Climate

The marshes in Colombia’s capital are sacred to Indigenous peoples, provide vital wildlife habitats and could help the city adapt to climate change. But after centuries of development they are close to collapse

• Photographs by Antonio Cascio

Early last year, Bogotá faced a prolonged drought, leading to historically low water levels in reservoirs and forcing Colombia’s authorities to impose water rationing. Then, in November, heavy rains triggered widespread flooding, submerging streets, stranding vehicles and disrupting traffic.

People living in neighbourhoods built over wetlands, such as Suba Rincón, suffered a double impact from these extreme events, that served to underscore the city’s vulnerability to deforestation, El Niño and the climate crisis. In these districts people have been left counting the cost of repeated floods.

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The court ruled that the Trump administration had a narrowly defined path to withhold some funds to the city that had been approved by Congress.

Website of ‘Doge’ includes information published by thinktank CEI, which claims to fight ‘climate alarmism’

Flanked by Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week, Elon Musk claimed his much-vaunted, but ill-defined, “department of government efficiency” (Doge) was providing “maximum transparency” on its blitz through the federal government.

Its official website was empty, however – until Wednesday, when it added elements including data from a controversial rightwing thinktank recently sued by a climate scientist.

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Kathleen Sgamma to oversee Bureau of Land Management, agency that manages quarter-billion acres of public land

Donald Trump has nominated a longtime oil and gas industry representative to oversee an agency that manages a quarter-billion acres of public land concentrated in western states.

Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Colorado-based oil industry trade group Western Energy Alliance, was named Bureau of Land Management director, a position with wide influence over lands used for energy production, grazing, recreation and other purposes. An MIT graduate, Sgamma has been a leading voice for the fossil fuel industry, calling for fewer drilling restrictions on public lands that produce about 10% of US oil and gas.

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The nominee, Kathleen Sgamma, has worked for nearly two decades on behalf of oil and gas companies in Western states.

As Trump pledges regulatory rollbacks, environmental groups say the administration’s aggressive cost-cutting tactics could make it easier for them to win some long-term battles.

This post was co-authored by Dr. Astrid Caldas

What is your morning routine? Wake up, maybe make coffee, tea, or other morning beverage or meal, check the weather. It is something most people do in the US—office workers, outdoor workers, farmers, fishermen, stay-at-home folks. No matter what one’s life is like, most of us are going to go outside, and most of us check the weather. This is how we, at least partially, assess how our day will go, what we’re going to wear, what activities we will be able to perform, how easy or dreary the commute will be, etc.

This is true for days with uneventful weather, but when extreme weather is in the forecast for the next few days or weeks, weather information becomes critical—even life-saving. Your morning newscasters or social media feeds typically give you “stay cool” tips in advance of a heat wave, or a hurricane warning for your coastal city may show you maps or list areas under mandatory evacuation order due to projected dangerous storm surge.  

But the reliance on that straightforward, taken-for-granted information may be imperiled. President Trump and unelected individuals designated by him are taking aim at scientists and illegally taking over infrastructure responsible for creating and issuing weather conditions and alerts—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The blueprint for many of the Trump administration’s actions, Project 2025, calls for dismantling and privatizing some of its essential services.  

Is having extreme weather information critical? Absolutely. Do we know what happened in the days before modern weather information systems were available to warn the public about extreme weather? We sure do. The Great Blizzard of 1888, for example, dropped as much as 58 inches of snow and “paralyzed the East Coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine to the Atlantic provinces of Canada.” Transportation via cars, trains, and boats was severely impacted, more than 400 people died, and melting snow after the storm severely flooded areas of the US Northeast. Having advance information about the location and magnitude of an extreme weather event is an essential component of strategies to stay safe, from households to first responders to businesses, to government at all levels.  

The prospect of dismantling the systems and jobs that make this information available is alarming on many fronts. The impacts could be so far-reaching that it is hard to understand why such a move is even being considered. Below are just a few things that will be impacted if the Trump administration follows through with the plans laid out in Project 2025 for dismantling NOAA. 

Extreme weather alerts and forecasts

Without NOAA’s freely-available data for all who currently use it to create daily and multi-day forecasts, everyday people will find themselves at a loss about preparing for weather. With extreme weather becoming more extreme due to human-caused climate change, it is essential that communities know what is coming in order to prepare adequately.  

Emergency response agencies, business owners, outdoor workers, farmers, fishermen, parents, caretakers, and everyday folks, all need to know what is coming so they can adjust their activities accordingly. How is your kids’ school principal supposed to know when it’s going to be too hot for children to play outside so they can plan to keep them indoors during a heatwave? What happens when a winter storm demands that roads are salted in anticipation of snowy and icy conditions—but transportation authorities can’t access information about when and how much ice, sleet, or snow will accumulate? How is a coastal community supposed to know what level of storm to prepare for or what areas to issue evacuation orders for? 

Hurricane forecasts

Due to climate change, hurricanes are more destructive: they’re stronger, they drop more rain, they hang around in one place for longer to do more damage from flooding and rain, and they intensify more rapidly, sometimes with horrifying speed.

To counter these impacts, NOAA’s National Hurricane Center provides data that saves lives and allows for preparedness at the local, regional and federal levels. Evacuations, shelters, infrastructure protections all depend on knowing with certainty the likelihood that a hurricane will make landfall. And NOAA’s forecasts and storm-tracking ability is getting better.

