Thwaite's Amanpour Climate Scientist Antarctica What Did a Climate Scientist Find on Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier?” | Amanpour and Company 13-min Feb 17 report w transcript at DIYH on a Heating Planet bloh

Thwaite's is unstable. Just like a ball on a hill, if you touch it, it will roll away, the trigger showed up around 1950 when warm ocean water appeared on the doorstep of the glacier where it meets the ocean. Option B is what is called adaptation.

Feb 17, 2026 #amanpourpbs In yet another climate crisis rollback in America, the 2009 endangerment finding -- which determined that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare -- was revoked on Thursday. Donald Trump calls it the "largest deregulatory action in-- American history." Climate scientist David Holland warns about the consequences of climate change being detected in Antarctica. He speaks to Hari Sreenivasan as he returns from a recent expedition there.

 

What Did a Climate Scientist Find on Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier?” | Amanpour and Company RRRRR ^^^ 

Series continues Sunday March 1st with transcripts 

Part 2 "If This Glacier Collapses, 40 Million People Will Be Underwater" and Part 3 "Thwaites Glacier BREAKING Fast — Seismic Quakes EXPLODE as Antarctica’s Doomsday Ice Starts to Fail!"

AMANPOUR 

transcript

Next, another climate roll back in America. The 2009 endangerment finding which determined that greenhouse gases threatened public health and welfare was revoked on Thursday. Trump calls it the largest deregulatory action in American history. The US is the second largest carbon emitter in the world and climate scientist David Holland warns that the consequences are being felt in Antarctica. He speaks to Hari Serina Vasan as he returns from a recent expedition there. Fiana, thanks. David Holland, thanks so much for joining us. you have just spent almost two months on an expedition to go and study and learn from the Thwaite's Glacier down in Antarctica. What was the point of this expedition? 

DH: the point ultimately is to provide society with a forecast of the future of the global sea level. So if you think about it, the world's coastline is enormous and Antarctica poses a threat to that of rising the sea levels. Of course, through time, sea levels have gone up and down by hundreds of feet naturally. And so right now, humanity seems to be tweaking the Antarctic ice sheet.

Q So what were the kinds of instruments? What was the sort of scientific test that you wanted to do so that we would get a better handle on this? 

A if I could kind of make a visual for you. So Antarctica is a big ice sheet about the size of the United States and it's sitting on land but a part of it if you could picture is like the Gulf of Mexico. The ice sheet is actually in the ocean and that's the part we are really interested in. It's called West Antarctica and more specifically we were at a glacier about the size of Florida called Thwaite's and it's in the ocean. So you can picture it's on the seafloor but grounded and the ocean has easy access to it. 

So that's the focus of our study and we brought instruments to figure out how the ocean is 

affecting it. And I'll add one more piece to that just to make it the quickest analogy. 

That glacier, that particular one is unstable. Just like a ball on a hill, if you touch it, it will roll away. A ball in a valley is stable. So for mathematical and physical reasons, that glacier is unstable. And once pushed, it might retreat from where it is all the way back to the South Pole. 

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That glacier, that particular one is unstable. Just like a ball on a hill, if you touch it, it will roll away.

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Q put that in perspective for us because I think it's a hard thing for people to understand just the size and scale. What is the real risk here? Why is this kind of the doomsday glacier that you know I've seen lots of different titles described to it. 

A Right. So, it is a special glacier in that it's the one that's already grounded in the ocean. It's sitting on the seafloor. But more particularly a subtle fact is that it's in a basin that is like a bowl like a cereal bowl. So it gets deeper as you go inland. 

Glaciers flow according to their height. So once you start unraveling it at the coast as you go inland it gets deeper and higher, deeper and higher going faster and faster. That's a runaway. And so right now that glacier is on the lip of the bowl and it's stabilized on this lip exactly where we positioned our ship by good fortune this year. 

And so once it comes off that lip, which it's currently doing in computer models, it just unravels itself. 

So there's two ingredients here. 

One is you have the most unstable preconfigured glacier in the world called Thwaite's nicknamed Doomsday. 

But the second thing is you need a trigger and the trigger showed up around 1940 or 1950 when warm ocean water appeared on the doorstep of the glacier where it meets the ocean. So previously that was not there otherwise the glacier would be long gone. So, it's a two- punch effect. One is you have an unstable glacier and the second thing is of all the places around Antarctica, warm water showed up exactly there. 

A little bit precarious in its nature and now we have this two punch. 

Q: I guess what you're saying is that there's actually a whole different type of melting that's happening because warm water is going underneath the glacier and just taking, you know, the heat is absorbing and melting the ice down there. 

