Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
Readers are not told that this is not a measurement of wages. The claim is based on an unverified and unverifiable, counterfactual model that imagines what incomes might have been in a hypothetical world without warming and then labels the difference as a loss.
A recent article in The Week titled “As temperatures rise, US incomes fall” by Devika Rao, claims that rising temperatures have already reduced U.S. wages by about 12 percent and that climate change is quietly depressing incomes nationwide. This claim is debunked by hard data. Even over the recent period of modest warming, U.S. income data show wages rose substantially.
The article leans heavily on a recent modeling study to argue that “global warming has cut incomes in the U.S. by 12 percent since 2000,” asserting that temperature changes ripple through productivity, prices, and trade to reduce paychecks even in places without notable warming. Readers are told this is happening now, broadly and invisibly, across the economy. Perhaps it’s invisible because it has not happened.
Readers are not told that this is not a measurement of wages. The claim is based on an unverified and unverifiable, counterfactual model that imagines what incomes might have been in a hypothetical world without warming and then labels the difference as a loss. Even worse, the study’s estimated income hit ranges anywhere from -2 percent to -22 percent, depending on assumptions, even when excluding losses from specific extreme weather events. That enormous uncertainty band is an admission that the headline number is not robust. Change the assumptions, and the “loss” changes or disappears. That is not empirical economics; it is scenario-building.
This is an exercise in dark wish fulfillment. The modelers have no way of knowing what people might have been paid in a world without slightly lower global average temperatures (less than a 1℃ difference in temperature) of over the past quarter century. Would people have shopped more, traveled more, dined out more, or famers grown more food but for a less than one degree temperature change; a change unnoticeable by the average person? This is speculative in the extreme.
More importantly, measured wage data tell a dramatically very different story. The National Average Wage Index, published by the Social Security Administration (SSA), shows that U.S. wages have risen dramatically and consistently over the modern warming period. According to the table spanning 1951 to 2024, the index increased from $32,154.82 in 2000 to $69,846.57 in 2024, more than doubling over the very period as seen in the graph provided by SSA, in Figures 1A and 1B below.
The article’s logic also fails another reality check. The U.S. economy over the past quarter century has seen higher output, higher productivity, and far greater resilience to weather variability than in earlier, cooler decades. These outcomes are inconsistent with the notion that modest warming has been quietly hollowing out incomes.
To sum up, The Week cites a single unverified study to assert that incomes have been slashed by 12 percent due to climate change. The SSA wage index data show there is in fact no correlation between rising U.S. temperatures and falling wages because wages did not fall. Obviously, comparing real-world data of wages and temperature show that the report and the study it references are patently false. The data are not a subtle effect or a statistical quirk. There is a clear, long-term upward trend documented year after year in official federal data that blows the claim made by The Week right out of the water.
By presenting modeled counterfactuals as if they were observed declines in pay, The Week misleads readers about both climate impacts and economic reality. Actual wage data show Americans earning more, not less, as temperatures have risen modestly. When measured outcomes directly contradict a model’s conclusion, the problem lies with the model, and with the flawed reporting, not with reality. Either The Week is incompetent at doing research and factual reporting or purposely ignoring reality to spread a false climate narrative.
This compilation serves as a fact check on the top false claims made about climate change by the media in January 2026.
Global warming did NOT ‘supercharge’ winter storm – Pacific islands are NOT disappearing –
Climate Change is NOT fueling both hot & cold extremes – Cherry Crops are just fine – ‘Climate roller coaster’ debunked
Guest Post by: The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, The Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, and the International Climate Science Coalition, and Truth in Energy and Climate.
Editor’s note: This compilation serves as a fact check on the top false claims made about climate change by the media in January 2026.
Global warming did NOT ‘supercharge’ winter storm – Pacific islands are NOT disappearing – Climate Change is NOT fueling both hot & cold extremes – Cherry Crops are just fine – ‘Climate roller coaster’ debunked
I think [Net Zero] is insane. It is pointless to pursue it because it will make no difference to the climate or to climate change. The climate will change as it wants to change, no matter how much CO2 we put in the air. So, it’s a pointless thing to do. It is unachievable. And in the end, as always, it’s the poorest among us that will pay the highest price proportionally.
In the video above, Ron Barmby joins Angela Wheeler to discuss Sunset on Net Zero and the why green energy schemes fail. He questions the scientific, economic, and engineering basis of global net-zero policies. Drawing on physics, real-world observations, and decades of experience, he argues that CO2’s warming effect is small and diminishing. He also challenges climate models that rely on unverified assumptions. Barmby warns that many green energy solutions are impractical and that net-zero policies disproportionately harm the poor.
For those preferring to read, I provide below a lightly edited transcript in italics with added images. AW refers to Angela Wheeler and RB to Ron Barmby. H/T Climate Change Dispatch.
I think [Net Zero] is insane. It is pointless to pursue it because it will make no difference to the climate or to climate change. The climate will change as it wants to change, no matter how much CO2 we put in the air. So, it’s a pointless thing to do. It is unachievable. And in the end, as always, it’s the poorest among us that will pay the highest price proportionally.
