If the earth is warming, why are we still getting winter storms? Climate change is leading to shorter and warmer winters in North America, experts agree. But that doesn’t mean that winter storms will become a thing of the past. In fact, climate change is making storms more intense. As the Earth’s atmosphere warms, it’s able to collect and hold more moisture—which means more precipitation. “The atmosphere behaves a bit like a sponge, and that means that it can suck up more moisture when it's warmer, but also that when you wring the sponge out, more moisture can fall out of the sky in the form of precipitation, and in the winter, snowfall,” says Daniel Horton, associate professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern University. As a result, some areas are beginning to get more precipitation year-over-year. “Winter storms themselves are starting to produce a lot more extreme precipitation totals, freezing rain, sleet, even snowfall, in some of these areas,” says Jason Furtado, associate professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. “This year in particular, a lot of this snow is actually happening in places we don't think about it happening like New Orleans or on the Florida Gulf Coast.” As the Arctic warms, high pressure systems build in the region’s atmosphere, displacing cold fronts and causing them to move south, creating stronger storms. Though the phenomenon has been occurring for years, warming temperatures means these intrusions are occurring more frequently. “We start to get these big, large, high pressure systems that build across the Arctic, and that serves to actually displace and remove some of that cold air and start to surge it more into our latitudes,” says Furtado. Storms feed off of the temperature difference between the cold Arctic air and warmer lower latitudes. The result is two-fold, says Furtado: “Now we will have more energetic storms that are able to also hold more moisture from oceans because the atmosphere is slightly warmer.” Lakeside regions—like New York and Michigan—will also find themselves vulnerable to a phenomenon called “lake effect snow” as the regions see warmer temperatures. “Our lakes are warming, and they stay warm longer through the winter season,” says Horton. Because of that, they don’t ice over as much as they used to, and the warmer water evaporates into the passing cold fronts. “They have more of a capacity to release their moisture when the cold, Arctic air flows over them.” It’s just one example of how, around the United States, winters are no longer looking like they once did. “We've been used to a certain climate regime for the past fifty plus years,” says Furtado. “And we're going through this transition now where things are rapidly changing.”
President Donald Trump is known to drink many Diet Cokes, but one thing you’re not likely to ever see him using again is a paper straw. “We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump announced after signing an Executive Order on Feb. 10 that declared it U.S. policy to end the use of paper straws. “I’ve had [paper straws] many times, and on occasion, they break, they explode,” Trump said. “It’s a ridiculous situation.” Trump’s crusade against paper straws is nothing new. His 2020 presidential campaign branded them as “liberal” and sold nearly half a million dollars worth of Trump-branded plastic straws. Here’s what to know about the history of—and controversy over—plastic and paper straws. Why do we need straws at all? Humans have historically needed assisting tubes to drink—the earliest indications of straw use were found in an ancient Sumerian tomb dating back to 3,000 B.C. Straws also play a huge role for people with disabilities. The Center for Disability Rights says those with mobility and strength issues may have difficulty lifting glasses to their mouths, and others may need straws to ingest their medication. What’s wrong with plastic straws? Single-use plastics, which are not recyclable, have long been the bane of environmental and public health advocates. Some of the earliest campaigns specifically against plastic straws began in 2011, including nine-year-old Milo Cress’ Be Straw Free and Jackie Nuñez’s The Last Plastic Straw. But the anti-plastic straw movement really took off in 2015 after an eight-minute video from marine researchers showed a sea turtle whose nostril was blocked, prompting one of the researchers to have to use a pair of pliers to bloodily pull out the culprit: a plastic straw. The World Wildlife Fund has warned that straws—and other plastic waste—pose risks to animals if not properly disposed of, with many marine animals mistaking them for food. Plastic pollution has been estimated to kill 100,000 marine mammals yearly, according to the WWF. And nonprofit Ocean Conservancy says it has collected nearly 14 million plastic straws and stirrers on beaches and waterways globally over the last 35 years. Straws and other single-use plastic items can also disintegrate over time, shedding particles known as microplastics into our water and food, which studies say can cause serious health issues like cancers and respiratory disorders. In 2017, Entourage star Adrian Grenier’s foundation Lonely Whale launched the Strawless Ocean initiative, which invited the public and celebrities to commit to stopping the use of single-use plastic straws altogether. How did paper straws come about? The modern drinking straw was invented by American inventor Marvin C. Stone in 1888, and his patented version was actually made out of paper and wax. As plastic became increasingly cheaper to produce after World War II, the 1960s saw a plastic version produced en masse, according to the National Geographic, with variations such as jumbo and crazy plastic straws booming in the 1980s. The paper straw didn’t regain prominence until plastic straws were pushed aside for environmental concerns. In July 2018, Seattle became the first major U.S. city to enforce a ban on plastic straws in food service, offering compostable alternatives upon request. Months later, California signed into law a ban on full-service restaurants automatically giving customers plastic straws. Other U.S. cities and states like Oregon and Vermont followed suit with similar laws restricting plastic straw use. The private sector also pitched in. American Airlines and Alaska Airlines rolled out initiatives in 2018 to phase out plastic straw use, as did Disney and McDonald’s (though the latter admitted that the new paper ones weren’t recyclable). Starbucks removed plastic straws completely from their stores by 2020. Outside the U.S., other countries have also made progress in eliminating plastic straw use. In 2018, Vanuatu made history as the first country to ban plastic straws altogether. In July 2021, the European Union banned the sale of certain single-use plastics, including straws, in E.U. markets. China also enacted a plastics ban in 2021 that prohibited restaurants from providing single-use straws. In 2024, as President Joe Biden’s term drew to a close, his administration announced that the federal government—the world’s largest buyer of consumer goods—would phase out plastic straws and other single-use plastics from federal food services by 2027 and from all federal operations by 2035. The backlash against paper straws “They want to ban straws. Has anyone tried those paper straws? They’re not working too good,” Trump said at a 2020 campaign rally, in large part echoing public sentiment. Even liberals argued against paper straws as early as 2019, raising questions about their efficacy as well as whether they’re actually any better for the environment. A 2020 paper from researchers in Brazil found that plastic drinking straws have “better environmental performance” compared to paper and reusable alternatives, and a U.K. government study said paper straws have greater carbon dioxide emissions when they rot in landfills compared to plastic ones. And a 2023 study published in the journal Food Additives & Contaminants found that “forever chemicals”—also linked to a bevy of health issues—were found in higher amounts in paper straws compared to their plastic counterparts. Trump’s executive order The Trump Administration branded the campaign against plastic straws “irrational” and ordered a reversal of the Biden-era policies regarding their use by the federal government. It directed paper straws to be no longer procured and provided in agency buildings and a National Strategy to End the Use of Paper Straws to be devised within 45 days that would address the elimination of policies against plastic straws nationwide. The plastics industry has welcomed the order. “Straws are just the beginning,” said Plastics Industry Association President and CEO Matt Seaholm. “‘Back to Plastic’ is a movement we should all get behind. We appreciate President Trump’s leadership in recognizing the value of plastics and look forward to working with his Administration to advance our industry.”But environmentalists aren’t so happy. “Once again, President Trump is pretending to be a populist while siding with his Big Oil buddies over the public interest,” said Greenpeace USA’s senior plastics campaigner Lisa Ramsden in a statement. Trump’s move headed in the “wrong direction,” Christy Leavitt, U.S. plastics campaign director of non-profit conservation group Oceana, said in a similar statement. “Trump is announcing executive orders that are more about messaging than finding solutions.”
In his first weeks in office, President Donald Trump has sought to take a wrecking ball to climate and environmental policy. He has directed his administration to roll back a wide range of regulations and aims to undercut the agencies that enforce them by targeting staff. The moves, he claims, will free businesses of ballooning compliance costs and allow them to prosper. “Overregulation stops American entrepreneurship, crushes small business, reduces consumer choice, discourages innovation, and infringes on the liberties of American citizens,” reads a White House fact sheet explaining the deregulatory agenda. Some companies may celebrate, particularly smaller firms where compliance costs have an outsized influence on the bottomline. But the speed and scale of the effort to nix climate regulations also comes at a price—and not just for efforts to cut emissions. Businesses rely on stable policy regimes to invest and grow their business. And, right now, any company with even a tangential connection to climate and energy is feeling a good deal of uncertainty. Despite the real financial costs of all this uncertainty, most corporations are reluctant to speak up publicly even as they fret behind closed doors. Trump can always make things worse—going as far as to target specific companies that get in his way—and so executives are learning to stay quiet. But in regulatory filings, where companies are legally required to speak plainly about risks to their business, companies warn about the financial consequences from rapid climate policy shifts. The Ford Motor Company lists the back-and-forth on climate policy between administrations in a section on “legal and regulatory risks” that might materially affect their business. Bank of America alludes to the “divergent views of stakeholders” on climate chances and warns that “heightened legal and compliance risk” now comes from all sides as the firm works on climate. Dow, the chemical company, lists climate change among its business risks, including “changes in public sentiment and political leadership, including government incentives and tax credits to promote emission reductions.” After the election, ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods told Semafor that the U.S. needs a more consistent approach.“The polarization and political back-and-forth that we see in [the U.S.] is not good for the country, not good for society. It’s frankly not good for business,” he said. “What we need is more thoughtful, consistent regulation.” Even changes that many companies are upbeat about—think of faster permitting for energy infrastructure—come with significant risks. For one, it may be difficult to rapidly permit projects if the workforce responsible for doing so has been fired. But, perhaps more importantly in the long term, is the question of what will hold up in court. Much of what the Trump Administration does through a flurry of executive action will be contested, and the time it takes to see that play out has a cost as companies remain in limbo unsure how to deploy their funds. In the first week of the Trump presidency, I highlighted the complexities of his anti-climate push—most importantly that his moves will face off against the realities of the market. But it’s also true that in light of the urgency of climate change, even just gumming up the market can have a meaningful effect, slowing down the pace of the green transition.
