Climate

The president can still do a lot before he leaves the White House.

Stephanie Carrie gives tours and educates Angelenos on the importance of the urban forest – and how to improve it

On a recent Sunday morning, 25 Angelenos gathered under a large rusty leaf fig tree for a walking tree tour in a local Culver City park that was also playing host to an outdoor tai chi class as well as a group of yogis.

As we walked past Chinese elm trees, coast live oaks and Brazilian pepper trees, Stephanie Carrie shared the history of the city’s celebrated palm trees with a rapt audience. Many of today’s trees, planted in the 1930s, are approaching the end of their lives – and while they have become symbols of the city, they also guzzle water, fueling calls to replace them with drought-resistant trees.

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The closest ski hill to Los Angeles recently sold to an investment group with big plans. But can those ideas work amid catastrophic climate threats that continue to plague the mountain?

The man behind Amy and Senna has turned his attention to ‘techno-authoritarianism’ in the genre-defying 2073. He talks to our journalist – one of the movie’s unlikely stars – about the events that fed his dystopian vision

It was some time in the early 2000s and Asif Kapadia, already a successful film director, a wunderkind whose first feature in 2001, The Warrior, won the Bafta for outstanding British film, was travelling back from New York.

“There’s a beautiful, gorgeous sunset over Manhattan. I’m in a limo being taken to the airport. And I was taking photos of Manhattan because I was driving over Brooklyn Bridge and it’s just all so cinematic and I became subconsciously aware of the driver watching me in the rear view mirror.

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Despite a clever comms strategy, there are significant credibility issues around the assumptions on which the cost estimates are based

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The Coalition has moved a considerable way on climate and energy since Scott Morrisson brought a lump of coal into the parliament and told us not to be afraid. On Friday, the Coalition finally released the long-awaited details of the nuclear plan it will take to the election and, once again, asks us not to be afraid – of the price tag, the higher climate pollution and a range of other variables.

However, despite a clever comms strategy, there are significant credibility issues around the assumptions on which the cost estimates are based, and there are other critical issues that have been left unanswered. Australians have a right to consider all the issues they are being asked to vote on, with facts rather than political rhetoric. These issues can be broadly listed under three headings: the economics, the environment and the law.

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Nicki Hutley is an independent economist and councillor with the Climate Council

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The fall of Assad in Syria, protests in Georgia, the Franklin Fire in Malibu and the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

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California and 11 other states want to halt the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to stop them.

The justices agreed to decide whether industry groups have suffered the sort of injury that gave them standing to sue over an unusual waiver.

New export terminals have reignited a generations-old debate over identity and environmental stewardship.

Every farm, even the scenic ones with red barns and rolling hills, is a kind of environmental crime scene, an echo of whatever wilderness it once replaced.

Amid Italian island’s worst drought, towns such as Troina are fighting for survival as supplies run dry and tensions rise

An ancient Sicilian proverb goes like this: “When water to two fountains flows, one will stay dry – that’s how it goes.” The residents of the small town of Troina in the heart of Sicily, struck by a long and unprecedented drought, perhaps understand its meaning better than anyone else. When authorities decreed that the little water left in their dam should be shared with the villages of another province, they took action, and, on 30 November, occupied the distribution centre of the reservoir, blocking access.

“It’s a war between the poor; we are aware of it,” says Salvatore Giamblanco, 66, owner of a bed and breakfast in Troina. “But we had no other choice. The dam is drying up. We have difficulty finding water for ourselves. I had to cancel numerous reservations due to the lack of water. If we also have to share what little we have with other towns, we will all be left dry.”

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An annual gathering of scientists this week offered a glimpse into the latest efforts to answer some of the most intriguing questions about our warming planet.

About four million common murres were killed by a domino effect of ecosystem changes, and the population is showing no signs of recovery, according to new research.

Chris Wright, Donald Trump’s pick for energy secretary, says oil, gas and coal are key to solving global poverty. Some call that misleading.

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• John Pesutto defies calls to resign after being ordered to pay $300,000 for defaming Moira Deeming
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News bargaining code announcement expected today

The youth minister, Anne Aly, spoke with ABC News Breakfast just earlier ahead of the news bargaining code announcement, expected today.

What I can say is that the government believes that journalists should be fairly compensated for the work that they do, that there is a current regime in place but that’s not working. And so that’s why the government has turned its attention to updating this code and ensuring that social media companies pay for the news that they use as content on their platforms.

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Industry leaders attending the conference were asked about artificial intelligence, the economy, international relations and more.

The court’s order was provisional, rejecting a request from a Kentucky electric utility to block the plan while an appeals court considers its challenge.

Editor’s note: Updates status of investigation into RealPage

Scott Turner’s nomination by President Trump to lead the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has garnered less attention than some of his other cabinet picks. This is surprising given the power he wields over millions of people’s most immediate everyday need—having a place to live.   

As the housing and climate crises continue to collide—destroying homes, displacing communities, and causing instability in the insurance industry—it’s important to understand the background of the person selected to lead the agency responsible for policy and programs to address America’s urgent housing needs.

Turner’s track record of advancing ultra-conservative agendas raises valid concern that he would prioritize developer interests while shifting climate risk onto local governments and individuals.   

What does the HUD Secretary do?

As the head of HUD, Scott Turner would oversee a broad, important portfolio of programs that literally helps keep the roof over many people’s heads.