AW: This is Climate Debrief, brought to you by the CO2 Coalition. I’m Angela Wheeler. There’s a recently published book, Sunset on Net Zero, a heretics guide to the futile CO2 target. You’re going to hear from the author, CO2 Coalition member Ron Barmby. Ron is a professional engineer with a master’s degree from the University of Alberta and a four-decade career that’s taken him to over 40 countries across five continents. Ron’s adventures have shown him firsthand how societies really are adaptable to shifting climates.
Thank you for taking the time, Ron. Thank you for having me, Angela. Part one of your recent book is titled How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Carbon Dioxide. Did you have a moment of clarity where this all made sense or did this happen over a period of time?
RB: It sort of happened over a period of time when the Al Gore movie came out. At first, I was impressed with it, and I thought, well, this all makes sense. And then as other writers started pointing out the flaws in that movie, I decided I should look into this more too.
Al Gore with a version of the Hockey Stick graph in the 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth
And as an engineer, I have a background in physics and I realized that a lot of the physical characteristics that Al Gore was talking about simply aren’t true. So it developed over time. And as it developed over time, some of my friends said, Ron, you should write this down. And so I did. And that was my first book. The second book, the one that you just mentioned, is sort of an update of what’s happened since 2020 when the first book was published.
AW: What is your analysis of this global effort to reach net zero?
RB: Well, I think it’s insane. That’s what I think. It is pointless to pursue it because it will make no difference to the climate or to climate change.
I now declare the Paris Agreement for Climate Change open for signature. More than 170 countries signed the Paris Agreement. They are pledging to take steps to limit the rise of global temperatures to well below two degrees Celsius. –Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General
The climate will change as it wants to change, no matter how much CO2 we put in the air. So, it’s a pointless thing to do. The second part of it, it is unachievable.
And that’s where my engineering background comes in and many of the engineers that are part of the CO2 coalition. What they want to achieve simply can’t be done in a reasonable time frame at a reasonable cost, and it can’t be done globally. And the third thing about it is the whole thing is unfair because it punishes those that are trying to reduce CO2 emissions to the benefit of those who are only paying lip service to CO2 emissions. And in the end, as always, it’s the poorest among us that will pay the highest price proportionally.
AW: Your book sums it up well in stating that warming from future CO2 is too trivial and too gradual to justify drastic policy. Could you explain that?
RB: Well, there was a paper written in 2019 by two coalition members, Dr. Wijngaarden and Dr. Happer. That paper explained from physicist to physicist how we can actually measure the amount of CO2 warming that has happened. And by measuring that amount, it confirmed the equations that would predict what would happen if we doubled the CO2 emissions again or came to a complete doubling. And looking into that paper, I tried to explain in everyday terms how valid it is and what it means. And so, in that investigation, I came to the conclusion that this is understandable by many, many people. And if we got the word out, that might help shift the view on the alarmism of carbon dioxide induced global warming.
“Right in the middle of these curves, you can see a gap in spectrum. The gap is caused by CO2 absorbing radiation that would otherwise cool the Earth. If you double the amount of CO2, you don’t double the size of that gap. You just go from the black curve to the red curve, and you can barely see the difference. The gap hardly changes.”]
AW: Is it your position that the push for net zero stems from political exaggeration, followed by media amplification and not empirical science? Is that a fair assessment?
RB: I think that’s a fair assessment. And Margaret Thatcher is one person that I like to quote on that. Many people don’t realize that Margaret Thatcher was trained in Oxford as a chemist, as a research chemist. So, she was one of the big people behind pushing for the Paris Agreement. And she wanted to reduce CO2 emissions because she was concerned. But she knew how the scientific method worked because she was trained in it. And when she saw the first reports come out, she changed her mind.
And she said, kind of paraphrasing Hamlet, that there isn’t method in their madness, there is actually madness in their method. And what Margaret Thatcher pointed out was that the desire to control CO2 emissions worldwide is something that would require a worldwide organization to organize and enforce. And so, she saw it in that perspective, that it was a grand multinational global socialist effort to control the economy.
She was not far off. But I do think that on the other end of the spectrum, capitalists have found a way to exploit this energy transition and make money that they would otherwise not be able to make.
AW: Regarding net zero, your compelling argument cites the work of two other CO2 coalition members, our chairman, Dr. William Happer, and Dr. William Don Wingarden. Their work, as you mentioned, initially a series of academic papers by physicists for physicists, focuses on measuring thermal radiation transfer and had a truly profound effect because it undermines net zero. For one, they use real observations, not models. Can you please explain the difference and why is it worth noting?
RB: The scientific method is a way to make sure that we’re not fooling ourselves, that we think we understand something that we don’t really understand. And it was one thing that another CO2 member, Dr. Clauser, pointed out in his talk to Korean physicist students a couple of years ago. You have to go into science with an open mind and an unbiased mind. And you have to report faithfully what you observe. And it’s the observations of physical reality that is the link to truth in science.