A Yeah. And so that's the first reaction people have, which in the super big picture is perhaps correct. warming our planet which is now happening for the last century does in fact affect the surface melt but that's a slow process that takes thousand or thousands of years in the past if we look back through the records sea level has risen by up to 25 ft in one century globally 25 feet and that can only come through a very rapid process we've identified that process in the north Greenland and here south in Antarctica As you said, warm water slipping under the ice sheets. 

Of course, ice is lighter than liquid water. One of the few substances in the universe like that. So, ice floats. And so, warm salty water from the tropics makes its way here. And because of changing this is something I found hard to believe this little story which is by changing the atmospheric composition of greenhouse gas you change the winds over the equatorial part of the ocean which sets off an effect that changes the winds here brings the warm water and upsets the glacier. A very convoluted complex path but one that happened. 

Q So if this glacier kind of accelerated in its melting, what does that mean for someone living in coastal areas like New York or Florida or California? 

A It turns out that what happens in our part of the world in the US affects Antarctica and Antarctica affects us. In particular, Thwaite's represents a couple of feet of sea level rise globally. And now, Harry, if you think about that, that's a lot of water. Two feet or more all over the globe. And its neighbors left and right, east and west, most likely would go unstable once the keystone of Thwaite's is plucked out of Antarctica. 

And so then you're up to 10 feet and then East Antarctica has more story. So it's the changing of our global coastline. Florida parts of it would disappear and Louisiana, North Carolina, etc. So a lot of people would find that the beach has moved. Yeah. 

Q So you you took different types of instruments there to Antarctica to try to study this. You were trying to drill holes, you were sending robots. Tell me a little bit about the science that you were performing to try to get better data. 

A I'd like to paint a visual picture. So, think of Antarctica again as a bowl of ice the size of the US. And the continental shelf is what's between the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica. The continental shelf here is quite deep, 600, 2,000 ft, because Antarctica has been pushing it down. The place where the warm water as it goes around Antarctica in the Antarctic circumpolar current. 

The curious place that it crashes into Antarctica is right there in front of Thwaite's. But moreover, another thing factor to take in is there's the equivalent of the Grand Canyon between the continental shelf break and the face of Thwaite's. And that seems a bit unusual, but if you think about it, as Thwaite's waxed and waned, through ice ages, it carved out in the seafloor a riverbed, a channel. And in that channel, that's where the warm water is. Why is it at the bottom? Because it's really salty. It started its life basically in South Beach, Miami. It's part of the global ocean conveyor belt. Made its way around the world. And part of that belt is there in this canyon. So in the channel there is a sill which is as the glacier moved back and forth over time it left what I would call a morraine just a large pile of debris rock and the warm water just gets over that sill and then goes downhill to Antarctica. 

So we put some robots, two robots, which are ocean temperature and water current speed sensors up and down on a wire. They're busy now going up and down every hour. We'll get back in two years hopefully and get the data from that. So then that creates a visual of where is the warm water, how much of it is coming. 

The second part was when we got to the glacier. A part of the glacier where it comes out into the ocean begins to float and form a feature known as an ice shelf is a  floating extension. And through that ice shelf, the ocean is beneath. We drilled about a half a mile through it. And the plan was to put sensors down through the ice shelf down into the cavity of the ocean that's below the ice shelf. That's a special point. That's where the continental ice begins to unground and float and the ocean's coming the other way and the seafloor is below it. That juncture is the beach of Antarctica. It's down a half mile, but that's the beach and that's where the action is happening. Unfortunately, as we drill the hole, time is running out and it begins to freeze. Our sensors went in and they froze 3/4 of the way down the hole. So, that failed and so that mission did not succeed. You know, I I think about that and look, science is a series of steps and they it's not in a perfect line. you I wonder what did this particular type of failure in this experiment teach you to do better the next time right it teaches you and it's I'm glad you asked that because only by being here and not succeeding only it doesn't have to be that way but failure teaches you a lot and it's taught me that we need to do this in a completely different way it has to be redesigned re-engineered if we're going to get the data that's going to build a forecast that's going to help people answer the question, when will the global coastline flood or if it will at all. 

It's only coming through math and physics to an equation that can make a forecast on your iPhone. That's only coming from data. The way we've been going about it is not working. And so I think we have to lean on world expertise from other industries. I can think of one oil and gas industry which could really go at this problem and solve it far better than we can. 

Q I don't know if that's ironic or fitting that the experts in the industry that is contributing to climate change would be some of the people who might actually help you drill the hole the best way to get the best data to predict you know. 

A Yeah. And yeah, and it might be hole drilling or it might be more of observatories on the seafloor. You might be aware that some places on Earth have the seafloor now cabled and robots and explored. And so I think that's the technology to bring to Antarctica or something like that.