HUD serves a crucial role in providing access to affordable housing for millions of people, including through rental assistance programs, public housing, and pathways to homeownership. These programs are especially important for low-income households, people who live with disabilities, the elderly and families with young children.  

HUD also provides financial support for community and economic development through its Community Development Block Grant Program. The Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) component of this program is increasingly important in an era of worsening climate-fueled disasters.  

The question is: if Turner is confirmed as HUD secretary, will he keep the people’s interests as his top priority—or will he be more beholden to deep-pocketed real estate and developer interests?  

Potential conflicts of interest 

To get an idea of how he would lead HUD, it’s important to look at who Scott Turner is. He has had a varied career, including stints in the Texas legislature, the first Trump Administration, and the NFL. During his time in the Texas legislature, Turner stuck mostly to the fiscally and socially conservative Tea Party agenda and didn’t file any housing bills.  

Most recently, Turner has served as a Chief Inspiration Officer for JPI—a development firm that specializes in building multi-family homes across the income spectrum. While it’s essential for the nation’s housing secretary to understand the development landscape, their actions must be rooted in the public interest, not real estate industry interests. The Project 2025 chapter on HUD, authored by former HUD Secretary Ben Carson who Turner considers a mentor, encourages the sale of existing public housing to private, profit-motivated developers.

Additionally, Turner’s former employer has a longstanding and well-publicized relationship with RealPage, a private equity-backed software firm that the US Justice Department claimed enables price-fixing, artificially increasing the rents of hundreds of thousands of renters nationwide. While a criminal investigation into RealPage was recently dropped, a civil lawsuit by the DOJ and eight states remains active. As the average American pays more money than ever before to keep a roof over their head, this confluence of interests and influence should raise concerns during confirmation hearings.   

Opportunity Zones  

In his previous role as a senior official at HUD, Turner was celebrated by President Trump and others for his role in promoting Opportunity Zones. Opportunity Zones were a signature economic development effort of the first Trump administration codified in the 2017 tax bill that allowed investors to defer taxes on capital gains by siphoning those gains into a fund that invested in economically distressed areas. 

The architects of Opportunity Zones claimed the program would spur desirable investment in communities and jumpstart economic revitalization, however, the program didn’t lay out tight regulatory guidelines, and the full impact of the policy isn’t yet obvious as investments can be made through 2026 and some forms of investment (like developing or rehabbing housing) can take years to realize.   

What we do know is that real estate is the largest investment category among Opportunity Zone investors. It’s reported that thousands of affordable homes have been financed in hot housing markets like Charlotte and Austin, but how many of those homes are meaningfully affordable or only nominally affordable, stretching buyers and renters thin, is unclear. 

The return of Opportunity Zones was a key component of the president-elect’s campaign platform, and they are poised for extension in the new administration and Republican-controlled Congress.  If Turner’s job is to champion safe, healthy affordable housing, members of Congress should ask how he intends to strongly condition Opportunity Zones to help address the nation’s housing shortage and whether those benefits will flow to those with lower incomes.  

Reversing climate progress at HUD 

In addition to investing in public housing, rental support and providing pathways to homeownership for low-income families, HUD is also tasked with distributing funds for long-term recovery to cities and states after increasingly frequent and costly disasters.  Cuts to disaster response programs in other federal agencies like FEMA proposed in Project 2025 will almost certainly reduce community resilience and may drive up the price tag of long-term recovery that Turner is tasked with administering. 

In the last few years, HUD has adopted climate initiatives to make affiliated properties more energy efficient, weatherize buildings against extreme heat and reduce flood risk. Project 2025 recommends eliminating the agency’s climate programs. The climate denialism of these proposed repeals aside, the conservative playbook’s obsession with reducing government spending simply transfers risk to levels of government and communities less equipped than the federal government to pursue resilience.  

HUD’s climate initiatives are intended to keep communities safer and tackle climate challenges that, if left unchecked, will have increasingly expensive impacts on its assets and risk the lives of people the agency has a responsibility to protect.

Members of Congress should probe Turner on the true, long-term cost of walking away from common sense climate efforts like weatherization and floodplain standards.   

Project 2025 regurgitates rejected policies

It’s too soon to tell just how much of President Trump’s dangerous agenda Scott might be able to realize as HUD Secretary.  Much of the Project 2025 plan for the agency are policies that were rejected or unfinished during the first Trump presidency, which like the coming administration also began with a Republican-controlled congress.

Other parts of President Trump’s agenda like his inhumane threats of mass deportation could make it harder to build affordable homes. With an electorate deeply concerned about making ends meet, it’s important that confirmation hearings reveal who Turner will center in his leadership—a nation struggling with housing costs and growing climate risk or his real estate industry colleagues.    

Marginalised communities have been elevated during hearings in The Hague on impact of climate crisis

The village of Veraibari in Papua New Guinea sits at the mouth of the Kikori River, just before it opens into the Pacific. “Veraibari was so beautiful when I was a child,” remembers Ara Kouwo, 52. “I used to walk down to the beach passing under mango trees.”

Kouwo’s testimony was one of many included in written submissions to the international court of justice (ICJ) before hearings that began last week and continue until Friday in a landmark case in which the court has been asked to give an advisory opinion on “the obligations of states in respect of climate change”.

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