So, the computer models that the IPCC relies on aren’t based on observations that are linked to reality. They’re based on biases that the computer programmers put into their own models. And the brilliance behind the Van Wingarden and Happer study is that they found an existing public domain database that contained the observations needed to show that the effect of CO2 warming was very small and it’s diminishing rapidly. Another important thing to mention is that Dr. Happer and Dr. Van Wingarden’s math matches real world data from space. This follows the scientific method, observe, predict, test, repeat.
AW: What you’re saying, and especially in your book, that the scientific method is so important, do you feel it is being neglected and perhaps not followed at the university level today?
RB: Unfortunately, I think, Angela, it’s worse than that. It’s not followed, maybe not at the university level, but I think it’s the elementary, junior high, and high school level where it needs to be brought back into the curriculum and taught. It’s when 10- and 12-year-old students come home and they’re convinced that CO2 is something to be afraid of. That’s where the problem starts. And I think that’s where the problem has to be fixed.
AW: Regarding the paper by Dr. Happer and Dr. Van Wingarden, they didn’t just claim CO2 impact is small. They measured it, verified it, and anyone can check their data. They replaced alarmist models with hard, observable facts. How can anyone argue that?
RB: Angela, I don’t think anyone has argued with that. I think the mainstream media and the IPCC have simply ignored it. They haven’t addressed it. Coming out in the United States is a presidential directive that all science backed by the federal government must meet the scientific method standards. And I think that’s going to be a huge change worldwide when organizations, both federal and international organizations, when they are held to the standard of the scientific method, I think their karmic alarmism is just going to melt away.
AW: As a former teacher and also as a mother and now a GG, I was gratified to see your chapter Stop Scaring the Children. What compelled you to write this chapter?
RB: I’m a grandfather, and my grandkids are very concerned about CO2. And so, it takes me a long time to explain to them that there’s nothing to worry about. And unfortunately, in a more of a millennial generation, there’s been a lot of extreme anxiety among that generation about climate change. And unfortunately, there’s been some tragedies that have resulted because of that. So, I think it’s important to stop scaring the children. If you want to deal with a scientific methodology or a proposition you want to promote, bring it forward to trained people who can discuss it intelligently with you. Don’t bring it into the classroom of an elementary school and scare children with it.
AW: Ron, the second part of your book is Engineering 101 is the doomsday book for net zero. Why is that?
RB: Well, because there are all of the green energy sources and the green machines that run on them, and many of them just simply fail when you try to build them. And I think I quote in my book, it was James Michener who said scientists dream of great things, but engineers build them. Well, you can have great dreams. You can dream of creating a solar guidance star like Dr. Hapur did, but it’s up to the engineers to build them. And everyone is crossing their fingers until the thing actually works.
And a lot of the propositions that are out in the mainstream media, how we can avoid or reduce our CO2 emissions are either uneconomic or they hurt the environment more than they help, or they simply don’t work. And that’s my engineering perspective coming into play.
AW: I see. And that makes me think of models, climate models. For example, you can create the model, but from an engineering standpoint, and with regard to net zero, is it impossible to come up with the conclusions that they do with models?
RB: In the case of climate, yes, it is. Now in engineering we use models for a number of things, because we have verified that the equations we’ve put into the model are correct, and they can predict what might happen. And you can see that in flight simulators.
In my own background, reservoir engineering models are based on the Darcy equation, and they’re quite good at predicting what will happen, because those equations stand up to the scientific method. And so, when your equations can predict what happens in the future, and it actually happens, then you verified the equation, then you verified the model. The IPCC models, they have equations in there and assumptions that simply aren’t verified, and they don’t predict accurately.
One thing that came out of the Van Wintergaarden and Happer paper, and other papers that are associated with members of the CO2, is that the CO2 warming from the IPCC models has to be at least doubled, and some would claim quadrupled, in order to get the alarmist levels of warming that they predict. And so that factor of two or four just thrown in to cause more anxiety, that’s not science, that’s scare tactics. And it’s important to point out that the IPCC is a government organization, it’s not a science organization.
AW: And the other thing is, they say carbon dioxide is the control knob for temperature, and that’s not the case, correct?
RB: You’re absolutely correct. We run on an energy balance, and that energy balance coming from the sun has part to do with the climate on earth. And as Gregory Wrightstone pointed out in his book, 90% of the global warming effect of CO2 is already behind us. So, the next 10% is going to be minimal. So, the next 10% is not the control knob of temperature on earth. Now, if there was no CO2 on earth, as there is no CO2 on the moon, the first amounts of CO2 added would have a dramatic effect on temperature. But that’s way, way behind us.
AW: Well, in concluding our conversation, I would like to let our viewers and listeners know that they can get your new book, Sunset on Net Zero, A Heretic’s Guide to the Futile CO2 Target at Amazon. Ron, there are many excellent points in your book we didn’t get to. I hope you will join us again soon on Climate Debrief. I’d love to, Angela. Thank you very much.
In the latest example of the scare tactics favored by climate change alarmists, it was announced last month that 2025 “was the third-warmest in modern history, according to Copernicus, the European Union’s climate change monitoring service,” as reported by NBC News.