We have famously withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement as of January of 2026. that that is sort of official, right? And that's something where 174 countries came together and we tried to agree on at least a shared reality. And now we seem to be in a position where that's not the case. At least the United States does not want to participate in that considering how big we are, how much pollutants that we emit into the air, how responsible we are for the rest of the planet. 

Q Are you hopeful that conferences like this can work? very much so. 

A Right now the US is going through some dramatic changes in its whole approach to climate. I think part of it it lies on the shoulder of scientists for inability to explain the nature of the problem. We make things too distant from people. We use words that disconnect people from what we're trying to express. 

As shocking as it may seem, I personally am not a big fan of the word climate. I don't know if people know what it means. It's weather, long-term weather. It's the thing that affects you every day of your life. A climate model. I remember a while ago a congressperson in Antarctica was asking me, "Why do we fund climate models?" And I said, "You don't. You fund weather models, the one you use in Arkansas to in order to plan how does the army work, the air force, civil navigation, agriculture, that's the result of our research that you've supported that produces weather models and the climate model, the glacier I'm talking about is just an extension of that. 

So, we have to be clear to people what we're trying to do and the benefit to society and to them in their daily lives. 

Q I wonder, you know, look, some of these shifts could be abrupt as you're saying, if this glacier did fall in when you think about the the longer time horizon of how we perceive danger and threat and whether and how we respond to that, is it too late? 

A Not not at all. recent times. Yes, we have performed a geoengineering experiment which we are kicking it up another ratch next ratchet level next year in increasing greenhouse gases. So, it's going to get warmer and warmer and the planet is getting warmer and warmer. So, there is one thought which is could you remove the carbon from the atmosphere called mitigation. Turns out that's really difficult to do. As I breathe here, I'm breathing air that has 50% more carbon than it did a century ago. That's a lot. And you can't see it with your eyes because we're visible. But in the infrared, this is increased and put a blanket over the earth. So option A is remove the carbon. And we don't seem to be making progress there. 

Option B is what is called adaptation. And that is you adapt to the problem. And so one thing is are we going to live with the problem? We might recognize that part of the issue is that the carbon is increasing and should we have other approaches. Now some people are vehemently appro opposed to this and I get it. That brings me to my point which is in the case of this glacier, the Grand Canyon that I spoke of and the sill that I spoke of and the warm water creeping over it. We humanity could build a barrier above that, a curtain, and that would stop it. And the glacier does not have a mind of its own. It's not going to dissipate and fall apart if it's not triggered. So there's a potential solution and there are a handful of these around the world. so that's something part of this cruise we've focused on is is there a solution to this problem and I think there just might be. So that also gives me some hope. Will this work because we cannot afford to build barriers around the entire coastline of the planet can't be done. few rich places. New York City might be able to do something, etc. Florida cannot, but here's a little place that you could block and for all intents and purposes, it might stop andor halt the problem to give us time. No, I I wonder if you could just give our audience a little bit of what it's like to be there. I know you've been there many, many times before, but put in perspective what people see on TV, so to speak, versus what's happening, what you don't see, how significant this kind of movement of ice is. 

Okay. Well, two things. First of all, I was shocked when I woke up and looked out my port window and there was a huge cruise ship nearby to us.  so that was quite a shock to see that. So people are gaining access to this place, albeit not so often. But the difference here is for me personally to get my head around the visuals of this as you look at the scenery and you the sun is growing around the sky 24/7. some days a beautiful blue sky, the ocean, the sea ice, the wildlife and the glacier and realizing that this glacier does come and go over time and the fact that right now it's on edge and it may quickly retreat and change this part of the landscape in the world. For me, it was this idea of change that most struck me how beautiful it is and inevitably that it will change and it will be different. climate scientist from NYU, David 18:06 Holland. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you, Harry. *** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRUW0pTMrTM&t=810s  Amanpour and Company

Too warm for ice hockey: why one Pakistani valley rues climate change- Reuters Feb 26 short report w transcript at DIYH on a Heating Planet blog

In Hunza Valley, winters in northern mountains are arriving later and behaving unpredictably, a shift that has left an outdoor rink unusable, and exposed how vulnerable the region’s people and economy are to climate change. READ & WATCH Too warm for ice hockey: why one Pakistani valley rues climate change, transcript belowReuters Feb 26 2026 

Transcript

Gavina Gul gazes out at the pool beside her home in Pakistan's Hunza Valley. In past years, it would transform into a makeshift ice hockey arena. This winter, it hasn't properly frozen over. Gul says the late arrival of cold weather is to blame. 

If we see, there's a big difference between 2018 and now in 2026. Winter used to begin in November and everything would freeze. It's January now and the ice still hasn't frozen properly. 