If you were among the 68,500 fans in the stands to watch the National Football League’s (NFL) San Francisco 49ers host the Arizona Cardinals on Oct. 6, 2024, you could be forgiven for forgetting that football is a fall and winter sport. Temperatures at game time that day peaked at 98°F—hot enough that the 49ers swapped out their uniforms, switching from red jerseys and gold pants to red jerseys and white pants, to reflect more heat away. “Hopefully [that] helps a little,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan told ESPN before the game. The two teams got through the day without serious injury, but athletic exertion in extreme heat can be dangerous—even deadly. Players are at risk of heat exhaustion, characterized by symptoms including faintness, dizziness, fatigue, weak or rapid pulse, and low blood pressure; and heat stroke, with symptoms including high core body temperature, change in mental or emotional state, racing heart rate, rapid breathing, nausea, and headache. In extreme cases, excessive heat can lead to organ damage, heart failure, and death. The league’s Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles won’t face anything like that punishment during this Sunday’s Super Bowl, which will take place in New Orleans, where the forecast high for game day is 75°F. And, in any case, the game will be played in an indoor stadium. Either way, there is no escaping the fact that the world is steadily—and dangerously—heating up. This year was the first to see the planet register average temperatures 1.5°C (2.7°F) higher than pre-industrial levels, the benchmark established by the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, which seeks to limit future warming to well below 2°C in the 21st century, with a preferred target no higher than 1.5°C. The NFL might seem like an afterthought in an existential crisis like climate change, but the league is, all the same, feeling the pain. In a new survey conducted by the research and communications group Climate Central, analysts used open source data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to track the temperature trends in all 30 NFL cities during football’s September to December regular season, from 1970 to 2024. The result: over that time, temperatures have risen in every one of those cities by an average of 2.8°F. Las Vegas and Minneapolis warmed the most (5.1°F and 5°F respectively), and Los Angeles warmed the least at 0.4°F. Every city but L.A. experienced at least 1°F of warming. Those cities are, of course, getting especially hot in the summer, often subjecting players to dangerous conditions not only during training camp, which begins in July, but into the first month of the season too. “In some of these places it’s a minor concern,’” says Jen Brady, senior data analyst for Climate Central. “But in some of these southern cities we could have serious health issues playing in September. We’ve seen a pretty steady climb [in temperatures] everywhere.” No surprise, it’s those sun belt cities that are experiencing things especially acutely. Phoenix, home to the Cardinals, saw an increase of 4.4°F. The Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys are feeling 3.5°F and 3.3°F of warming respectively. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are getting a 3.2°F bump. New Orleans and their Saints register at 3.8°F. But some northern-tier cities, like Minneapolis, score high as well. Cleveland, home to the Browns, clocks in at 3.3°F. The Buffalo Bills are experiencing a 3.2°F increase, the Philadelphia Eagles 3.1°F, and the Green Bay Packers, in Wisconsin, are seeing 4.4°F of warming. Detroit’s Lions play in an indoor stadium, but outdoors, things have gotten 3.8°F hotter. “Upper Midwest cities are warming aggressively,” says Brady. “They are all seeing a lot of temperature increases in the winter.” Paradoxically, that can lead to more snow storms during games, like the blizzard that buried the Buffalo Bills’ stadium when they played the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 1, 2024. That, explains Brady, is because the Great Lakes aren’t freezing, leading to an increase in lake effect storms. Those are caused when the atmosphere picks up moisture from open water and then dumps it back on land in the form of snow. Some cities, for the moment, have been less affected by the warming trend. Sunny Jacksonville, where the Jaguars play, has seen only a 1.5°F increase, as has mid-Atlantic Baltimore, home to the Ravens. Washington, home to the Commanders, has nearly mirrored nearby Baltimore, with just a 1.6°F increase. Temperatures in New York, where the Jets and the Giants share a stadium, have risen just 2°F. In Kansas City, the Chiefs’ home, the increase is a comparatively modest 2.2°F. Climate Central tracks not just average rising temperatures, but extremely hot days, which are defined as days on which the thermometer hits or exceeds 91°F. Here, the findings have been troubling. Among 242 locations analyzed around the U.S., 172, or 71%, now experience at least one more week of extremely hot days than they did in the early 1970s. The 30 NFL cities exceed that, registering, on average, 14 more extremely hot days than in 1970. “Heat is the number one weather killer in the U.S. and that’s often overlooked,” says Brady. “It can do a lot of things to your body—to your heart and your lungs and your breathing.” All of this is just one more red flag that Earth’s climate is heading into new and perilous territory. “It’s definitely at a point at which you say, ‘OK, we’re getting to dangerous levels here,’” says Brady. “We’ve seen it with the hurricanes that have been so large and disastrous and with wildfires and high temperatures. It’s not a tipping point yet, but it’s a warning.”
In 1996, the New York-based civil rights organization known as UPROSE was struggling. Founded by Puerto Rican activists, the organization could tout a rich history of organizing amid the rapid change of the 1960s, but by the ‘90s it was small and underfunded. Then civil rights litigator Elizabeth Yeampierre took over. In a year engaging with members of the Brooklyn area that UPROSE serves, Yeampierre heard time and again about racial-justice issues that were deeply intertwined with sustainability: the siting of toxic industrial facilities in their backyards and the prevalence of lead paint in their homes. And so a revamped organization was born with a focus on civil rights through an environmental lens, a burgeoning area known as environmental justice. “It didn't start with me being an environmentalist,” says Yeampierre, 66. “We staff the community's priorities.” Since then, UPROSE has opposed the expansion of a highway that would pollute the local community, helped lead the push for legislation that would fund a revamp of abandoned toxic sites, and fought a developer’s plan to transform the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal into an office park out of step with the community—and won. The new plan will feature clean-energy jobs accessible to local residents. Yeampierre wants to see the approach to the new green industrial park replicated. “I hope people can see that something that has had a legacy of harm can become something that is not only incentivizing the local economy, hiring people, reducing emissions… but also addressing the future needs of our communities,” she says. “Cohesion is at the heart of everything that we do.” Yeampierre’s work in New York City, where she was born and raised, has given her a national platform. She chaired the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and works regularly with environmental-justice leaders across the country. But she keeps coming back to the need to root environmental-justice solutions in the communities where people live. “We speak different languages. We table at churches. We go to community festivals. We pass out literature. We have cultural events here,” she says. It’s a helpful reminder as the environmental-justice movement faces headwinds from the Trump Administration, which immediately began trying to roll back environmental initiatives. Yeampierre says it’s important not to ignore the significant challenges that will emerge from Washington over the next four years. “The harm is epic,” she says. Nonetheless, working directly with affected communities can still offer a path forward. “Our people have survived all kinds of things—our ancestors have, our parents have,” says Yeampierre, who is Puerto Rican and of African and Indigenous ancestry. “We're going to be the people we've always been: creative, resourceful, solution oriented—and we are not going to be fearful.”
