ClimateChangeFork

Three days after I post this blog, my wife and I are taking a trip to Washington, DC, to take part in an event organized by the Holocaust Institute. As was clear from my earlier blogs, my focus after my retirement shifted to my Holocaust history, its ramifications for our present reality, and the future of my grandchildren. Just put Holocaust into the search box to scan early entries. My original intention for this week’s blog was to start to cover COP30, which was scheduled to open in Brazil on Monday, November 10^th (see the recent blog on October 29^th). However, reality almost always comes with surprises.

On Sunday, October 31^st, the NYT released an interesting editorial board piece related to the second term of President Trump (Opinion | In Trump’s America, Are We Losing Our Democracy?). The piece immediately triggered in me some important questions that changed my priorities for this week’s blog. Specifically, I wanted to look into the idea of using the editorial to leverage a question that has been bothering me for some time now – how to quantify collective evil, starting with evil governments. My scientific background requires that I quantify any findings for other people to be able to refute or confirm my results. Usually, such quantification needs a reference. This issue serves as a focus of the scientific method, as formulated by Karl Popper, and was mentioned in an earlier blog (June 18, 2012) in the context of climate change. Popper was a philosopher, and collective evil in the form of governments is a topic for social scientists to study; I am neither a philosopher nor a social scientist. Before I proceed, I will cite the NYT’s definition of its Editorial Board: 

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Below, the editorial board explains the question that the group tried to answer and how they went about doing so:

Countries that slide from democracy toward autocracy tend to follow similar patterns. To measure what is happening in the United States, the Times editorial board has compiled a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion, with help from scholars who have studied this phenomenon. The sobering reality is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.

Our country is still not close to being a true autocracy, in the mold of Russia or China. But once countries begin taking steps away from democracy, the march often continues. We offer these 12 markers as a warning of how much Americans have already lost and how much more we still could lose.

The editorial is long, and what I had in mind was to connect it to a similar analysis of the Nazi regime, which came to power in 1933 and was responsible for the Holocaust during WWII. I had to ask AI (through Microsoft Copilot) for help. The topic that I posed is the following: “Transition of the Nazi Regime from Democracy to Autocracy Following NYT Analysis of the second Trump regime.” The response came out in the form of two answers: one was summarizing the NYT editorial and the other was extending the analysis to the Nazi regime.

First, the summary of the editorial:

An October 31, 2025, New York Times interactive opinion piece by the editorial board argues the U.S. is shifting toward authoritarianism under President Trump, identifying twelve markers of democratic erosion. The article suggests that while not yet a full autocracy, the initial, difficult-to-reverse steps of democratic backsliding have begun, citing examples like prosecuting political opponents and stifling dissent. Read the full analysis at The New York Times.

The analysis concluded that of the 12 markers discussed, 7 of them had just started within Trump’s administration, while 5 of Trump’s actions were already shifting the focus of the government.

This was followed by a similar analysis of the Nazi regime’s transition to autocracy after gaining power in 1933:

The Nazi regime’s consolidation of power in Germany after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933 can be analyzed through several common markers of democratic erosion:

• • • • Undermining or Controlling the Judiciary and Rule of Law: Following the Reichstag fire in February 1933, the Nazis used the subsequent Reichstag Fire Decree to suspend basic civil liberties (freedom of speech, assembly, privacy) and detain political opponents without trial [3]. They established the Volksgerichtshof (People’s Court) to try political crimes with predetermined outcomes [3].
      • Silencing the Media: The Nazis rapidly shut down or co-opted independent media outlets through the Editors’ Law (Schriftleitergesetz), which required all journalists to be registered and obey directives from the state’s Ministry of Propaganda, headed by Joseph Goebbels [3].
      • Eroding Electoral Integrity: Although Hitler was appointed Chancellor constitutionally, he quickly called for new elections in March 1933, using the suspended civil liberties and state resources to campaign aggressively while suppressing all opposition parties [3]. The Enabling Act was passed shortly after this election, effectively ending the power of the Reichstag.
      • Marginalizing the Legislature: The Enabling Act of 1933 (“Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich”) allowed the Chancellor and his cabinet to pass laws without the consent of the Reichstag, effectively bypassing the legislative branch entirely and making Hitler a dictator [3].
      • Politicizing the Civil Service and Security Forces: Existing state police forces were rapidly purged of opponents and brought under centralized Nazi control. The SS and Gestapo were established as political security forces loyal directly to Hitler and the Nazi Party, operating outside traditional legal constraints [3].
      • Eliminating Political Pluralism: Through a process called Gleichschaltung (coordination), all independent political parties were banned (the Law Against the Formation of New Parties, July 1933), trade unions were dissolved, and all aspects of civil society were brought under Nazi control [3].
      • Promoting Nationalism and an “Othering” of Minorities: The Nazi ideology was built on virulent antisemitism and the concept of the “Aryan race,” systematically targeting Jewish people and other minorities through propaganda, discriminatory laws (leading to the Nuremberg Laws in 1935), and violence [3]. 

By 1934, the combination of these actions had fully transformed the Weimar Republic from a democracy into a single-party totalitarian state, demonstrating a rapid and comprehensive application of measures that extinguish democratic institutions and norms [3].

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazi regime’s rise to power in 1933 involved systematic actions to dismantle democratic institutions and suppress opposition. These included prosecuting political opponents, stifling dissent, bypassing the legislature through the Enabling Act, and consolidating control over state governments and military forces. For more details, visit encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

According to an analysis applying criteria from a New York Times editorial, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in 1933 exhibited all twelve indicators of democratic erosion. Within months of Hitler becoming Chancellor, the regime systematically weakened accountability institutions, tightened executive control, purged opponents, suppressed dissent, and eroded civil liberties, leading to a one-party state. More details are available on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.