Scientists in the wider Hindu Kush Himalayan region report fewer extreme cold events and shorter snow seasons where snowfall fails to settle. Weather data for Hunza shows winter precipitation down by about 30% since the late 2010s with some recent winters also 2 to 3° warmer.  [35.6°F. to 37.4°F warmer]

That's a problem for a region reliant on visitors with winter tourism there now at the mercy of cold weather that may never come. The community-run ice hockey tournament depends entirely on natural ice. For eight seasons now, Ghoul's Pool has hosted the contest. With that unusable, organizers scrambled to find a replacement rink, eventually locating one nearly 2 hours north in a town near the Chinese border. 

Although the arena there was usable, the ice was difficult to skate on. Expectations. "I expected better ice conditions, but when I saw the rink, I felt a bit sad. Many of our players fell. The surface had too many bumps and wasn't strong. I'm not happy with the surface. Of three matches scheduled for the first day, only one went ahead. We were ready by this morning. The match was expected to take place. When we reached the rink, the ice wasn't in good condition. Team still played, but it was very difficult. The boys's match took place, not ours, the girls." 

These things are unexpected and this is a side effect of climate change. We've never experienced this before. That night, organizers used shovels to prepare the ice for the next day's game. Gul's team was finally able to play and emerged victorious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW8V9gq7T5A

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NEXT:

A three-part blog post re recent developments at Thwaite's Glacier coming shortly,

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[KE: Everything scientists predicted about global warming/ climate change since the 1970s is coming true, only faster]

 

Trump Worship Syndrome- Hartmann caller defines derangement from new perspective- Read and hear the quote at DIYH on a Heating Planet blog

"I've got a suggestion: that the Democrats and liberals start talking about Trump Worship Syndrome. Republicans have a syndrome name for people who are against Trump [Trump derangement syndrome]. We need to start talking to these people; they have a pathological mindset. They have Blind Faith; they support a convicted criminal. They've become sycophants. So Trump Worship Syndrome would be a good name for them. And some day there will be books written about the mass hypnosis that's affected so many people in this nation. Let's put a name on it, talk about it and study it so we can avoid it in the future." Keno in Lakeland Florida- Watch here The Thom Hartmann Program Video Podcast (2/27/2026) around 41.40 in, sorry my hands won't let me grab a clip...

China TV responds to new US climate policy "Trump admin don't care about American public health or safety"-w transcript CGTN The Heat 27-min Feb 23 report at DIYH on a Heating Planet blog

"US is just ceding leadership, causing mayhem worldwide- taxpayers subsidize negative externalities from fossil fuels; globally solar and wind is the foreseeable future while we in the US double down on oil coal and gas at public health and expense." China Global Television Network, the US arm of the English language CGTN America in Washington, D.C., report: Donald Trump has frequently referred to climate change as a “hoax” and recently announced that the EPA is revoking a long-time climate policy. READ & WATCH The Heat: Climate Change Feb 23, 2026 transcript below:

Andy Mok is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. Bob Ward is Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Lisa Sachs is Director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and Associate Professor of at Columbia Climate School. Michael Shank is an Adjunct Professor of Sustainable Development at New York University. TOPICS 00:00 Trump Calls Climate Change a Hoax 01:03 EPA Endangerment Finding Repealed 01:33 Legal Challenges and Regulatory Chaos 02:15 Public Health and Safety Concerns 03:44 Clean Air Act and Fossil Fuel Debate 04:00 US as Major Emitter Global Spillover Effects 05:33 Economic Costs Floods Fires Insurance Crisis 06:24 Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Public Spending 07:14 China Europe Shift to Renewable Energy 08:02 EV Market Battle US vs China 09:37 Lawsuits States vs Federal Government 16:47 COP 31 Turkey and Paris Agreement Tensions

24:54 Detroit EV Future and Global Competition

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"A New World Disorder"

TRANSCRIPT 

President Donald Trump has frequently referred to climate change as a hoax, and his administration continues to pull back on efforts to deal with it both at home and abroad. Trump recently announced that the US Environmental Protection Agency, also known as the EPA, is revoking a longtime climate policy. It is reversing a scientific finding that has long underpinned key environmental legislation in the United States. President Trump pointed a finger at former President Obama when he made the announcement. In 2009, Barack Hussein Obama, his EPA designated fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and other things that actually make factories rock and roll and other things drive very nicely as a threat to health and human welfare. Known as the endangerment finding, this determination had no basis. in fact had none whatsoever and it had no basis in law. 

Trump's decision to repeal the landmark climate finding is very controversial and is set to face a legal challenge from health and environmental groups to discuss the fallout from all of this. Joining me now is Lisa Saxs. She is director at the of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and an associate professor at Columbia Climate School. And also with us is Michael Shank. He's an adjunct professor of sustainable development at New York University. 