With one announcement, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek shook up all of Wall Street and Silicon Valley’s conventional wisdom about the future of AI. It should also shake up the climate and energy world. For the last year, analysts have warned that the data centers needed for AI would drive up power demand and, by extension, emissions as utilities build out natural gas infrastructure to help meet demand. The DeepSeek announcement suggests that those assumptions may be wildly off. If the company’s claims are to be believed, AI may ultimately use less power and generate fewer emissions than anticipated. Still, don’t jump for joy just yet. To my mind, the biggest lesson for the climate world from DeepSeek isn’t that AI emissions may be less than anticipated. Instead, DeepSeek shows how little we truly know about what AI means for the future of global emissions. AI will shape the world’s decarbonization trajectory across sectors and geographies, disrupting the very basics of how we understand the future of climate change; the question now is whether we can harness that disruption for the better. “We're just scratching the surface,” says Jason Bordoff, who runs the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University about the implications of AI for emissions. “We're just at inning one of what AI is going to do, but I do have a lot of optimism.” Many in the climate world woke up to AI early last year. Over the course of a few months, power sector experts issued warnings that the U.S. isn’t prepared for the influx of electricity demand from AI as big technology companies raced to deploy data centers to scale their ambitions. A number of studies have found that data centers could account for nearly 10% of electricity demand in the U.S. by 2030, up from 4% in 2023. Many big tech companies have worked to scale clean electricity alongside their data centers—financing the build out of renewable energy and paying to open up dormant nuclear plants, among other things. But utilities have also turned to natural gas to help meet demand. Research released earlier this month by Rystad Energy, an energy research firm, shows that electric utilities in the U.S. have 17.5 GW of new natural gas capacity planned, equivalent to more than eight Hoover Dams, driven in large part by new data centers. All of this means an uptick in emissions and deep concern among climate advocates who worry that the buildout of electricity generation for AI is about to lock the U.S. into a high-carbon future. As concerning as this might be, the projections for short-term electricity demand growth might mask much more challenging risks that AI poses for efforts to tackle climate change. As AI drives new breakthroughs, it will change consumption patterns and economic behavior with the potential to increase emissions. Think of a retailer that uses AI to better tailor recommendations to a consumer, driving purchases (and emissions). Or consider an AI-powered autonomous vehicle that an owner leaves to roam the streets rather than paying for parking. At the most basic level, AI is bound to generate rapid productivity gains and rapid economic growth. That’s a good thing. But it’s also worth remembering that since the Industrial Revolution, rapid economic growth has driven a rise in emissions. More recently, some developed economies have seen a decoupling of growth from emissions, but that has required active effort from policymakers. To avoid an AI-driven surge in emissions may require an active effort this time, too. But AI isn’t all risk. Indeed, it’s very easy to imagine the upsides of AI far outweighing the downsides. Most obviously, as DeepSeek shows, there may be ways to reduce the emissions of AI with chip innovation and language model advances. As the technology improves, efficiencies will inevitably emerge. The data center buildout could also catalyze a much wider deployment of low-carbon energy. Many of the technology companies that are investing in AI have committed to eliminating their carbon footprints. Not only do they put clean electricity on the grid when they build a solar farm or restart a nuclear power plant, but they help pave the way for others. “Governments are starting to realize that if they're going to attract data centers, AI factories, and wider technology companies into their countries, they have to start removing the barriers to renewable energy,” says Mike Hayes, head of climate and decarbonization at KPMG. And then there are all the ways that AI might actually cut emissions. Researchers and experts group the potential benefits into two categories: incremental improvements and game changers. The incremental improvements could be manifold. Think of AI’s ability to better identify sites to locate renewable energy projects, thereby greatly increasing the productivity of renewable energy generation. AI can help track down methane leaks in gas infrastructure. And farmers can use AI to improve crop models, optimizing crop yield and minimizing pollutants. The list goes on and on. With a little consideration, you could probably identify a way to reduce emissions in every sector. It remains difficult to quantify how these incremental improvements all add up, but it’s not hard to imagine that emissions reductions thanks to these developments could easily outweigh even the most dramatic estimates of additional pollution. And then there are the game changers that could, in one blow, completely transform our ability to decarbonize. At the top of that list is nuclear fusion, a process that could generate abundant clean energy by combining atomic nuclei at extremely high temperatures. Already, start-ups are using AI to help optimize their fusion reactor designs and experiments. A fusion breakthrough, supported by AI technologies, could provide a clean alternative to fossil fuels. It could also power large-scale carbon dioxide removal. This would give the world an opportunity to suck carbon out of the atmosphere affordably and pull the planet back from extreme temperature rise that may otherwise already be baked in. “If you think like a venture capital investor, you're betting 1 or 2% of incremental emissions, but what could the payoff potentially be?” asks Cully Cavness, co-founder of Crusoe, an AI infrastructure company. “It could be things like fusion, which could address all the emissions.” For those of us, myself included, who haven’t spent the last decade thinking deeply about AI, watching it emerge at the center of the global economic development story can feel like watching a juggernaut. It came quickly, and it’s hard to predict exactly where it will go next. Even still, it seems all but certain that AI will play a significant role shaping our climate future, far beyond the short-term impact on the power sector. Exactly what that looks like is anyone’s guess.
