Latest Developments from Climate Forward
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday strongly condemned former President Trump’s recent comments on climate change, calling them “an abomination.” He urged corporate leaders and Republican lawmakers to challenge Mr. Trump’s position.
During a speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, Mr. Trump had dismissed climate change as a “con job” and labeled green energy a scam.
“What an embarrassment. What a fraud,” Newsom, a Democrat, stated at The New York Times’s Climate Forward event. “And I say that as a guy who lives in one of the most crisis-prone states in America.”
Following Newsom’s remarks, Energy Secretary Chris Wright expressed his desire for other countries to emulate the Trump administration by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Mr. Wright also cast doubt on attribution science, a well-established field that quantifies climate change’s influence on extreme weather events, calling it “people reaching for something.”
The United States, which had been a leader in climate action under the previous administration, has now reversed course under President Trump, discrediting climate threats and promoting fossil fuels.
The stakes are incredibly high. After a year marked by record global temperatures and climate-fueled disasters, world leaders are grappling with not only a rapidly changing planet but also a drastically altered political landscape.
This situation unfolds amidst rising global energy demand, partly driven by the growth of artificial intelligence, and as China leads the race in developing clean energy technologies like batteries and solar power.
Here’s more on key discussions:
- The Schedule: The full speaker lineup and panel details for the Climate Forward event are available.
- Fusion Energy: Commonwealth Fusion plans to activate a pilot fusion reactor near Boston next year, aiming by 2027 to demonstrate that the $2 billion plant can produce more electricity than it consumes.
- Financing: Clean energy financing is projected to exceed $2.2 trillion this year. However, only 15% of this funding will reach developing nations, with a mere 2% allocated to Africa, according to Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All.
- A.I. and Emissions: Executives from Microsoft and Google reaffirmed their commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2030, even as their emissions have recently increased due to significant investments in artificial intelligence and data centers.
- National Security: Jake Sullivan, former national security adviser under President Biden, warned that the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal climate risk policies could jeopardize U.S. national security.
- Criticism of Trump: Andrew Forrest, executive chairman of mining giant Fortescue, criticized Mr. Trump’s rejection of climate science. He noted that the Republican-led elimination of renewable energy tax credits influenced Fortescue’s decision to cancel a $210 million electric vehicle battery factory in Michigan.
- Climate Forward Podcast: The inaugural episode features a conversation with former Vice President Al Gore, exploring the climate movement’s evolution two decades after his documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’
Trump’s Energy Secretary Questions Climate Science
Energy Secretary Chris Wright asserted on Wednesday that attribution science – the field that quantifies climate change’s impact on extreme weather events like floods and heatwaves – is “not science.”
“That’s people reaching for something,” Mr. Wright stated at The New York Times’s Climate Forward event, defending a recent agency-commissioned report that minimized climate change consequences.
In reality, attribution science has been a growing discipline for over two decades, as researchers strive to understand how much more likely certain weather events become due to a warming planet.
Mr. Wright incorrectly claimed that critics of the Energy Department’s report—authored by five researchers who dispute the scientific consensus on fossil fuels dangerously heating the planet—did not challenge any of its data or facts.
“They just didn’t like that the conclusion of our report was, climate change is a real physical phenomenon that’s unfolding, it’s just not the crisis it’s often sold to be.”
However, 85 scientists submitted a comprehensive critique, highlighting numerous inaccuracies in the report. These included unsupported claims that sea level rise is not accelerating, that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide benefits plant growth, and that computer models overestimate future temperature increases. The American Meteorological Society, a prominent scientific body, also identified “foundational flaws,” while the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine contradicted the report, emphasizing that evidence of greenhouse gases threatening human health continues to mount.
Fusion Energy: Closer Than You Think?
For years, fusion energy has been jokingly referred to as perpetually 30 years away. However, Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, claims his startup is poised to demonstrate fusion’s viability within the next two years.