In the latest example of the scare tactics favored by climate change alarmists, it was announced last month that 2025 “was the third- warmest in modern history, according to Copernicus, the European Union’s climate change monitoring service,” as reported by NBC News.
The story added, “The conclusion came as no surprise: The past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, according to Copernicus data. In 2025, the average global temperature was about 1.47 degrees Celsius (2.65 Fahrenheit) higher than from 1850 to 1900 — the period scientists use as a reference point, since it precedes the industrial era in which massive amounts of carbon pollution have been pumped into the atmosphere.”
As usual, our most affordable and reliable fuel sources were blamed.
“The primary reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, dominated by the burning of fossil fuels,” according to Samantha Burgess, the “strategic lead on climate” for the European Centre for Medium- Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus, according to the report.
Sometimes it feels like the climate change crusaders are oblivious to everything going on around them. For decades, they’ve been resorting to the same tired strategies to convince us that doom and gloom are just around the corner if we don’t change our ways. What they ignore is that their tactics aren’t working – more people than ever are tuning them out.
Americans in particular have grown wise to the predictions that don’t come true and the demands that don’t make sense. In fact, so badly has science become blatantly politicized that the number of people who have a great amount of trust in science keeps shrinking.
That fact was backed up by a recent Pew Research Center report that found that “Americans’ confidence in scientists remains lower than it was prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.” To many of us, it is now obvious that the inconsistent guidance on Covid and many pandemic edicts that were later found to be ineffective and even misleading demonstrated that science was not above being overtly politicized.
While the Pew study noted a Democrat-Republican disparagement regarding trust in science (Democrats trust it more, Republicans less), only 28 percent of all U.S. adults said they have “a great deal” of confidence in scientists “to act in the public’s best interest.”
I recently noted the welcome admission by manmade climate change believer Noah Kauffman, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, who, writing for The Atlantic, said flatly that “the full effects of climate change are unknowable, and a more constructive public discussion about climate policy will require getting more comfortable with that.” Whether in regard to vaccines, dietary guidelines or climate change, in recent years science has too often found itself at the center of partisan political debates and lost the trust of many Americans by appearing to support certain causes over others based on ideology rather than pure scientific data.
But we can’t afford to let that happen when it comes to making energy decisions. Why? Because no one can deny that affordable energy is the key to economic prosperity for American households and businesses.
When energy costs are low, manufacturers can produce goods at a lower cost, resulting in more competitive products domestically and internationally.
When fuel is affordable – whether diesel, gasoline or jet fuel – all modes of transportation, including airlines, trucking and shipping companies, can charge less, resulting in savings for all consumers.
Heating, cooling and transportation costs represent the most significant share of most families’ budgets. When energy costs are reasonable, household spending on other goods and services increases, not only helping individual families but contributing to overall economic growth.
In addition to everything else, there is real damage caused by manipulating science in a way that puts climate over people. It puts people in danger and keeps them in poverty – and ultimately only a privileged few will benefit.
Consider the billions the Biden Administration doled out to political cronies on its way out the door in the name of the climate cause. Consider also the Obama Administration giving a half billion dollars to Solyndra, the solar panel company accused of engaging in “a pattern of false and misleading assertions,” only to see it go bust – all at the expense of hardworking, taxpaying Americans.
That’s why it’s important to remove the manipulation of the energy sector from the politicization that has infiltrated the scientific community. Americans should not be pawns in the effort to frighten our people or our government into abandoning our most reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy sources.
There’s a better way. By passing the Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Act (ARC-ES), Congress can codify into law the guarantee that Americans will always have access to low-cost energy, regardless of the effort of progressive political groups to weaponize science in order to funnel tax dollars to prop up “alternatives.”
Anyone can manipulate data to come up with horrifying “what if” scenarios designed to frighten or intimidate people into making their preferred choices. That’s not how to make public policy. We need to pass ARC-ES to move past the days when the science that fewer people trust is manipulated to justify changes in energy policy that few people want. When it comes to science, let’s trade the politics of panic for the integrity of facts.
Gary Abernathy is a longtime newspaper editor, reporter and columnist. He was a contributing columnist for the Washington Post from 2017-2023 and a frequent guest analyst across numerous media platforms. He is a contributing opinion columnist for The Empowerment Alliance, which advocates for realistic approaches to energy consumption and environmental conservation.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
Sixteen small, terraced houses sitting on a floodplain next to fast-flowing water in one of the rainiest parts of Britain are to be bought and demolished because the cost of protecting them from regular flooding far outweighs the value of the properties. A few years ago, this item would not warrant national attention. But in an era where mass climate panic is stoked by mainstream media, the story is too good to pass.
Sixteen small, terraced houses sitting on a floodplain next to fast-flowing water in one of the rainiest parts of Britain are to be bought and demolished because the cost of protecting them from regular flooding far outweighs the value of the properties. A few years ago, this item would not warrant national attention. But in an era where mass climate panic is stoked by mainstream media, the story is too good to pass. According to the desperate Guardian, residents can no longer be protected from flooding “caused by the climate crisis”. The local council chips in with the claim that it is believed to be the first time a local authority has bought a large number of houses due to flooding caused by the “climate emergency”.