Hours after his inauguration, President Donald Trump rescinded America’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement as part of a flurry of executive actions meant to swiftly pivot the nation from the Biden administration’s agenda. Trump made the rollback of America’s climate change mitigation efforts a key campaign promise, arguing that the agreement undermined Americans’ economic interests. But the accord actually has been poised to be fruitful in a number of ways in bolstering the long-term economic stability of Americans, especially when it comes to housing—a major drain on consumers’ wallets—by making it more environmentally durable and energy-efficient. According to a September 2024 poll released by Data for Progress, 76% of Americans believe housing affordability is a growing problem. That’s not totally surprising. Over the last two decades, housing demand in the U.S. has grown much faster than housing supply, and housing costs have risen much faster than incomes. Tack on climate change, a pronounced factor in the nation’s deepening housing crunch, and we have the perfect recipe for a national housing crisis. And the crisis isn’t just about the availability and cost of housing. When considering climate change, it's also about location and quality. Nowhere clearer is this convergence than in Black communities, where housing costs have become exceptionally hard to juggle in recent years. In general, Black people spend more money on housing than any other race, and despite that, they’re still generally less likely to have access to stable housing, contributing to them being disproportionately represented in the nation’s unhoused population. Black homebuyers also pay significantly more than white homebuyers for similar homes. And when it comes to climate change, Black people are a staggering 40% more likely than other races to currently live in places with the highest forecasted increases in extreme temperature-related deaths, according to a study done by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). All of these imbalances flow from one common source: the U.S. finance industry. For decades, America’s finance industry has found increasingly complex ways to advance and capitalize on the racial anxieties and biases of the broader American public. That history begins most famously with the practice of redlining. Redlining, a New Deal-era technique that emerged in the 1930s and soared through the late 1980s, refers to how financial institutions deliberately avoided providing mortgage loans to racial minorities—namely Black individuals—under the guise of the customer being high-risk or otherwise non-creditworthy. When lenders didn’t outright reject Black customers, they would offer them loans in locations considered undesirable—for example, on low-lying land that was prone to flooding, near pollution-producing highways or industrial waste sites, or on land with poor soil that would foster structurally unsound housing and make agriculture and recreation difficult. That has created an intergenerational phenomenon of Black populations living today on significantly less safe, less productive land with lower levels of appreciation in value. Climate change is beginning to more directly and deeply exploit these vulnerabilities. Relative to white populations, Black populations are more likely to dwell on so-called “heat islands” (communities with a predominance of heat-absorbing infrastructure like buildings and concrete roads and little tree shade) and to be exposed to extreme heat. They also carry a substantially higher risk of living in an area that will be impacted by floods. And when it comes to key climate-proofing and adaptation solutions—like improving flood management systems, expanding green spaces, and making energy systems more efficient—Black communities are consistently behind due to ongoing commercial disinvestment and government neglect. These challenges are poised to get even more amplified through the rise of bluelining, a more agile iteration of redlining that is guided by the growing hazards of climate change. Bluelining is a recently coined term referring to the process by which property insurers minimize their potential losses by intermittently inflating insurance costs and trimming and removing coverage in communities most directly confronting climate change. Because of the legacy of redlining, these imperiled communities tend to be nonwhite. The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires help put the bluelining practice into perspective. In California, towering wildfires have long loomed large as the most nightmarish and concerning outgrowth of climate change. Apart from the visceral damage wildfires cause, Californians are keenly aware of how expensive housing and insurance already are in parts of the state—namely Southern California and the Bay Area—due to the growing intensity and frequency of wildfires. Wildfires cost America up to a stunning $893 billion a year, according to analysis done by the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee’s Democratic majority, most of this massive expense coming from diminished real estate. Against this backdrop, in recent years, national insurers, including Allstate, Nationwide, and Travelers, have adjusted, quietly retooling their policies and redrawing their coverage maps to lower their risks in markets like California. The outcome has been customers getting increasingly low-quality or bare-bones coverage, similar to trends observed in the healthcare industry. In other cases, insurers have paused or entirely withdrawn from state or local markets, thereby creating “home insurance deserts.” In a poll conducted in 2023, 4 out of 10 Californians indicated they were considering moving out of the state, most citing the costs of living as a primary reason. Black Californians have particularly felt the pinch. The Black population in California decreased from 2.2 million in 2000 to 2.1 million present-day. During this time, cost concerns in California and other parts of the country have become inextricably tied to environmental matters. According to a 2018 study that assessed tens of thousands of census tracts across the U.S., majority Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities were found to have up to 50% higher susceptibility to wildfires in contrast to majority white communities. Beyond the heightened vulnerability, the burden of recovery is often far steeper for Black populations. Payouts are often significantly lower and more delayed in Black compared to white communities. Altadena, for instance, home to some of the West Coast’s most historic and flourishing Black middle-class neighborhoods, was decimated by the area wildfires. And it’s likely not lost on Altadena’s Black residents that, without intervention, insurance hikes and climate gentrification are likely on the immediate horizon. Racial minorities in places like New Orleans, Houston, and Puerto Rico have vividly experienced this domino effect first-hand in the years following large-scale environmental crises in their communities. In fact, another 2018 study showed that white households often actually gain wealth in the aftermath of disasters, while Black households indeed lose wealth. Why? White homeowners tend to not only get more aid following disasters, but they also tend to get aid above and beyond the appropriate property valuation. In addition to the expansive damage to homes that can drive deep, costly repairs, extreme weather events like these also cause catastrophic damage to minority communities’ basic infrastructure and functionality, stifling local commerce, transportation, and access to healthcare. This serves as yet another barrier to recovery. Ultimately, while the physical and psychological toll of natural disasters like the LA wildfires may appear racially universal, community resilience is very much racialized. So whether speaking figuratively or literally, it remains clear that racial minorities will be paying the biggest price for climate change.