Next year, Commonwealth Fusion plans to activate a pilot fusion reactor outside Boston. By 2027, their goal is to prove that the $2 billion plant can generate more electricity than it consumes.
“Fusion energy is much closer than what we thought possible even 10 years ago,” Mr. Mumgaard said at The New York Times’s Climate Forward event. “We’ve seen a drastic acceleration in just fusion science over the last ten years.”
The concept of fusion energy, distinct from nuclear fission used in current reactors, involves combining atoms at extreme temperatures to release vast amounts of energy. This dream has captivated scientists for decades.
If proven scalable, this technology could produce immense amounts of electricity without releasing planet-warming carbon dioxide or posing risks of large-scale nuclear accidents.
Despite recent breakthroughs, transitioning fusion from lab to large-scale operation remains a significant challenge, leading many experts to remain skeptical about its near-term feasibility.
Commonwealth, founded by MIT scientists, is among the most well-funded startups pursuing fusion. Beyond its Massachusetts pilot plant, the company intends to build a large-scale fusion power plant in Virginia, aiming to sell electricity by the early 2030s.
The company has secured over $3 billion from investors including Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Nventures (Nvidia’s venture arm). This month, Italian energy giant Eni announced a deal to purchase over $1 billion worth of power from the Virginia plant, though specifics were not disclosed.
Mr. Mumgaard dismissed the notion of fusion being an impossible feat. “You could actually make similar statements about a lot of other technologies that today are very commonplace,” he argued.
He added, “One of the great parts about humans and ingenuity is we keep solving problems. We keep understanding systems. We keep making them better and better.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Urges Withdrawal from Paris Agreement
Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated he would “absolutely” support other countries following the Trump administration’s example and withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
“This has become a club of people that have lost sight of the interests of their own people,” Mr. Wright remarked on Wednesday at The New York Times’s Climate Forward event.
His comments came a day after President Trump, before the United Nations General Assembly, called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and warned that transitioning to renewable energy would “destroy” economies. Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement—a voluntary pact among nearly 200 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—on his first day in office. No other country has followed suit.
Mr. Wright also vehemently defended the Trump administration’s policies against wind and solar power, claiming widespread public opposition to these technologies.
While wind and solar have been among the fastest-growing electricity sources in the U.S. and polling generally shows strong support for renewables, some communities have indeed sought to restrict or ban such projects.
The Trump administration has consistently opposed renewable technologies, halting federal land approvals for wind and solar projects and ordering construction stoppages for two major offshore wind projects in the Northeast (both later resumed).
“There is massive and growing opposition across the country to wind power and, for farmers, for solar power,” Mr. Wright asserted.
He clarified that most of the administration’s actions focused on federal lands, adding, “People on private lands are going to do what they want. Solar energy will continue to be developed, and I’m cheering it on. I’m not against solar energy by any stretch. I’m against things that are subsidizing, that are forced.”
The Trump administration’s major domestic policy bill, passed in July, eliminated most Biden-era subsidies for wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles. The administration has gone further, attempting to rescind permits for already-approved renewable energy projects, a move criticized by the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.
Mr. Wright also stated his disagreement with the long-standing Republican strategy of an “all of the above” energy approach, which includes oil, gas, wind, solar, and nuclear power.
“I’ve never been an all-of-the-above energy person,” said Mr. Wright, a former gas executive. “If you do things to your energy system that make it more expensive and less reliable, I’m not for that.”
He pointed out that states and countries with significant wind and solar adoption, such as California and Germany, have seen soaring electricity prices. Conversely, Texas, a leader in renewable power, has maintained electricity prices lower than the national average and relatively stable after inflation adjustment.
Furthermore, Mr. Wright indicated the administration’s push to halt coal plant closures in the U.S. Over the past decade, coal power has sharply declined, with over 100 units slated for retirement by the end of Mr. Trump’s term. However, in June, the Energy Department issued an emergency order preventing a Michigan coal plant from closing, with Mr. Wright suggesting more such orders might follow.