The row of houses is in the Welsh Clydach Valley in the former mining village of Ynysybwl (pronounced ‘an-is-abull’). The houses are to be bought for around £2.5 million in total since this a much cheaper option than the £9 million needed to raise a defensive wall in the area known as Nant Clydach. The Guardian reports “relief and delight” among the residents at the buyout scheme – hardly surprising since they are sitting on a well-documented floodplain subject to considerable natural inundation.
Two recent storms have caused bad flooding, but records from Natural Resources Wales indicate periodic inundation in the “very constrained section of the valley” stretching back to 1955.
Rainfall appears to have increased across Wales in recent years, but the amounts involved are unlikely to be noticed by the already sodden Welsh.
As the graph above shows, rainfall is cyclical in the country, but any gently rising trend started before the Guardian went into full bedwetting mode about the climate and the need for the Net Zero fantasy. Individual years of extra heavy rainfall can be seen throughout the record. Periods of substantial rainfall downturn, such as that seen during Victorian times, can be attributed to natural variation, but these days that explanation is ignored when rainfall is making small gains and political needs are paramount. It need hardly be pointed out that there is not a scintilla of solid proof that humans using hydrocarbons are primarily responsible for small cyclical changes in rainfall in one small, rain-prone, coastal country in the northern hemisphere.
It’s winter in the UK so the climate botherers are giving ‘heat’ a rest and turning their attention to pluvial pickings. In its story on the Ynysybwl homes, the Guardian also noted that western Britain has recently been battered by repeated pulses of heavy rain and strong winds. It is claimed that this has led some politicians and “experts” to warn that more homes “will have to be abandoned because of the climate breakdown”.
Left-wing author and former editor of the Observer Will Hutton had this take on a rainy start to 2026.
It doesn’t get dumber than this. A rainy month turned into a Right-wing media conspiracy and the obvious suggestion that we should ban hydrocarbons. To stop Will getting wet, society needs to divest itself of hydrocarbon use with all the devastating consequences from inevitable societal and economic collapse. Crop yields will halve without hydrocarbon-produced fertilisers and hunger will stalk the land – and all because Will can’t adapt to the seasonal British weather and provide himself with decent walking shoes and a good umbrella.
Around four decades of relentless invented climate catastrophising and the demonising of trace atmospheric gases have pushed many countries to the brink of a Net Zero calamity. Many of the scares have been effectively debunked – coral growth at recent record levels on the Great Barrier Reef, Arctic sea ice extent paused for 20 years and, recently, growing numbers of polar bears getting fatter on Svalbard – but the search for misinformation and lies about the complexities of climate and the atmosphere continues. Almost all of this is orchestrated by political forces seeking to capture the commanding heights of the economy by controlling the vital resource of hydrocarbons. Needless to say, Left-wing media such as the Guardian and the BBC are at the forefront of producing agitprop that is promoted as science and climate reporting.
Demonising bad weather without any reference to past data trends is incoherent stupidity on stilts. Flood risk is right up there in the Jim Dale word-salad playbook. Given how much rain also falls in neighbouring England, the common practice of building on floodplains and the declining state of protection measures (often driven by environmental lobbying), it is surprising how few properties are flooded each year.
There are over 26 million dwellings in the country, but according to the Environment Agency, only 5,000 properties have been flooded on average every year since the turn of the century. Over this period, no trend out of the ordinary can be discerned.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.
On January 7, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from 66 international organizations deemed “redundant, poorly managed, unnecessary, costly, ineffective,” or instruments of America’s adversaries. Among them are various United Nations agencies and, most significantly, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the backbone of global climate governance.
On January 7, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from 66 international organizations deemed “redundant, poorly managed, unnecessary, costly, ineffective,” or instruments of America’s adversaries. Among them are various United Nations agencies and, most significantly, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the backbone of global climate governance.
During his first term, President Trump removed the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, using its withdrawal clause. But a newly elected President Joe Biden promptly returned the nation to the agreement in 2021, making it a central gesture of his climate diplomacy. The episode exposed the fragility of international climate policy: A simple change in administration could send the U.S. in or out of the agreement, rendering global climate commitments mere extensions of domestic, partisan politics.
This time, however, there is a degree of permanence to the change. By targeting the UNFCCC itself, the Trump Administration has dismantled the legal framework that made possible reversal by a simple executive decree.
Adopted under the 1992 Convention, the Paris Agreement is built on the institutional architecture of the UNFCCC, whose bodies provide necessary support. These include the Conference of the Parties, the secretariat, and a system for financial contributions.
Paragraph 3 of Article 28 of the Paris Agreement reads as follows: “Any Party that withdraws from the Convention shall be considered as also having withdrawn from this Agreement.” By leaving the Framework Convention, Washington severs the link that allowed Biden’s reentry into the Paris Agreement. Trump’s withdrawal is structural, not tactical.
The key precedent insulating Trump from a Supreme Court challenge is Goldwater v. Carter, in which the high court in 1979 declined to review President Carter’s unilateral termination of a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, effectively strengthening executive authority over withdrawals.