At President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, leaders from some of the world’s most powerful companies looked on from the dome of the Capitol Building as he promised, among other things, to cancel the “Green New Deal” and “drill baby drill.” Here in Davos, where the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) wrapped up on Friday, the world’s biggest companies are singing a different tune about climate change. Big banks talked about new opportunities for financing clean energy in emerging markets. Manufacturers warned of the climate risks facing their supply chains. And energy companies touted investments in renewables. The takeaway from these conversations to me is that companies will continue to pursue profitable climate initiatives in face of Trump, even if some of them no longer frame them as climate initiatives. “The leading companies of the world are going through a couple of transformations—the tech transformation and the climate transformation,” says Jesper Brodin, the CEO of the Ingka Group (IKEA). “The train has left the station. The benefits are clear.” The continued climate work isn’t an altruistic act. Many companies have embedded these programs into their multi-year planning process, investing billions on initiatives that can’t be easily reversed. Think of clean technology manufacturing projects that have already broken ground or office energy efficiency retrofits underway. To backtrack would be to waste valuable capital before it realizes a return. Many of the economics that made investments in things like clean power or electric vehicles smart a few years ago will only continue to improve. “There is a lot of noise, but the market fundamentals still stand,” says María Mendiluce, CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition, a business group that pushes for climate action. And then there are the programs aimed at addressing climate risk. All the headline-grabbing climate-linked extreme weather that the world has experienced in recent months—and years—have hit supply chains and led companies to worry. Indeed, a WEF report released last December found that unprepared companies could face an up to 25% hit to their earnings by 2050 without adequate measures to adapt to the effects of climate change. That’s a long way away for CEOs focused on quarterly earnings, but companies are already seeing the early warning signs as fires, droughts, and flooding twist up supply chains. “I think the time of sustainability strategy is over,” says Torsten Lichtenau, who leads the Carbon Transition practice at Bain & Company. “It’s about business strategy with sustainability embedded in it.” I’ll be the first to acknowledge the counter arguments. There are areas where the Trump presidency is bound to slow things down. Companies will be less likely to invest in nascent sectors that rely on supportive government dollars or policy, meaning that technologies like hydrogen and biofuels may take a hit. And then there’s the selection bias problem. At conferences like this, different rooms have different mixes of attendees with different view points. In the meetings I attend, executives are much less likely to share their plans to backtrack. More importantly, European businesses are overrepresented in the halls of Davos—and more likely to have climate-friendly views than the American counterparts who aren’t here and remain skeptical of the climate agenda. That’s all the more reason to share the stories of companies that have made climate programs profitable. In a presentation in Davos, Brodin put the company’s financials side by side with its emissions performance. Since 2015, the company has cut its climate footprint by 30% while growing the company’s revenue by nearly 24%. “There is a very strong myth in society today that climate smart comes at a premium,” he told me afterward. “Now, it’s quite easy to dismantle that myth.” How does the continued support for climate initiatives square with the apparent private sector enthusiasm for Trump? For one, it’s worth noting that not everyone is over the moon. The applause for Trump when he spoke virtually to the crowd gathered in Davos was far from overly enthusiastic. But many others actively touting Trump either see no contradiction or don’t care. Even as their CEOs attended Trump’s inauguration, companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta have continued engaging in a breakneck race to buy clean electricity to power their growing data center footprint. Both moves, they might say, are just good business.