In 2022, NOAA assessed its forecasts and storm-tracking ability and found that since 2000, it had reduced its average 72-hour storm tracking error by 57%, while its error rate in predicting storm intensity had dropped by 40%. All these improvements would not be possible without proper funding and science, and without these improvements, forecasts would not be as confident as they are now, helping prevent loss of life and property across the United States. These forecasts were invaluable during the 2024 hurricane season, when NOAA’s accurate and early storm tracks for Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton prompted early evacuation orders and preparedness that saved lives and property.  

Rain, fire, drought

In addition to data for weather forecasts, the National Weather Service (a division of NOAA) provides data for daily wildfire, precipitation and drought outlooks for the entire United States. It also provides other severe weather outlooks and an overview of winter and tropical maritime conditions. The latter identifies current and expected activity in the Atlantic Ocean related to the formation of tropical storms and hurricanes. 

Fisheries

The information created by NOAA’s scientists goes beyond weather and the US borders, as it is used domestically and internationally to protect and project fisheries’ yields and determine legal catch sizes. This is done through the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), whose goals are to maintain and protect ocean ecosystems for both natural ecosystem equilibrium and sustainable fishing. 

NOAA science also informs about escalating climate impacts

The plan to dismantle NOAA could not come at a more perilous time for people facing threats to their lives and property from extreme weather and climate change.

NOAA reported that during 2024, at least 568 lives were lost in 27 separate disasters that each cost at least $1 billion in the US, for a whopping total of at least $182.7 billion.  These costs continue to climb year after year as wildfires, floods, hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves decimate communities across the country.

Whether you accept climate change science or not, you cannot erase your risk in a warmed and warming world (read here for ten signs of climate change). One of our most powerful tools against fierce, deadly weather is the ability to predict where it will affect us. That is what this administration threatens to take away.

 

Disasters with total economic losses of at least $1 billion dollars. Source: NOAA. NOAA is paid by the people, for the people, not special interests

Fishermen on the Eastern shore of Maryland are feeling the pressure of climate change impacts on their yield and seasons. Farmers across the Midwest are reeling from droughts and floods. Outdoor workers are dying from extreme heat. Schools are not letting children out to play on extremely hot days.

The number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters keeps increasing: the 1980–2024 annual average is 9 events; the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2020–2024) is 23 events. The consequences of climate change and its impact on people, the economy, and infrastructure cannot be ignored by attacking an agency that actively helps prepare for said impacts with reliable, freely available data.  

NOAA is the go-to agency for scientifically-accurate global and regional atmospheric and oceanic conditions. The data collected by NOAA is used in forecasts and projections that save lives across the country.  

As we’ve said before, NOAA creates and advances climate science research to lay the unbiased, scientific bedrock of data and information for decision and policy-making that can deliver for us a climate-resilient future. We need to invest in and support—not dismantle—their mission to understand climate change to benefit current and future generations.  

NOAA belongs to us, is paid by us, and cannot be taken away from us. Why is Congress allowing an unelected billionaire to unleash his private army of tech goons on NOAA and illegally enter and usurp its functions and information technology systems? If Congress does not put a stop to this, one day we may wake up without extreme weather alert information. One day, we may wake up to a terrible storm we should have seen coming. 

As AfD says Germany is in grip of ‘eco-dictatorship’, Green party tones down mention of climate action

The crowd had crammed into a concert hall in central Berlin to hear crunch-time election pitches from Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, the high-profile Green ministers in charge of Germany’s economy and diplomacy. But to the surprise of some supporters, it took half an hour for anyone in the environment-rooted party to mention the climate.

Germany’s Greens are fighting to hold on to power after four years in a coalition government where they have been pilloried by other parties, and during which their core issue of climate action has slipped down the political agenda. Though the party is still far from being considered a Volkspartei – a main party whose voters span demographic groups and issues – the Greens have sought to boost their mainstream appeal with talk of beefing up security and bringing down rents and bills.

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Greenpeace protest draws attention to worsening typhoons and demands accountability from major polluters

For two days and two nights, Ronalyn Carbonel and her four children clung to the roof of their home as a huge storm raged around them. With the wind battering her village of Rizal, about 10 miles east of Manila in the Philippines, and water swirling through the rooms below them, they had no choice but to wait, hoping that someone would come to rescue them and hundreds of their neighbours.

“We did not have shelter, we did not have food … we just had to wait for the government for two days,” Carbonel said. “It is not easy, no electricity, no light, we just wait for the sun to rise. The children were scared, we had never experienced anything like this.”

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If you’re scooping up a bouquet at the grocery store, here are a few things to consider.

Record highs delay start of classes in Rio Grande do Sul, where floods fueled by climate crisis left 180 dead last May

During historic floods last May that left more than 180 dead in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, the water rose to the ceiling of the Olindo Flores school in the city of São Leopoldo, destroying furniture, books and parts of its infrastructure.

When classes resumed more than a month later, its 500 students had to be relocated to another school for months.

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RHS is asking people to look for under-threat varieties such as the Sussex Bonfire and Mrs William Copeland

Britons have been asked to hunt for rare pink, white and “bonfire yellow” daffodils in order to save threatened varieties from extinction.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), which is running the daffodil count, is hoping to build a map of the spring blooms. It is asking people to log where daffodils are flowering in their area along with basic information such as colour, type and height.

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