In practice, a president, therefore, can withdraw from a treaty without a clear judicial avenue to stop him. The Trump Administration sits in a legally comfortable position: Opponents have no leverage to undo the move and seeking a new Supreme Court ruling risks establishing further executive power over treaty termination.
Democrats are paying the price for designing Paris to avoid Senate ratification. Knowing they lacked a two-thirds majority, the Obama administration insisted on voluntary, non-binding contributions and targets, which ensured Paris would rest on a reversible presidential signature rather than durable treaty law.
The Trump Administration has fully absorbed these lessons. During his first term, Trump withdrew only from the Paris Agreement, leaving the UNFCCC intact and allowing his successor to rejoin easily. This time, Trump’s action is far more radical: By targeting the Framework Convention itself, Trump deprives future presidents of convenient diplomatic back‑and‑forth. Politically, the message is clear: Washington increasingly views climate diplomacy as an instrument of external constraint, beneficial to America’s strategic competitors, a burden on U.S. industrial competitiveness and costly.
Formally, the U.S. could rejoin the UNFCCC, but politically it would now require a level of consensus that no longer exists. Approved in 1992 with faith in a painless energy transition, the Convention today confronts economic and geopolitical realities that expose prior illusions and make revival unlikely any time soon.
What are climate true believers in the EU supposed to do now?
One question rarely voiced publicly in Brussels, Strasbourg or Berlin:
How long will the European Union persist in a climate strategy that no longer meaningfully binds either the United States or emerging nations beyond benevolent declarations?
The EU continues to lock itself into ever more ambitious targets (90% CO2 reduction by 2040 compared to 1990), while eroding its industrial base, deepening its dependence on China, and widening the gap between rhetoric and the reality of global emissions.
Instead of ritual denunciations of Trump, European leaders should ask this question: If the world’s leading economic and military power no longer wants to be trapped in a U.N.‑ led climate architecture, isn’t it time for the EU to reassess its own commitments with clear eyes?
The wrong answer will leave Europe discovering too late that it has sacrificed its prosperity and strategic autonomy to a climate lunacy abandoned by its closest – and most consequential – allies.
Originally published in National Review on February 7, 2026.
Dr. Samuele Furfari is a professor of energy geopolitics in Brussels and London, a former senior official with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and a member of the CO2 Coalition. He is author of the paper, “Energy Addition, Not Transition,” and 18 books, including “Energy Insecurity: The organised destruction of the EU’s competitiveness.”
What’s New!
The CO2 Coalition has released its new episode of the Climate DebriefPodcast featuring Wally Manheimer. Watch the full video here!
“Heads I win, tails you lose” is usually recognized as a rhetorical trick. In climate science, it has matured into a methodological principle. Observations are no longer allowed to contradict theory; they merely reveal which auxiliary explanation must be activated. Aerosols cool when cooling is needed, disappear when warming needs help, and reappear when projections drift off course. A recent paper on Chinese sulfur emissions offers a remarkably clear example of how this works in practice.
“Heads I win, tails you lose” is usually recognized as a rhetorical trick. In climate science, it has matured into a methodological principle.
Observations are no longer allowed to contradict theory; they merely reveal which auxiliary explanation must be activated.
Aerosols cool when cooling is needed, disappear when warming needs help, and reappear when projections drift off course. A recent paper on Chinese sulfur emissions offers a remarkably clear example of how this works in practice.
The conclusion is reassuringly familiar: cleaner air reduces cooling aerosols, allowing warming to emerge more clearly. Models reproduce this effect. Warming follows. Confidence increases.
Abstract
Anthropogenic emissions over China have recently declined due to environmental actions.
This work estimates the sensitivity of sulfate aerosol () concentration to the amount of emissions reduction over China from 2010 to 2020 using an Earth system model with two different aerosol representations.
We find that a larger rate of emissions decline over 2010–2020 from an updated Chinese emission inventory leads to improvement in modeled and concentrations when evaluated with targeted airborne observations from the Asian summer monsoon region from the 2022 Asian summer monsoon Chemical and Climate Impact Project.
Updated Chinese emissions reduce concentration by >20% at 200 hPa over the North Pacific, and by >7% at 100 hPa throughout the tropics.
These reductions result in an increase to global net instantaneous radiative forcing of 0.10–0.15 W by 2020, with regional effects up to 6 times greater.
Plain Language Summary
Recent environmental policies in China have reduced emissions of various chemical species. This study uses recent chemical observations from research aircraft to evaluate how global climate model simulations represent these recent Chinese emissions trends.
We find that configuring a model with a larger emission decline in China over the 2010–2020 period improves simulated concentrations of chemical species compared to observations.
Model simulations using different Chinese emissions are compared to estimate how much global climate is impacted by the recent emissions reductions. The impacts of emissions differences on aerosols have a considerable effect on Earth’s radiation budget, which must be accounted for in future research including model intercomparison efforts.
The authors summarize the headline result succinctly:
“These SO₄ reductions result in an increase to global net instantaneous radiative forcing of ∼0.10–0.15 W m⁻² by 2020, with regional effects up to ∼6 times greater.”