During the last decade, we have become painfully aware that the climate crisis is no longer a distant threat but a living reality. It affects millions of people every day. Last year, the world exceeded 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial temperatures for the first time—a milestone that reminds us of the urgency of action. Now, every fraction of a degree counts. Every year we can gain in actions will matter. Every leader who takes responsibility will matter. Today, 68% of IKEA’s customers worldwide see climate change as the biggest threat and worry about our future. The numbers, gathered during a 2023 survey, vary less from country to country than you may think. At the same time, only 6% of customers are prepared to pay more for sustainable products and solutions. Do not make the mistake of concluding that people don’t care. The truth is that most people simply can’t afford to pay more. They expect policymakers and companies such as ours, to find solutions that are affordable and sustainable. And they are right to do so. Sustainability can’t be a luxury for the few. As a leader of a multinational business and father of three, I see three reasons to be part of leading the transition to a climate smart future. To start with, based on the facts and awareness of today, we simply cannot allow ourselves to pass this on to the next generation. Secondly, it is clear that our customers and co-workers across the world expect us to lead the way. People will deselect brands that don’t. The expectation is not for perfection but sincere intentions and impactful actions. Third—here comes the good news—this is great for business. In general, climate smart means cost smart. Waste has always been expensive and every step of building a sustainable business model drives positive impact on the financials. Some actions pay off fast. Some take time. Just like any other investment. As we experience the pains of today’s climate impacts and listen to the justified concerns for our future, we need to mobilize our optimism. It is true that we are not on track with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. It is true that the trajectory is currently towards 2.5-2.9°C of warming by 2030 which will have disastrous consequences should it become a reality. At the same time, it is also true that we have already reached peak carbon per capita and have within our reach to soon bring down emissions in total. As a company we are committed to the Paris Agreement—we must halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reduce them by 90% by 2050. This means across scope 1 emissions in our operations, scope 2 indirect emissions, and scope 3, which covers emissions from the whole value chain—from raw material, production and transportation to customer use and product end of life. And it works. Since 2016, our baseline year, we have managed to reduce our climate footprint by 30.1% across all scopes, while growing the business by 23.7%. To help achieve this, we have invested more than 4.2 billion euros into off-site renewable energy since 2009. We are also investing about 1 billion euros in companies that are working to boost recycling infrastructure. And efficiency measures have helped us to reduce our energy bill by 97 million euros—or 29%—compared to five years ago. Meanwhile, we have cut our operation food waste by half across our business. Reducing waste, transitioning to renewable energy, as well as supporting our customers to save water, waste, electricity, and money is all a part of a long-term perspective that is resource smart, climate smart, and in the end, business smart. And we’re not alone. Take a look at the World Economic Forums Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, which has more than 130 member companies. Over the last three years they have collectively reduced absolute carbon—across all three scopes—by 10% while growing their business by 18%, outgrowing global GDP. It’s not enough, but it proves we are on the right path. Only a few years ago many of us leaders made decisions based on faith. Today we know for a fact that our changes and investments will pay off—for people, for the planet, and for business. So, what’s the problem? We are not fast enough and actions are not enough. With five years left until 2030, we find ourselves at the halfway point of the most important decade for climate action. All parts of society including small and large companies need to act on their impact. We all need to get our own house in order by knowing our carbon footprint and taking action. We need a stronger and more solution-oriented collaboration between policymakers and corporate leaders to set the framework for the climate smart economy. We need to speed up change—the clock of this crisis is ticking. We also need to share our successes. Trust is at an all time low for the wrong reasons. Greenwashing and intentional misinformation are unacceptable, but silence from the best actors is an even bigger risk. And, we must be leaders for the future. All of us must assume a bigger role in the collective change. We need to challenge the myths that stand in the way of action. We have the solutions and money to transition towards net zero. The risk is not only to miss the benefits of the new economy but suffer the economic loss. According to a recent report from the World Economic Forum, the cost of inaction will be in the region of 10-15%, every year. The biggest risk as a leader is knowing you could have done something, but didn’t. It is good business to be a good business. It’s cost smart. It’s resource smart. And it’s climate smart. Let’s own the responsibility, lead from opportunities. Think about it: we are the first generation that can be part of creating a sustainable future that is good for people and the planet. That inspires me. I hope it does for you too.
A yellow crane hovers above a building site in Sickla, a former industrial neighbourhood that’s home to one of Stockholm’s biggest real estate projects. But instead of delivering concrete, it’s manoeuvring giant chunks of wood to construction staff working in sub-zero winter temperatures. This is the beginning of what Swedish property developer Atrium Ljungberg describes as “the largest mass timber project in the world.” On the outskirts of Sweden’s capital, construction of ‘Stockholm Wood City’ began in October, several months ahead of schedule, and is set to provide 2,000 new homes by 2027. The company’s core goal is to improve the sustainability of construction projects. Building with wood instead of concrete and steel in 80% of new buildings would, according to a 2020 study by Aalto University and the Finnish Environment Institute, help offset half of Europe’s construction industry emissions. Atrium Ljungberg is also championing the idea that spending time in buildings made with natural materials can help improve our wellbeing. “We can tell the story about how to build a liveable city, how to add nature into the city and build something sustainable,” says Håkan Hyllengren, business development director for the project. “It's not just about wood, it’s the whole concept.” Large-scale wooden building projects are growing in popularity globally. Two years ago, Singapore opened a 468,000 square-foot wooden college campus building. Seattle opened a landmark eight-storey affordable housing block, also in 2023. And in Sydney, a giant timber retail and office space is currently under construction. But Scandinavia—with both a long tradition of building wooden villas and cabins, and prioritising environmental issues—is perhaps unsurprisingly, ahead of the curve when it comes to ramping up construction of multi-storey mass-timber properties. Norway’s third-highest building, Mjøstårnet, was built out of wood in 