The Trump administration has reduced funding for climate research, dismissed federal scientists who worked on the National Climate Assessment, and removed past editions of the report from government websites.
Now, critics say, it is taking the next step: rewriting the science itself, according to a lawsuit filed this week by environmental groups.
I sincerely think that China’s massive government investment in solar panel production is the biggest thing our species has done about climate change. It’s the reason it’s now cheaper to build a new solar plant than to continue to operate an existing coal-powered plant. (Though we’re not doing that in the US, because we’ve bottlenecked grid connection requests, which is holding up a ton of new solar buildouts.)
I mean it’s not enough yet, but it’s made a huge dent in the problem. Economics actually favor shifting to renewables at this point. It’s just the entrenched interests working against it we have to overcome now.
The economics are so far past the tipping point now that even with all the political obstruction, renewables accounted for 85% of new US electricity capacity in 2023 - grid bottlenecks are definitley the biggest hurdle now, not cost.