Welcome, both of you to the show. Lisa, let's start with that.  simple question, what is the fallout from all of this? 

-The fallout from this is not actually even deregulation. It's massive destabilization and uncertainty, which is the worst possible  context for American industries, businesses, and households. even from the perspective of trying to support US businesses. This is now causing mayhem and just going to cause massive regulatory uncertainty, regulatory fragmentation because every state and city and around the world there are going to be different regulatory standards. It's expanded  legal risk for industries because actually the EPA's  authorities to preempt private action against the industries. So, it's really created a very complicated landscape for US industries that's going to have high costs for American industry and for American households. 

-Michael, let me ask you about this. I mean, his action reverses a 200-page document, if you will. It's got evidence, research backing up what it's saying, but he's dismissing climate change as a hoax. He's calling the climate scientists stupid people, and despite the action itself, it's also messaging. And there are people who listen to the president and kind of go on on what he says. Talk to me about the damage in both categories. 

-Well, what the executive branch is saying with this move is that they don't care about Americans public health or public safety. And increasingly the Make America Healthy Again movement is witnessing this because the Trump administration is doubling down on dangerous greenhouse gases. It's doubling down on pesticides. It's doubling doubling down on forever chemicals. And even the maja movement is seeing this and is troubled by it. We know that these greenhouse gases, which now the executive branch is saying it doesn't want to regulate. We know that these greenhouse gases kill Americans. 200,000 Americans die prematurely every year because of these greenhouse gases. And that's why 20 years ago, we launched into this nearly 20 years ago, we launched into this endangerment finding because there's danger in these greenhouse gases. And so it was an attempt to protect American health, protect American safety. 

It's why we have things like seat belts and speed limits and hard hats in industrial zones. It's why we have FEMA to protect Americans. It's why we have a defense department to protect Americans. And here the executive branch is saying, "We don't care about American public health. We don't care about American public safety. Have at it fossil fuel companies. Pollute all you want. We're not going to interpret the Clean Air Act in ways that for decades the US government did." 

-Lisa, talk to us about the domino effect of this because when it comes to fighting climate change, there needs to be concrete commitments and actions, especially from the big emitters. And I mean, when you look at the big emitters, the United States is the second largest emitter of CO2. So, what does this do in terms of like other countries who are just sort of like, oh, we kind of maybe need to make commitments, but oh well, the US isn't doing this. I mean, talk to us about the spillover impact. 

-Yeah, I think there are many different spillover impacts, but actually the rest of the world is not going to follow the US down this path. We've just the US is ceding leadership and the ability to set the rules and to be competitive in a future. But maybe I'll get to that. Let me answer your question about the spillover effects. First of all, just to completely agree with Michael. The one massive spillover effect of any deregulation of these toxic emissions is going to be extraordinary costs for the US people, not only in terms of health. Michael's exactly right, but those costs are borne by society. The health care system is going to have the cost, but also the physical impacts of climate change. We're already seeing in our country, of course, around the world as well. 

Floods, wildfires, droughts, these are happening with increasing intensity, increasing frequency, and with massive high costs. And insurance is is becoming more expensive.  houses are becoming less insurable. So the fallout effects of not regulating and not trying to control emissions are massively inflated costs, greater trade-offs, greater fiscal strain for states and greater costs for American households. 

The rest of the world is moving on with a climate agenda for two very practical reasons. One is that the rest of the world recognizes the cost of not preparing or not trying to mitigate climate change because they see the effects and the costs and so they're trying to mitigate it. But more importantly actually many major global countries also see the opportunities of investing in the future of supporting green industrial policies of producing the technologies of the future of creating more flexible integrated energy systems. 

So the US is just ceding leadership in this area and I don't think it's going to bring the rest of the world's industries down. 

-And Michael Lisa made a really good point last year devastating  when it comes to extreme weather all across the globe, so how critical is 2026? How dire does the climate change issue become with this new setback? 

-Well, Lisa covered the spillover effects that we'll see going forward. But for anyone who doesn't believe the climate science, and clearly the Trump administration is saying it doesn't care about the science, that's what it's saying with this finding and the rolling back of the endangerment finding. But even if you're part of the Republican following and movement and voting base, this is poor use of public resource and public tax dollars. As Lisa already noted, we're paying for fossil fuels. We directly subsidize fossil fuels at 35 billion a year and indirectly at well over 750 billion a year in the cleanup of spills, leaks, etc. the negative externalities associated with fossil fuels. So already we're paying for these choices. 

Fossil fuels were the fuel of the 20th century, but they won't be the fuel and the energy of the 21st century. And other countries are clearly re realizing that. 

-You already mentioned that, Mike. China. 