2019. Finland’s capital Helsinki already has a small wooden district, completed four years ago, and there are state subsidies designed to promote increased wood use in public buildings. Skellefteå, a small, discreet city in northern Sweden nudged its way into must-visit global tourist rankings after the country’s tallest wooden hotel and cultural center opened there in 2022. Hyllengren hopes Stockholm Wood City will become “an international showcase” due to its sheer scale. The project is set to become the biggest “mixed-use” wooden neighborhood on the planet—alongside the apartment buildings rapidly taking shape, there’s also a high school opening in the fall, and around 7,000 office spaces will be available within two years. Like most multi-storey wooden properties, the buildings are largely constructed using an engineered product called CLT (cross-laminated timber). This is made by bonding together layers of wooden panels at right angles, giving it a stiffness and strength that is almost comparable with steel or concrete. In Scandinavia, it’s easy to produce CLT locally—and sustainably—thanks to the region’s abundance of forests. Around 70% of Sweden is covered in woodland, and in 1903 it became the first nation in the world to require compulsory reforestation. “We don't have a problem where we will run out of wood,” smiles Hyllengren. “We’ve actually got more forest now than we had 100 years ago, because we replant.” Hyllengren says carbon emissions can be halved in the building construction process, since wood is lighter and quicker to build with than concrete, limiting the use of heavy machinery and energy. The 2020 research from Aalto University and the Finnish Environment Institute also highlights that wood stores carbon rather than emitting it (since it is made from trees which absorb CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow). Plus, if for any reason a wooden building is no longer needed in the future, it is easier to disassemble than concrete, and the wood can be reused or recycled, further extending its life cycle. Using global data projections based on 50 wooden building projects around the world, the researchers concluded that if 80% of new buildings in Europe had structures, cladding, surfaces, and furnishings made of wood, this could sequester up to 55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year by 2040. That’s equivalent to 47% of the European cement industry’s annual CO2 emissions. Lena Dahl, a senior forest expert for WWF Sweden, says the growing trend for building with wood is supported by environmentalists. “Wood has a lower carbon footprint than concrete or steel, so provided that the wood comes from sustainably managed forests it is a better choice,” she says. However, there are concerns about biodiversity loss linked to forestry. Despite reforestation efforts in Scandinavia, Dahl says extensive logging has led to the decline of some plant and animal species, and argues that Nordic forestry companies need to adapt their management practices to ensure nature remains protected as demand for wood increases. Another potential challenge for the industry is fire safety. But Hyllengren points out that building regulations in the Nordics are among the strictest in the world, and suggests properly designed and treated engineered wood buildings offer levels of heat protection and durability on a par with conventional building materials. “I think it's a bigger talking point abroad where you haven't built with wood before or not as much as we've done,” he says. All of the buildings in Stockholm Wood City are required to have inbuilt sprinklers, and CLT tolerates extremely high heat levels. “It’s hard for the wood to actually catch fire,” explains Hyllengren, and if it does, it will char on the outside from around 300°C (626°F), which creates a protective barrier that limits the spread of flames. Atrium Ljungberg estimates that engineered wood is approximately 10% more expensive to buy than steel or concrete, depending on the project. Hyllengren, however, says that the extra costs can be recouped elsewhere by the company. “You have to look at the whole project,” he explains. Since many wooden building parts arrive preassembled, and you don’t have to mix wood or wait for it to dry, like concrete, this helps save money by saving labor hours, argues the business development director. “By building so much faster than when we build with normal concrete, we can reduce the [project] time,” he adds, pointing out that this also means that tenants can move in and start paying rent earlier. Inside Atrium Ljungberg’s warm head office, just a few blocks from the emerging Stockholm Wood City, there is a miniature light-up model of what the suburb will eventually look like—and how it plans to reduce inhabitants’ environmental impact. This showcases some of the other cornerstones of the development, which Hyllengren hopes will improve “liveability” and create a “really unique environment.” There will be bike storage facilities, a new subway station and rooftop gardens and solar panels. “Pocket parks” between condo blocks and offices will be populated with wild flowers, designed to improve biodiversity. There will even be neighborhood beehives. Atrium Ljungberg also hopes the wooden buildings themselves will boost locals’ wellbeing. There is already a small but growing body of academic research linking wooden materials with lower stress levels. “Generally speaking, whenever there have been interviews [of] people visiting wooden buildings, they have said that there’s a kind of fresh feeling and also ‘living in nature’ feeling,” explains Ali Amiri, a sustainable buildings researcher at Aalto University in Finland, and co-author of the 2020 emissions paper. There is currently little research into the greater impact of living or working in wooden properties, although his team is planning a long-term study of young people living in wooden campus accommodation. Back on the building site at Stockholm Wood City, there are already signs that working with and around wood is having a beneficial impact on the construction team. The material provides a brighter, less grey environment, and not as much heavy, brash machinery is required. “It’s really much better for the workers since it's more light, there's less noise—when you work with concrete, there is a lot of noise,” says Sara Coletti, business manager for building firm TL Bygg, which is spearheading the construction side of the project. “It's a positive environment.” In Sweden, the proportion of new, multi-storey buildings constructed with wood—or at least with a wooden frame—is currently around 16%, compared to 9% a decade ago. Hyllengren believes that’s likely “to increase a lot in the coming years,” as construction firms increasingly prioritize sustainability and liveability. At Aalto University, Amiri, the sustainability researcher, is also hopeful that the trend can grow globally—including in the U.S. However his research suggests progress may be slower in countries where there are no local forests, more limited access to affordable engineered wood, specialized construction technologies, and design talent. “Also in countries that are not familiar with wooden construction even in low-rise [homes], it’s going to be harder,” he says. Hyllengren points out many of the architects, engineers, and construction teams working on Stockholm Wood City have already been involved in similar, smaller projects around the Nordics. He believes the regional buzz around building with wood has led to a “really open” climate that’s enabling its rapid evolution in the region. “Companies are sharing knowledge with each other,” he says, “in a way that I haven't really seen in the same way in construction with concrete or steel.”