That number is then framed as potentially important for explaining recent observed temperature increases. Aerosol reductions, we are told, may help reconcile models with reality. The implication is polite but unmistakable: the theory was right; the atmosphere was merely getting in the way.
This is the “heads I win” side of the coin.
The “tails you lose” side appears earlier, embedded in the evaluation section, where the authors compare their simulations to direct airborne measurements from the Asian Summer Monsoon Chemical and Climate Impact Project (ACCLIP). Here, the tone shifts from confidence to candor.
Discussing upper-tropospheric sulfate concentrations, the paper notes:
“Mean modeled UT SO₄ concentration for the MAM4-MEIC simulation is a factor of ∼2.2 higher than observations, and the CARMA-MEIC simulation is a factor of ∼3.7 higher.”
This is a structural bias. The models produce two to four times more sulfate aerosol than is observed in the very region used for evaluation.
To their credit, the authors attempt to diagnose the problem. They run sensitivity experiments. They adjust wet removal efficiencies, convective depth, aerosol activation properties, and even vertical resolution. The results are… underwhelming.
As the paper states plainly:
“Changes to SO₄ in these experiments were relatively small compared to the existing biases with observations.”
In other words, the problem stubbornly refuses to go away.
At this point, a skeptic might reasonably expect the analysis to slow down. If aerosol concentrations are significantly overestimated, then their cooling effect is also overestimated, and any warming attributed to their removal becomes correspondingly uncertain. One might expect strong caution in translating these results into climate-relevant conclusions.
Instead, the paper proceeds with admirable composure.
After acknowledging the bias, the authors reassure the reader:
“The model high bias in ASM UTLS SO₄ presented herein is not expected to have a significant quantitative impact on our global IRF estimates between the emissions scenarios.”
And just like that, the difficulty is declared immaterial.
This is the critical maneuver. Aerosols are allowed to be deeply uncertain when they complicate matters, but suddenly well-behaved when they are needed to support a warming explanation. Overestimated concentrations do not undermine the forcing calculation; they are politely shown to the door.
The analysis then moves on to radiative forcing, carefully defined as instantaneous. Sea surface temperatures are fixed. The atmosphere is nudged toward reanalysis. Rapid adjustments and feedbacks are minimized by design.
The authors explain:
“The calculated ToA shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation changes herein are analogous to ‘instantaneous’ RF… which minimizes rapid atmospheric adjustments and feedbacks.”
This produces a clean number, free from messy responses by the real climate system. It is precise, controlled, and safely insulated from the possibility that something unexpected might happen.
The resulting forcing is then compared with other model-based estimates and found to be “broadly consistent.” This agreement is presented as reassuring.
Yet all of the cited estimates come from the same modeling ecosystem, using similar assumptions about aerosol physics, cloud interactions, and transport processes. Agreement within a closed loop is not independent confirmation; it is internal consistency. The system is congratulating itself for speaking with one voice.
An especially revealing moment comes in the discussion of the Asian Tropopause Aerosol Layer (ATAL). The paper notes that sulfate accounts for only about 30% of this layer, meaning that a roughly 10% reduction in sulfate corresponds to only about a 3% reduction in total aerosol burden.
The authors describe this as:
“a minor overall impact (∼3%) of Chinese SO₂ emissions reduction amount on total ATAL aerosol burden.”
Minor overall impact—yet still sufficient to generate a globally relevant radiative forcing signal. Small where inconvenient, large where useful. Aerosols, once again, prove remarkably adaptable.
The conclusion section completes the narrative arc. The findings are said to be important for improving Earth system models, reproducing recent surface temperature increases, and even informing assessments of stratospheric aerosol injection as a potential intervention strategy.
The paper observes:
“Estimated global and regional radiation changes given herein are likely important for more precisely reproducing recently observed surface temperature increases in ESMs.”
Which is to say: if the models and observations disagree, the models are not wrong—they are merely awaiting better aerosol accounting.
There is a quiet irony here. For years, aerosols have been described as dangerously masking greenhouse warming. Now, their removal is invoked to explain why warming appears to be accelerating. And should warming ever slow again, aerosols—or internal variability—will no doubt be ready to assist.
The paper is careful, technical, and explicit about its limitations.
The problem lies not with what is admitted, but with how those admissions are treated.
Biases are acknowledged. Uncertainties are cataloged. Then conclusions proceed as though neither poses a serious obstacle.
This is what “heads I win, tails you lose” looks like in a scientific framework. There is no observational outcome that forces a reconsideration of the underlying assumptions. Warming confirms the theory. Too much warming confirms aerosol masking. Too little warming confirms variability.
Aerosols can cool, warm, hide, reveal, or offset—whatever the moment requires.
It’s not even mid-February, and Germany’s gas storage buffer is already down to 25.5% full and faces rationing.
LNG Supply Blocked By Sea Ice
German authorities hope to avert a supply shortage by importing gas from the Netherlands and Norway, and shipments of LNG. However, according to Blackout News, the LNG terminal on the island of Rügen is currently out of operation due to a thick layer of ice in the Prorer Wiek and the port of Mukran. Because the shipping channel is no longer safe to navigate, LNG tankers are unable to enter or leave the terminal.
