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Trump Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms

By Maxine Joselow  and  Brad Plumer , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Trump administration will pay the French energy giant TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to abandon its plans to build wind farms off the East Coast, the Interior Department said on Monday at an energy conference in Houston. ...In exchange, TotalEnergies would invest that money in oil and gas projects in the United States, including a facility in Texas that would export liquefied natural gas to global markets. The company would also commit to producing more oil in the Gulf of Mexico and said it was developing some additional gas-burning power plants to meet rising electricity demand from data centers....  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas-trump-total.html . 

New Analysis by UC Berkeley Highlights Japan’s Port Decarbonization Leadership

By UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. Excerpt: BERKELEY, Calif.  A new study, “ An Analysis of Japan’s Carbon Neutral Port Initiative and Yokohama Port and Harbor Decarbonization Plan ,” ( download the Japanese version here ) from the University of California, Berkeley examines Japan's innovative approach to decarbonizing maritime ports. Japan’s Carbon Neutral Port (CNP) certification framework and the City of Yokohama’s port decarbonization initiatives represent serious and forward-looking efforts to address the complex challenge of maritime emissions reduction. The study comes as momentum builds for decarbonization of the international shipping industry,....  Full article at https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/news/recent-news/new-analysis-by-uc-berkeley-highlights-japans-port-decarbonization-leadership . 

China’s Clean Energy Push Has Made It Less Vulnerable to Energy Shocks, Including the Iran War

By Nicholas Kusnetz ,  Georgina Gustin , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: As countries scramble to secure oil, gas and fertilizer, China’s bets on clean energy and coal are cushioning its dependence on oil and gas imports. ...In an  essay in Foreign Policy  written with Jason Bordoff, the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy, Downs argued that while the war has exposed China’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, “it also underscores how deliberately Beijing has sought to prepare for a world in which energy security is inseparable from geopolitics—by electrifying its economy, securing domestic sources of energy, amassing stockpiles, and dominating clean technology supply chains.” Last year more than half of new cars sold in China were electric,  according to the energy think tank Ember , while the country is a leader in electrifying heavy-duty vehicles and high-speed rail, too. Meanwhile, a rapidly growing portion of its electricity is being genera...

Trump Administration Fires New Shot in Fight Over California Clean Car Rules

By Maxine Joselow  and  Lisa Friedman , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The Trump administration on Thursday filed  a new lawsuit  against California over its strict limits on planet-warming pollution from cars, arguing that the restrictions would unlawfully force a rapid transition to electric vehicles in the state. ...Across the country, 17 states representing more than a third of the American automobile market follow California’s lead on clean car standards. “Gavin Newsom is determined to continue pushing Democrats’ radical E.V. fantasy — even if doing so is illegal,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement.... Anthony Martinez, a spokesman for Governor Newsom, called the lawsuit “meritless.” “While the Trump administration surrenders the future of the auto industry to China, California will continue competing globally to win the clean vehicle market,” Mr. Martinez said, adding, “This lawsuit is meritless, and we’re not backing down from this fi...

Courts Reject Trump Wind War

By Nature's Voice Spring 2026 (Natural Resources Defense Council—NRDC).  Excerpt: It’s been one legal blow after another against the Trump administration’s war on wind energy. In December, a federal court ruled that the administration’s blanket ban on new wind projects is illegal. That was followed in quick succession by five separate court rulings preliminarily halting the administration’s attempt to stop construction on five multibillion-dollar wind projects off the East Coast. Says Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at NRDC: “The administration should use this string of court losses as a wake-up call and get out of the way of the expansion of renewable energy.”...  Source at https://issuu.com/nrdc/docs/nature_s_voice_spring_2026 (page 2).

Many heat-stressed tropical insects are reaching their limits

By Erik Stokstad , Science.  Excerpt: Insects living in the lowland tropics have evolved to deal with brutal heat. But many of them are close to their limit, according to a massive study that assessed the heat tolerance of hundreds of species. The findings, published today in  Nature , provide  an unprecedented view of what temperatures tropical insects can deal with —and reinforce concerns about the risk that climate change poses for insect biodiversity....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/many-heat-stressed-tropical-insects-are-reaching-their-limits . 

Antarctic Ice Sheet Has Lost a Connecticut-Sized Amount of Ice Over the Past 30 Years

By Grace van Deelen , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: A new study of  Antarctica  has found that since 1996, its ice sheet has lost 12,820 square kilometers (nearly 5,000 square miles) of ice—nearly enough to cover the state of Connecticut, or 10 cities the size of Greater Los Angeles. The study, published today in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ,  evaluated the retreat of the ice sheet’s grounding line over the past 30 years. A grounding line is the point at which continental ice (grounded on bedrock) meets a floating ice shelf, and as such serves as a good measure of the advance and retreat of ocean-terminating glaciers....  Full article at https://eos.org/research-and-developments/antarctic-ice-sheet-has-lost-a-connecticut-sized-amount-of-ice-over-the-past-30-years .