ClimateFran

Adaptation is millions of decentralized decisions: where people live/work, what they buy, what they build, what they insure. Policy that improves incentives/info can move those margins at scale.

Great new Science article from my colleague Delavane Diaz and others: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The National Science Foundation’s entire budget is $10 billion.

Coasean bargaining wins again?

Classic externality and collective action problem

Amazing how much we knew about climate change back in 1965. And to realize this was clearly communicated to the highest levels of government when *my parents* were still teenagers.

Not a lawyer, but I guess it depends how cynical you are about the supreme court? A cynic would say no impact since most justices are just looking to roll back climate action. If you care about the argument that EPA's authority depends on congressional intent though, then this seems pretty relevant

This cool paper by @naomioreskes.bsky.social lays out just how much was known about climate change by 1970 when the Clean Air Act was passed
www.ecologylawquarterly.org/print/climat...

The Supreme Court says Congress needs to speak explicitly when it intends agencies to regulate on major economic issues. Seems pretty clear what was intended here.

Things I learned today - language in the Clean Air Act explicitly defines "air pollutant" to include anything with adverse effects on weather and climate
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

Geology is always cool

“Our transition to EVs is aimed at ensuring our energy sovereignty,” said Ethiopia’s state minister for transport and logistics. “As a net importer of fuel, we are affected by global supply and price fluctuations. In contrast, EVs use electricity, which we produce locally and can price ourselves.”

The map below displays county-level estimates of inflation-adjusted annual direct damages from natural disasters across the United States, based on a methodology that was developed by New York Fed economists and applied to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Events Database. Users can filter the data by disaster type and focus on states and counties of interest. Full prior-year data are released in August, with revisions to the dataset posted in February. See the Overview and FAQ tabs for more information.

NY Fed updates map of U.S. for losses from natural disaters, data covers 2024. www.newyorkfed.org/research/pol...

Virtual Seminar on Climate Economics The Virtual Seminar on Climate Economics is open to those interested in academic research on the economic implications of climate-related issues.

New series of the Virtual Seminar on Climate Economics begins this Thursday at 8am Pacific Time. A great lineup of speakers for the spring series. Register here for the zoom link:
cepr.org/events/event...

There is a private catastrophe modeling industry supporting insurance pricing, but these rest on a foundation of models and data that were developed by public institutions such as NCAR

NCAR and the climate and weather services it provides are a classic example of a public good. These broadly support other sectors of the economy and will not be provided efficiently by the private sector. Critical case in point - insurance pricing

Informative resource on post-LA fires housing instability.

~70% of respondents (total N=2,443) still in temporary housing in December '25.

Among those relying on property insurance to pay for temporary housing, 22% in Pacific Palisades reported they've "already ran out" of displacement coverage.

NEW ANALYSIS: China's CO2 has now been 'flat or falling' for 21 months

* Down in 2025
* Still below Mar 2024
* Clean energy wave a key factor

If this is China's peak (TBC) it's the climate story of the century so far…

www.carbonbrief.org/...

This is so egregious given the Administration has literally resorted to NOT COUNTING THE BENEFITS of GHG emissions reduction in order try and justify their repeal of climate regulations on cost-benefit grounds.
Thanks @washingtonpost.com for this sloppy and misleading editorial.

Today we’re launching Open Climate Risk, a fully open option for U.S. building-level climate risk data. It’s unique because it allows you to see not only risk scores, starting with wildfire, but also the complete underlying dataset, methods, and codebase. carbonplan.org/research/cli...

"The grid is decarbonizing" is not the same as "everyone benefits."

New EPRI analysis connects nodal power system modeling with community vulnerability data to track distributional air quality impacts. The who is the point.

Hi Neighbor! Also @sidersadapts.bsky.social @envpolicycenter.bsky.social @andrewdessler.com

Fascinating - COVID 19 lockdowns reduced NOx emissions (less car and plane traffic), limiting OH formation and slowing the rate of CH4 removal. This, plus elevated wetland emissions, accounts for the 2020-2022 methane spike.

Our paper “Inferring fine-grained migration patterns across the United States” is now out in @natcomms.nature.com! We released a new, highly granular migration dataset. 1/9

With cold outbreaks sweeping parts of the US, some have argued that climate change is to blame. But the proposed mechanism remains quite controversial in the scientific community, and the number of extreme cold events have been decreasing almost everywhere: www.theclimatebrink....

This infographic from The White House, titled "U.S. STEEL PRODUCTION INCREASES," uses a bar chart to compare total production in 2024 versus 2025, but it employs a heavily truncated y-axis to exaggerate the appearance of growth. The vertical axis begins at 80.2 million tonnes (Mt) rather than zero, which makes the 2025 green bar (representing approximately 81.8 Mt) appear roughly five times taller than the 2024 red bar (representing approximately 80.9 Mt). In reality, this indicates a modest increase of approximately 1.1%, though the visual presentation suggests a massive, multi-fold surge in production.

I'd like to report a y-axis crime…

Shifting-baselines in action
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Also, h/t xkcd: xkcd.com/1321/

Sounds like a fun afternoon

A Secret Panel to Question Climate Science Was Unlawful, Judge Rules

Bad science, bad economics AND illeagal
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/c...

How well can we quantify when 1.5 °C of global warming has been exceeded? Abstract. Parties to the 2015 Paris Agreement agreed to limit the long-term increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C and pursue efforts to keep temperatures below 1.5 °C relative to p...

New discussion paper just dropped that’s taken shall we say a little work to get this far … essd.copernicus.org/preprints/es... please be kind. Not on an at all sensitive topic in the slightest.

If/Then: Ignoring the Benefits of Air Pollution Regulations Will Lead to Worse Policy Decisions If the US Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t count the monetary benefits of regulations, then federal actions are likely to lead to worse policy outcomes for public health and welfare.

EPA's arguments for ignoring the benefits of air pollution regulation in a cost-benefit analysis of air pollution regulation don't hold up. Maybe obvious, but still bears repeating.
www.resources.org/common-resou...