The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) reports that wind is pushing the ice together, narrowing the channels. Additionally, navigation buoys have been displaced or pushed under the ice, making safe passage nearly impossible for large tankers.
Spiegelsberger points out that gas storage levels are already very low (approx. 25.5% as of February 10) and, with a daily withdrawal rate of about 0.7% per day, they are rapidly approaching the critical limit of 20%. Below this mark, the pressure in the storage facilities drops so significantly that sufficient withdrawal becomes technically difficult, which can lead to a gas shortage, especially during cold snaps.
Consequence Of Coal, Nuclear Phaseout
Another central problem is that since the shutdown of nuclear power plants, Germany has had to use significantly more gas for electricity generation, thus diverting large amounts of gas away from the heating and industrial markets, emptying storage facilities faster than in previous years.
Germany’s energy woes were compounded by the country’s move away from coal and nuclear power as part as its transition to green energies. According to Spiegelsperger, “We have switched from nuclear and coal now mainly to gas; every day we produce an average of between 15 and 20 GW with gas-fired power plants, which naturally causes the problem that we are now in this—perhaps soon to be—gas shortage situation…”
Merz Bans Gas Debate!
According to the YouTube channel by Alexander Raue, the situation in Germany is so dismal that Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reportedly issued an official ban on debating the current gas crisis until the end of March in order to avoid negatively affecting the ongoing election campaigns.
“My way of dealing with doom-mongers is to let the person talk for a while and then I ask, gently: “Does feeling this way make you more effective?” – Amory Lovins
“My way of dealing with doom-mongers is to let the person talk for a while and then I ask, gently: “Does feeling this way make you more effective?” – Amory Lovins
Mark Trexler, “Pushing Climate Boulders Uphill Since the 1980s,” posted on social media:
Our biggest climate risk failure hasn’t been inadequate technology or funding. It’s been our reliance for 40 years on predictable models in a chaotic climate system!
Welcome to Deep Ecology, the belief that Nature is optimal and fragile and any human perturbation is bad, even catastrophic. Trexler then lists his examples:
Back in 1987, Wallace Broecker warned in Nature about “unpleasant surprises in the greenhouse” – arguing that Earth’s climate wasn’t a gentle dial, but a roulette wheel capable of sudden, dramatic shifts. That was almost 40 years ago. He hasn’t been alone in raising this concern, as this curated list of 18 reports from 1987 to 2024 makes clear:
– 1987 Broecker_Unpleasant surprises in the greenhouse? – 2007 Campbell_The Age of Consequences – The Foreign Policy Implications – 2008 PIRC Climate Safety Report – In case of emergency – 2008 Spratt_Climate Code Red The Case for a Sustainability Emergency – 2011 Mabey_Degrees of Risk — Defining a Risk Management Framework for Climate Security – 2017 Dunlop_Disaster Alley Climate Change Conflict and Risk – 2018 Spratt_What Lies Beneath – The Understatement of Existential Climate Risk – 2020 Spratt_Fatal Calculations – How Economics Has Underestimated Climate Damage – 2021 Backus_Climate Risk and Response Too much and too little – 2021 CCAG_Extreme Events in the Arctic and Beyond A Global State of Emergency – 2021 CCAG_The Final Warning Bell – 2021 Spratt_Degrees of Risk: Can the banking system survive climate change – 2023 Trust_The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios – 2023 University of Exeter_No Time to Lose New Scenario Narratives for Action on Climate Change – 2024 Spratt_Collision Course_3-Degrees of Warming and Humanity’s Future – 2024 Stainforth_Predicting Our Climate Future: What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and What We Can’t Know – 2024 Trust_Climate Scorpion – The sting is in the tail
“It’s an impressive and alarming list,” Trexler continues,
𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝘁? 𝗔 𝗹𝗼𝘁𝗅 You can read the reports. You can read a summary of each report! You can listen to a podcast version of each report! You can read a “story” or listen to a podcast based on all 18 reports! Whatever is most valuable to you, and all in our “𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝗯𝗼𝘅” knowledge solution. Link below in the comments.
Does this pattern of underestimated risk change how you view climate action, policy, or planning? If not, what would? For more curated climate content, please like, comment on, or repost! LinkedIn pushes content you interact with. Follow me on LinkedIn: Mark Trexler
Can you compare these alarming reports with the litany of failure of doomist predictions?
No response.
I tried again sometime later in response to Trexler’s adulation for “Wallace Broeker’s seminal paper in Nature” depicting the human influence on climate as playing “climate routlette.”
And [Wallace Broeker] and so many other alleged Malthusian experts have been proven wrong decade after decade. Again, check out the much more extensive list at WUWT, the world’s most viewed website.
The list compiled at WUWT, the world’s most viewed website, is a monument to exaggeration and expert failure (a term popularized by Roger Koppl in his book by the same title). Once again, the realists are beating the alarmists on climate change, but as has been the case with other issues related to human population on a ‘finite’ earth. Julian Simon lives!
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