“I think this administration’s policy is going to be to stop the closure of coal plants, most of them cooperatively working with utilities,” Mr. Wright said. “Half of them are calling me saying, can you help us?” (The Michigan utility, however, stated it did not request the Energy Department to keep the plant open.)
Mr. Wright also claimed that fossil fuels do not receive subsidies. While the U.S. lacks consumer subsidies for fossil fuel prices, the oil and gas industries receive approximately $35 billion annually in tax incentives, some of which have been in place for over a century.
He concluded by asserting that Mr. Trump’s promotion of natural gas and efforts to encourage other nations to purchase U.S. liquefied natural gas would significantly reduce global emissions.
“I’m going to suggest you might, five years from now, give President Trump the hero of the climate award,” Mr. Wright quipped.
U.S. Wind Industry Executive Sees Long-Term Potential Despite Trump-Era Slump
Despite the current severe downturn in the U.S. wind industry under the Trump administration, Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova (a leading wind turbine manufacturer), remains optimistic about the technology’s long-term potential.
“Our orders are very soft right now on wind,” Mr. Strazik acknowledged at The New York Times’s Climate Forward event. “But at the end of the day, we have a lot of great resources in this country. And one of those resources does include a lot of expansive land with really good wind.”
President Trump has consistently criticized wind power as unsightly and inefficient. His administration has aggressively targeted the industry, halting permits for new federal wind farms and issuing stop-work orders on two offshore wind farms under construction (both have since resumed).
However, Mr. Strazik also admitted that the wind industry itself has made mistakes in recent years, introducing too many new designs and compromising the quality and reliability of its turbines.
“Over the last decade, the quality and the performance of wind has degraded,” he explained. “The industry grew very fast. We created a lot of new products, and the quality in the field has come down.”
Mr. Strazik hopes the current slowdown in wind power development will allow GE Vernova to reset. “If I took you to a number of my factories, manufacturing blades, as an example, is a much more manual process than many other products we make,” he noted. “We’re investing and automating that process, so that this industry and this business can thrive.”
GE Vernova, formed last year from the breakup of General Electric, is also developing next-generation nuclear reactors and is the world’s largest manufacturer of turbines for gas-fired power plants. The company’s gas turbine division has seen a boom due to surging U.S. natural gas demand, driven by increased electricity consumption and a rise in new artificial intelligence data centers.
Mr. Strazik expressed strong confidence in nuclear power’s future. This summer, construction began in Ontario on a small nuclear reactor by GE Vernova and Hitachi, which they hope will be among the first in a new wave of small reactors to revitalize the industry.
“This is going to be a very real part of expanding electric capacity in the U.S. in the first half of the next decade,” he predicted.
Governor Newsom Calls Trump’s U.N. Speech an ‘Abomination’
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday denounced President Trump’s recent address to the United Nations, where Trump labeled climate change a “con job” and green energy a scam.
“What an abomination,” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, declared at The New York Times’s Climate Forward event. “What an embarrassment. What a fraud.”
Newsom also delivered sharp criticism toward congressional Republicans and corporate leaders, particularly within the automotive sector. He specifically called out Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, accusing her company and others of capitulating to the Trump administration’s efforts to overturn tailpipe pollution limits and obstruct California’s transition to electric vehicles.
“The worst part about it is how many previously serious people have sold out,” Governor Newsom asserted. “Corporate leaders, people are scared to death of this guy. It’s appalling, the complicity. The most successful, wealthiest people scared to death of this guy.”
“Mary Barra and G.M., they sold out,” he stated.
General Motors and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, representing most major automakers, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Newsom and California have historically championed environmental initiatives. However, the governor and state Democratic lawmakers have recently scaled back several green programs.
Nonetheless, on Wednesday, Mr. Newsom positioned California as a crucial defense against the Trump administration’s climate policy rollbacks. He highlighted a state program that mandates significant cuts in carbon emissions from transportation fuels, noting that California now boasts six times more green energy jobs than fossil fuel jobs.
