As this process unfolds, the Union of Concerned Scientists—working independently and in coalition with partners—will defend crucial spending priorities while highlighting the disastrous impacts of the current reconciliation plans. We will continue to provide policymakers who are willing to protect investments in a clean energy economy, respond to the climate crisis, protect programs vital to working families, pursue tax fairness, and right-size our defense spending with tools to engage in that defense using the best available science.

Enactment of a budget reconciliation plan is not a forgone conclusion. While the process does provide a crucial shortcut to Senate passage for the administration’s legislative priorities, it remains a heavy lift, made even harder by the historically narrow margin in the House and the tendency toward Congressional in-fighting.

Effective science advocacy can affect this outcome, and that is what we at UCS do. Please stay tuned.

The National Science Foundation has fired workers at the office that manages polar research, raising fears about a reduced U.S. presence in two strategic regions.

Appeal from officials, including two senior figures from Trump’s first term, comes amid reports National Science Foundation’s budget will be slashed

• US politics live – latest updates

Chuck Hagel, the former US defense secretary, and other former US national security officials, including two senior figures from Donald Trump’s first term, on Tuesday warned that China was outpacing the US in critical technology fields and urged Congress to increase funding for federal scientific research.

The appeal comes a week after the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds science research, fired 170 people in response to Donald Trump’s order to reduce the federal workforce. An NSF spokesman declined comment on reports that hundreds more layoffs were possible and that the agency’s budget could be slashed by billions.

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