-Well over half of new vehicles purchased in China are electric. Almost 100% of new vehicles purchased in some European countries like Norway are electric. Other countries are transitioning, have transitioned to the fuels of the future, the energies of the future, which are infinite, not finite like fossil fuels. So with solar now as the cheapest electricity in history, it makes a ton of sense in terms of managing responsibly managing public resources, these natural resources and public dollars in terms of either direct or indirect subsidies to transition to the fuels and energies of the 21st century which are clearly the infinite ones like solar and wind, not the 20th century fuels, fossil, oil, coal, and gas like Trump mentioned. 

-Okay. To your point,  Lisa, I was in China last year. I was at some of these EV plants and they're just turning out these cars like crazy. They're going in one direction, the United States going in another. Trump saying, this is going to be cheaper cars, more jobs. Talk to us about that argument. 

-Yeah, first of all, most of the industries that are energy intensive require long-term predictability and stability to be able to make effective investments in the future. Automobile companies right now are designing cars for a decade from now. They need to have predictability and certainty about what that landscape is going to look like. Now, of course, in the US, we absolutely don't have that. So, investments are going to be on hold. The cost of capital becomes higher and everyone bears the cost. 

But, of course, as Michael just said, EVs are absolutely the vehicles of the future. And China has dominated that market. And now, not only in China and in Europe, as Michael said, but we're seeing an explosion of EVs in Africa and other parts of the world because they are the most efficient in general. Electrified  not only cars, but also electrified  heat pumps and others are more efficient than their fossil fuel alternatives. So the real tragedy for US industry and for automobiles is that in this very shortsighted absolutely corrupt by the way ruling the American industries have lost the ability to plan for the future and to make coherent investments in what are going to be the future industries.  

And so I actually don't see how we recover from that unless we can get back on course very quickly. Getting back on course, Michael, of course, that would require legal challenges. 

-We're obviously going to see those from environmental groups and health groups as well, but we've also seen how cumbersome that is in the United States. I mean, just recent ruling on the tariffs, but it seems like that case started forever ago. A lot of damage can happen during that period of time. Give us the sense of what it looks like as far as the legal landscape out there. 

-Yeah, Mike, you've already mentioned some of the lawsuits that are already out the door by environmental groups and health groups, public health groups for the public health and public safety reasons we've already discussed on this call. We will continue to see lawsuits by states against the federal government as the executive branch is ceding control over these dangerous gases  and saying that Congress should pick up the slack here in that if we want to legislate then Congress has to legislate. 

So, we'll see it gummed up in the courts for years to come. And in the meantime, this administration is doubling down on 20th century fuels at taxpayer expense, poorly managing both a public resource and public tax dollars, all at the expense of public health and public safety. 

Meanwhile, other countries like China, Lisa already mentioned, China's outpacing the world in wind and solar technology, EV and battery technology, and heat pump technology. So we're losing these markets while Trump is doubling down on fossil fuels. So you can imagine a future 2030, 2040, 2050. The rest of the world has transitioned to green energy, renewable energy because it is infinite. We will have solar and wind for the foreseeable future while we in the United States double down on oil, coal, and gas all at public health, public safety, public resource, and public tax dollar expense. So that's the decision that's being made here. 

Hopefully, Congress will see the light and hopefully the Maha movement, the make America healthy again movement will push the administration in the right direction to make indeed America healthier again in all the ways because that is the role of government to keep us safe and secure which the executive branch has decided not to do in this case. 

-Lisa, kind of to piggyback off what Michael just said,  former US Secretary of State John Kerry had this to say. I'm just going to read his quote. China is now producing more wind, more solar than all of the rest of the world put together. That's what they're doing. They're deploying it. Do you think they've taken a stupid pill or something yesterday and decided to change their entire economy to meet this new standard? No. Their population wants clean air. I think the American population does too, right? The American population is being very misled and confused by a confused administration and a confused media landscape. by the way, that can't help us sort out fact from fiction and to understand really what the rest of the world is doing and the reasons behind the movement in China and in the rest of the world to produce the technologies and energies of the future. Of course, climate change is so real, so dangerous for all of us and we're going to bear the costs. But for China, this is about energy security, energy reliability, affordability. It is about having a globally competitive industry, which they are absolutely doing. They've been exporting their solar panels to the rest of the world already for many many years. So this is an economic move. 

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The American population is being very misled and confused by a confused administration and a confused media landscape

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It's a security move. It's a resilience move. Affordability from China. So and Americans I think don't really understand that we're not being explained that that is what's important for industry. One thing I just want to quickly say about  the perspective of supporting industry, the worst thing for industry is inconsistent and incoherent regulatory frameworks. The Trump administration is purporting to have helped industry by deregulating, by creating chaos. But what China has done and to some extent what Europe has tried to do too is to actually smooth the regulatory landscape to align industrial policy with market demand with support for technologies that is supporting industry in a more coherent and more aligned  investment environment for industries so that they can plan for the next 10 years. 

