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Europe gets cold feet
At the start of the year, as President Donald Trump began the process of withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement and started dismantling climate policies, the European Union president, Ursula von der Leyen, tacked in the opposite direction. “Climate change is still on top of the global agenda,” she said during a speech in January. Eleven months later, things look very different. Patricia Cohen and Eshe Nelson reported Tuesday that the E.U. is poised to water down its plans to ban the production of gas- and diesel-powered cars by 2035. Members of Parliament voted on Wednesday to delay the rollout of a groundbreaking deforestation law that would affect far-flung corners of the globe. And early this year, lawmakers chipped away at the scope and scale of new disclosure requirements meant to force companies to be more forthcoming about the environmental impact of their operations. It’s not a pivot that’s on par with the U-turn the U.S. has taken on climate this year. Europe still has some of the strongest climate commitments in the world, with a goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. But the events of 2025, experts say, are reflective of increasing worries that E.U. regulations will slow economic growth. “First, it was climate policy no matter what,” said Gianmarco Fifi, a research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies European politics. “Now, it’s climate policy, yes, but as long as it’s not completely detrimental to competitiveness.” Here are some of the policies under the microscope. Combustion enginesThis week, E.U. officials introduced a proposal that would walk back an effective ban on the production of gas- and diesel-powered cars by 2035. Instead of requiring automakers to produce zero-emissions cars, the revised version of the rules would require a 90 percent reduction in tailpipe emissions starting that year. Automakers would be required to offset the remaining 10 percent with low-carbon steel or alternative fuels. The change follows intense lobbying from European automakers as they face U.S. tariff pressure and surging competition from Chinese manufacturers. The E.U. climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, said the proposal would ensure a clean future for the European car industry at a time when it is “fighting for survival,” Cohen and Nelson reported. This year, the Trump administration, along with Republicans in Congress, eliminated tax credits for electric vehicle buyers and blocked California’s plans to phase out the sales of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. This month, the administration moved to weaken fuel efficiency requirements for new cars and light trucks that would have forced automakers to sell more electric and hybrid vehicles. Deforestation delay, Part 2In 2023, the European Union passed a bold law aimed at preserving forests around the world by banning imported goods linked to deforestation. On Wednesday, legislators voted to delay the law for a second time. The rules govern products containing seven land-intensive commodities: cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soybeans, rubber and wood. They require companies to monitor their supply chains to ensure these materials are not sourced from land that has been converted from forest to agriculture since 2020. It’s a vast and complicated task, and the law has drawn pushback. Companies balked. Indonesia’s economic minister called the plan “regulatory imperialism,” objecting to Europe’s efforts to impose environmental standards on economically important industries in other nations. Some E.U. member countries asked for a delay, and so did the Biden administration. Last December, the E.U. granted a one-year reprieve. As this year’s deadline inched closer, lawmakers again grew concerned, this time that the record-keeping requirements would overwhelm an I.T. system used to collect paperwork. The E.U. Parliament voted to delay it for another year and simplify some of the reporting requirements. “The heart of the E.U. deforestation regulation remains intact,” Christine Schneider, a German member of the European Parliament, said in a statement. “This agreement takes the concerns of farmers, foresters and businesses seriously and ensures that the regulation can be implemented in a practical and workable way.” What’s nextThere are new European climate laws that the world may have to adjust to. In 2027, for example, oil and gas companies exporting to Europe will have to comply with strict methane-monitoring standards. And in January, some emissions-intensive imports like steel and cement will be subject to a new border tax based on their climate footprint, part of a broad effort to put a price on imported carbon emissions. On Tuesday, Lisa Friedman reported that the Trump administration was seeking an exemption from the methane law for American oil and gas companies. China has balked at both the emissions border tax and the deforestation rule. These climate policies were intended to lay the track for other countries to follow — examples of what has been called “the Brussels effect.” But it’s not clear if the rest of the world will comply. “I think there is a concern that Europe is trying to lead a fight, and it’s going to find itself alone in this fight,” Fifi said. “The other big players — China and Russia or the United States — at the moment are not even thinking about it.”
POWER MOVES Trying out flying taxis and drone deliveries in ChinaAs an American reporter living in Beijing, I’ve watched both China and the rest of the world flirt with cutting-edge technologies involving robots, drones and self-driving vehicles. But China has now raced far beyond the flirtation stage. It’s rolling out fleets of autonomous delivery trucks, experimenting with flying cars and installing parking lot robots that can swap out your E.V.’s dying battery in just minutes. There are drones that deliver lunch by lowering it from the sky on a cable. If all that sounds futuristic and perhaps bizarre, it also shows China’s ambition to dominate clean energy technologies of all kinds. China has incurred huge debts to put trillions of dollars into efforts like these, along with the full force of its state-planned economy. I checked them all out. The battery-swapping robots, the self-driving delivery trucks, the lunches from the sky. Starting with flying taxis, no pilot on board. — Keith Bradsher And read more of our Power Moves series on the battle between the United States and China for the energy future. CLIMATE SCIENCE Trump administration plans to break up premier weather and climate research centerThe Trump administration said it would be dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of the world’s leading Earth science research institutions. The center, founded in 1960, is responsible for many of the biggest scientific advances in humanity’s understanding of weather and climate. Its research aircraft and sophisticated computer models of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are widely used in forecasting weather events and disasters around the country, and its scientists study a broad range of topics, including air pollution, ocean currents and global warming. Scientists, meteorologists and lawmakers said the move was an attack on critical scientific research and would harm the United States. — Lisa Friedman, Brad Plumer and Jack Healy LOST SCIENCE
“The knowledge that is being lost, how can we recover from that?”Ana Vaz was a fish biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the agency’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center. After joining NOAA in 2024, she was fired as a probationary employee in April 2025. She now lives in Brazil and works for the country’s National Institute for Oceanographic Research as a science analyst. Read more. NUMBER OF THE DAY 9.2 percentIvan Penn reports that the average U.S. household is projected to spend nearly $1,000 this winter to heat its home, up 9.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents state governments in securing federal money. At the same time, he reports, the budget for a critical federal program to help low-income Americans pay for heat has been cut by about a third this year compared with two years ago. More climate news from around the web:
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