“We’re what’s left of environmental policy despite the headwinds in Washington, D.C.,” he affirmed. “We are your stable and reliable partner.”
The Trump administration has been actively repealing climate regulations and obstructing wind and solar energy development. On Wednesday, the Department of Energy announced it was withdrawing $13 billion earmarked for renewable energy projects—a move Governor Newsom labeled a “betrayal” of the United States that would primarily benefit China.
“President Xi Jinping of China is going to give Trump a big bear hug,” Mr. Newsom commented.
The governor expressed concern that the Trump administration had demonstrated a new “level of sophistication” in dismantling climate and environmental protections compared to his first term. “I’m more concerned about the lasting damage,” he concluded.
Actor Rainn Wilson Shares Simple Rule for Reconnecting with Nature
Have you heard of the 20-5-3 rule?
It suggests spending 20 minutes outdoors three times a week, dedicating five hours per month to wilder places like a forest or lake, and taking three days per year to disconnect completely in nature, without a cellphone.
At the Climate Forward event, accompanied by live musicians, actor and environmentalist Rainn Wilson, known for his role in “The Office,” presented this idea as a way to reshape our relationship with nature. The concept was originally developed by scientist Rachel Hopman-Droste.
Mr. Wilson revealed that he lost half of his home in the recent Los Angeles fires and had to evacuate his family from an Oregon cabin last month due to another fire threat.
He emphasized that addressing climate change requires transforming our connection with nature. “We need to value nature as profoundly sacred,” he stated. “Spiritual, even.”
Marshall Islands President Asks World for Climate Justice as Her Nation Sinks
Hilda Heine, President of the Marshall Islands, expressed her disappointment on Wednesday with President Trump’s United Nations speech, where he claimed climate science was fabricated by “stupid people” and called it a “hoax.”
“The Pacific Island Forum, which comprises all the countries in the Pacific, has repeatedly declared climate change to be the greatest security threat to the region,” she stated. “So, it’s nothing that is questionable.”
Ms. Heine extended an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit the Marshall Islands, suggesting he might enjoy its unique golf course, which features nine holes on one island and nine on another.
The Marshall Islands’ population has dwindled to 37,000, down from 50,000 a decade ago, as residents leave rather than rebuild homes after recurrent floods. Ms. Heine recently informed The Times that her nation faces submersion by 2050 if global efforts to combat climate change fall short.
Small island nations like the Marshall Islands are on the front lines of climate-related threats, including rising sea levels and extreme weather. Their leaders have been vocal advocates in global climate negotiations, urging a swift transition from fossil fuels and demanding that wealthy nations, responsible for historical emissions, contribute to adaptation costs such as building sea walls.
“When we talk about climate finance, we’re not talking about charity, we’re talking about compensation for what is due,” Ms. Heine emphasized.
Australian Magnate Challenges Trump: ‘Come See What’s Happening to My Land’
Andrew Forrest, executive chairman of the mining company Fortescue, sharply criticized President Trump for his rejection of climate science and invited him to witness the damage Australia is experiencing as the planet heats up.
“There’s real damage being done to people’s lives all over the world by your president propagating a complete myth that global warming isn’t happening,” Mr. Forrest asserted.
“I feel real pain when I hear your president saying global warming is a great big con,” he said. “As a fellow businessman, I happen to own several million acres of land in Australia. Come and see what’s happening to my land. Come and dive on these reefs, which were the most beautiful environments on earth and are now devastated, covered in moss.”
Fortescue recently canceled plans for a $210 million electric vehicle battery factory in Michigan, citing the Republican-led elimination of renewable energy tax credits as a key factor.
“All those plans to employ thousands of people to produce batteries for the American people — you know, shattered,” Forrest lamented on Wednesday.
“The tragedy of this rollback,” Mr. Forrest stated, “this one-horse bet in a multi-horse race which your administration is making now. It’s put a bet on the oldest, tiredest horse of the lot, which is fossil fuel.”