So if the administration wants to support the industry, that is the way to do it. Understand where the world is headed in 10 years and make a coherent landscape that aligns support for the companies, the financing ecosystem, the market demand and the tools that the US government has to shape market demand  and to align with the global  direction of travel so that the US can continue to be competitive in the global environment. Lisa Michael, thank you so much for your insights. It's been a great discussion. 

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And for some more international perspective on these developments, I'm joined now by Andy Mock. He is senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. And with us too from England is Bob Ward. He is a policy and communications director with the Granthm Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Thank you both for joining us. Andy, why don't I start with you and I'll start with the obvious. It seems like the US is retreating in the fight against climate change, but go wide for us. Give us the global view. What does this do to global efforts to combat climate change? 

Well, thanks for having me on, Mike. And I think that's exactly right. I mean, when we look at climate, it's often framed as a morality play or diplomacy. But I think it really is becoming a test of credibility, institutional capacity, and long-term power. So how countries handle climate commitments now I think really signal  how reliable they are as partners and how capable they are of executing national strategy over decades. 

And I think the problem facing the United States  with this is that a major power that  changes course unpredictably loses allies before it loses battles. And here we can be talking about figurative battles like the battle against  climate change.  and I think this really is a challenge for the US. And I think what is happening here as well is that for many decades  the US had the luxury of being very very  inefficient. And the way I would put it is that the US succeeded not because of its political system but despite its political system. 

And there's an old joke about Hollywood. Uh, but how do you make a million dollars in Hollywood? Well, you start with $10 million. And here, obviously how this applies is that the US could get away for a very long time with a fragmented political system that thrived on internal conflict and now it is being forced to deal with complex global challenges and I think we're seeing the real limitations of this system.  

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COP 31 in Turkey will take place in extraordinary times. We find ourselves in a new world disorder.

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-Andy, really good point there and we'll talk a little bit more about the reliability aspect of this just a little bit later on in the broadcast. But Bob, let me start with Turkey. I mean, they're going to be hosting COP 31 later this year. The UN climate chief is already saying, "Look, we're we're in trouble when it comes to international cooperation." Let's listen to what he has to say, and I want to get your reaction on the other side. 

-COP 31 in Antalia will take place in extraordinary times. We find ourselves in a new world disorder. This is a period of instability and insecurity of strong arms and trade wars. The very concept of international cooperation is under attack. So let's look at this disorder by looking back and looking forward. I mean when you look back the Paris agreement really that was the United States and China coming together and kind of pushing that through and now you just see this kind of backtracking. I was talking to a climate expert in the Arctic earlier this week and he was extraordinarily disappointed in COP 30. It had this great backdrop the Amazon telling the story but he was he just said it was a pathetic result and that was even before what we're seeing now. So give me an idea of what we can expect coming out of Turkey. A well we have the Paris agreement. Every country signed up to it apart from the Americans who have not only withdrawn from the Paris agreement but have now withdrawn from the original 92 treaty on climate change. 

So we'll be absent completely from Turkey. They just won't be there.  but the Paris agreement is the guide for how countries are tackling climate change. Remember that the UN process operates by consensus amongst all the countries. So actually it's amazing that any progress is made. If you think about any global issue at the moment and you try to get consensus about all the world's from all the world's countries on it, it's hard to imagine you would make any progress at all. So it is often slow but is why it has been successful and we should  make note of the fact that although we're not moving quickly enough there is lots going on around the world. It is wrong completely wrong to claim that nothing is going on on climate change. 

Lots of countries are now moving in the right direction. They're not moving quickly enough. We should be clear that the US approach is unhelpful. It is not only to the fact that it's not participating in international processes, but it's actively bullying other countries not to act against climate change. We saw that happened last year at the  International Maritime Organization where the Americans actively sabotaged the agreement that countries had reached to tackle emissions from shipping. they are now trying to bully the members of the international a energy agency to  drop it focus on climate change. 

So we should not underestimate just how much of a destructive approach the Americans are adopting here and let's be very clear about what their motivation is because they are transparent about it. They believe in American energy dominance. That means making the world dependent on American fossil fuels. It is the world's largest producer of oil. It is massively increasing its supplies of natural gas and it wants the world to be dependent on its fossil fuels because it will command greater power and make more money and it sees climate policy in the United States and worldwide as a barrier to that objective. And I don't think the rest of the world is going to go along with this. 

-Andy, uh, let's talk about the rest of the world or more specifically China. You were talking about reliability in the political system in the United States. You see Obama going in one direction, you see Trump going in another direction. You see Biden go back towards Obama back the other way with the US under Trump in a second go-round. 