Mr. Forrest, a billionaire Australian mining magnate who founded the Fortescue Metals Group, has become an unexpected champion for climate action.
In 2021, he committed his company to achieving net-zero carbon emissions and transforming into a renewable energy powerhouse. Since then, he has leveraged his global platform to advocate for a quicker shift from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and other clean energy sources.
Fortescue is currently constructing a $50 million green iron plant in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, which will utilize hydrogen. The company is also exploring a project in Brazil. However, earlier this year, it canceled two green hydrogen projects (which produce hydrogen by splitting water with renewable energy, creating no planet-warming pollution), raising questions about the future of this clean fuel.
Trump’s Climate Dismissal Poses U.S. Security Risk, Says Former Biden Official
Jake Sullivan, former national security adviser in the Biden administration, warned that the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal policies designed to study and address climate change risks could threaten U.S. national security.
“The United States is not going to be as prepared and as capable to contend with this challenge going forward because we’ve essentially decided to blind ourselves from what is a really critical national security threat with all of these various spillover dimensions,” Mr. Sullivan stated Wednesday at The New York Times’ Climate Forward event.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Defense and the U.S. intelligence community had released a series of reports concluding that global warming could worsen risks of food shortages, migration, and global conflicts, among other challenges.
These analyses are now being halted. Last month, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, announced the shutdown of the group responsible for the annual U.S. government’s Global Trends report, which had previously examined climate change’s national security implications. Ms. Gabbard justified the move by claiming the group had “a political agenda that ran counter to all of the current president’s national security priorities.”
Mr. Sullivan criticized this action, emphasizing, “You don’t just have to ask the intelligence community. You go to any man or woman with stars on their shoulders or general officers, and they will tell you the climate crisis is real and has an operational impact on them.”
The Trump administration has also significantly cut federal support for various clean energy technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. Mr. Sullivan cautioned against ceding these industries to China, which now leads in the deployment and production of most of these technologies.
“These core clean energy technologies, including batteries, they matter for everything we do, including the artificial intelligence revolution,” he said. “So the United States can’t just say, well, clean energy is someone else’s business.”
Google and Microsoft Executives Affirm Achievability of Climate Goals
Executives from Microsoft and Google confirmed on Wednesday that their companies remain dedicated to their climate commitments, despite a recent rise in emissions driven by investments in artificial intelligence and data centers.
Both tech giants have pledged to achieve net-zero emissions or better by 2030.
David Gelles of The Times questioned Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft’s chief sustainability officer, on the feasibility of the company’s climate goals. Referencing an earlier statement where Nakagawa called her goals a “moonshot” and acknowledged the “moon has gotten farther away,” Mr. Gelles asked for her current perspective.
“You have to build a faster rocket ship,” Ms. Nakagawa responded, highlighting the company’s substantial investments in carbon removal recently. Both Microsoft and Google have also invested millions in developing nuclear energy sources.
Kate Brandt, Google’s chief sustainability officer, pointed to more efficient data centers as a key part of Google’s strategy. She noted that emissions from Google’s data centers decreased last year even as electricity consumption increased, demonstrating their ability to “disaggregate that growth.”
When asked if Microsoft would consider building new data centers powered by natural gas or coal, Ms. Nakagawa admitted it was a possibility. However, she added that the company would offset such emissions by purchasing carbon-free energy elsewhere.
Regarding a situation in Omaha, Nebraska, where a utility indicated plans to keep a coal plant operational to power Google and Meta data centers, Ms. Brandt underscored the critical importance of developing more clean and reliable energy sources.
For years, tech companies aimed to be leaders in corporate sustainability, announcing significant investments in emissions-free power and committing to combat climate misinformation.
However, the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, which already consumes vast amounts of electricity and is set to demand even more, has created a considerable hurdle to their environmental objectives. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by 11% in 2024 from the previous year, while Microsoft’s, though slightly lower, remained 10% higher than in 2021. Other major tech firms have shown similar trends.