And while the US keeps tacking one way or the other, China's been pretty deliberate going forward.  the embracing of of green energy, EVs.  talk to us about the stark contrast  in these two major powers. 

-Well, Mike, I think you're absolutely right. There really is such a stark contrast when we look at stability, predictability, reliability  between China and the United States. I mean, it really is almost like night and day. But I think there's a deeper point here when we look at how does China approach these complex challenges like climate change. And I think what it does here is not so widely appreciated but it's actually doing well by doing good. And what I mean by that is China is being a good global citizen by actively participating, making  significant advances  in these areas. But it's not only doing this because it's the right thing to do, but it is also doing well. So, of course, there are  industries that China has nurtured, invested in that now have become  important contributors to climate change. Look at electric vehicles,  look at batteries,  more generally, solar.  and I think this is again maybe a hallmark of the Chinese philosophy that underlies the governance that leads to this long-term predictable  stable kind of  environment that makes China a good interlocator a good partner for other countries around the world. But I think it's also worth pointing out that China does this  by making this the ability to do well by doing good. And I think this is an incredibly  important point  for our audience to be aware of. And Bob, I know you don't want to do a lot of doom and gloom. We'll do a little bit more of it. But I want to go back to your earlier point that there are good things happening. 

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Americans can see for themselves that climate change is having an impact

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And when Trump was in office the first go round, we did hear a lot of governors. We heard businesses saying, "Look, if the US government isn't going to do it, we're going to do it." Are there areas where you see maybe perhaps  some governors stepping up or other efforts in the United States that might mitigate some of this? 

-Well,  as we saw during the first Trump presidency,  the economics of clean energy trump the ideology of the  federal government. And it remains the case that clean energy, solar and wind, is cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. Even though the administration is trying to the development of clean energy, it is still cheaper. 

And states like California are already all in on this. But even red states like Texas have significant renewable  renewables investments and it and it's the basis of their power sector. 

So I don't think we're going to see a revival of the fossil fuel industry. we may see a slowing down of the deployment of renewables but I don't think Trump can reverse this process because the economics work that way. We'll also see I think this Trump administration policy on so many issues of don't believe your eyes I think is just not going to be successful and Americans can see for themselves that climate change is having an impact across the country and that is means that the majority I think increasing numbers of Americans are going to recognize that they need to make this transition and can see all the benefits themselves. electric vehicles are cleaner and easier and require lower maintenance costs. And I think that experience that people have is just going to win through in the end despite what the Trump administration attempts. And Andy, that's a such an interesting point because the Trump administration thinks that this is actually going to be good for the auto industry  by just, redoing things.  but are are they in effect is Detroit kind of in effect perhaps losing out on that EV market which as Bob points out  the rest of the world seems to be embracing? Yeah, I think so, Mike. I mean, so first of all, , to look at it from more of a glass half full perspective, there's all this talk of fragmentation, delobalization.  I think that what's really happening here is the US is more and more becoming an outlier and isolating itself and the rest of the world is cohering around the Chinese approach right which is again making significant investments in technology   implementing policies that really address these issues as well as provide jobs  increasing safety etc as we look at  EVs merging with autonomous vehicles  that this really is  not as bad perhaps as some people are portraying it. Now when we look at  the US auto industry, I think it's absolutely correct that  all around the world  many  countries, many markets are turning towards Chinese EVs, not just because they're inexpensive, but because they're high tech, they're well designed,  they're safe,  they're well serviced. And you look at even  people like Bob Farley who's the CEO of Ford talk about how much he loves his Xiaomi  SU7 and and how humbling  it is for American automakers to see just how far  Chinese companies have come and the US auto industry really does need to be global. I mean this is an industry that thrives on economies of scale. So, if it's only going to look at the  the US market, I think that's really going to hurt the long-term prospects of American companies. 

The other thing I would briefly add to this too is that as we see more and more people all around the world, especially Americans on social media, come to China, see what it's like here,  it's going to be really hard  to justify  to the average American who's facing an affordability crisis that we all know about.  Why can't they buy a $10,000 $20,000 Chinese EV again that is well designed, high tech, fun to drive, etc. So, I think it's hard to see how this will work out well in the long run for the United States across these these different  perspectives. Gentlemen, thanks so much for your insights. Really appreciate it. We're going to have to leave it there, though. Thanks so much for [music] watching another edition of The Heat. ***https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv_NzBtJs8M&t=235s 

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[KE: Everything scientists predicted about global warming/ climate change since the 1970s is coming true, only faster. There were even warnings of autocratic governments rising up amidst the turmoil. But no one predicted the audacity and weirdness of President Donald Trump.]