According to a New York Times editorial, the 1933 Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler demonstrated a rapid and extreme progression across all twelve indicators of democratic erosion identified by the publication. These markers include stifling speech, prosecuting political enemies, bypassing the legislature, and undermining free elections, all of which manifested intensely and rapidly within months of Hitler becoming Chancellor. For more details, visit The New York Times.

After reading the NYT piece and the AI response on the similarities between the current happenings and the rise of the Nazi regime, I thought that I had seen a similar analysis earlier. I went to my library and, indeed, I had. I found a small book that I had previously read, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder, shown in Figure 1. The book can be bought for $9.

Figure 1 – The book’s cover

The book consists of a short prologue and 20 lessons addressed to the “average” citizen of the US. It came out in 2017, after President Trump’s inauguration into his first term. The last sentence of the prologue reads as follows: “This book presents twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today…”

The 20 main lessons are cited below. They are phrased as rules or directives; for the explanations and instructions, I strongly recommend either spending the $9 or finding a copy in the library and reading the book.

• • • Do not obey in advance.
    • Defend institutions.
    • Beware the one-party state.
    • Take responsibility for the face of the world.
    • Remember professional ethics.
    • Be wary of paramilitaries.
    • Be reflective if you must be armed.
    • Stand out.
    • Be kind in our language.
    • Believe in truth.
    • Investigate.
    • Make eye contact and small talk.
    • Practice corporeal politics.
    • Establish a private life.
    • Contribute to good causes.
    • Learn from peers in other countries.
    • Listen for dangerous words.
    • Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
    • Be a patriot.
    • Be as courageous as you can.

The specific references to 20^th-century history, not surprisingly, are focused on Nazi Germany, with some sprinklings of mentions of the Soviet Union. The same author released an expanded audio version of the book in 2022 with an additional 20 lessons based on Russia’s war on Ukraine.

A similar analysis can provide a solid background, keeping Nazi Germany as a reference for collective evil. However, few will be surprised that most countries in the world—more specifically—all the developing countries, tend to stay out of the conversation. I will return to this issue in future blogs.

(Source: NTT Data)

I finished last week’s blog with a wish to be thankful this coming Thanksgiving. On a personal level, I have some control over my actions and surroundings. On a global level, I have no control so I can only wish. The top picture and the associated link are from the 2024 Intelligence Report of Global Threats. The only threats that this report covers are cyber threats. In previous blogs, I tried to address broader threats. See my June 11, 2024 blog, titled “What Are We Trying to Teach Our Children?” A key paragraph is cited below:

As I have tried to show in more than 12 years that I have been writing this blog, humanity is in the middle of at least 5 existential transitions; all of these started around WWII. They include climate change, nuclear energy, declining fertility, global electrification, and digitization. These transitions started around the time that I was born, but they will hopefully last (if some of them do not lead to extinction in the meantime) at least through the lifetime of my grandchildren (I call this time “now” in some of my writing).

This blog addresses four out of five of these existential transitions that provide early signs of present global threats. These threats are presented in three categories: nuclear war, climate change, and declining population. I will start with nuclear war:

Nuclear War:

I will start with a recent frightening movie – A House of Dynamite. It is a well-made movie; for  those of us who have not seen it, I am including part of a review:

A military expert has praised one aspect of the new Netflix film A House of Dynamite, which has become a huge streaming hit, despite being criticised for inaccuracies.

The political thriller, from Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow, depicts a scenario where a nuclear weapon is fired at the US by an unidentified foe.

From three different perspectives – first from the White House Situation Room, then from the United States Strategic Command, and finally from the President himself, the film repeatedly tracks the 20 minutes after the weapon’s launch and the complex, world-changing decisions that officials might have to make in such a situation.

In terms of public response, the most controversial part of the movie was the ending (spoiler alert!), which doesn’t give the viewers a clear answer to the key question that it raises. We still don’t know—will the missile, loaded with nuclear weapons, hit Chicago and kill more than 10 million people in the metropolitan area, or will it trigger a global nuclear war that could lead to existential extinction? The answer that the movie makers provide to the public is that they wanted to trigger broad thinking about the consequences.

The movie is both frightening and entertaining and is being compared frequently to an earlier movie (1964): Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. For those who have never heard of this movie, I cite two paragraphs from Wikipedia that describe it, and give my strong recommendation to watch it:

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (known simply and more commonly as Dr. Strangelove) is a 1964 political satire black comedy film co-written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is loosely based on the thriller novel Red Alert (1958) by Peter George, who wrote the screenplay with Kubrick and Terry Southern. The film, financed and released by Columbia Pictures, was a co-production between the United States and the United Kingdom.

The story concerns an insane brigadier general of the United States Air Force who orders a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. It follows the President of the United States (Sellers), his scientific advisor Dr. Strangelove (Sellers), a Royal Air Force exchange officer (Sellers), and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Scott) as they attempt to stop the crew of a B-52 from bombing the Soviet Union and starting a nuclear war.

The Dr. Strangelove movie focuses on one powerful, deranged individual. “A House of Dynamite” is based on an overstressed, unprepared, collective system that includes and affects most of us. We are not prepared for such a debacle. The real world is not a movie. The only time that nuclear warheads were used in a real war was in August 1945, toward the end of the American war with Japan. The present nuclear threat was summarized in a previous blog (July 9, 2025). Now, the two largest holders of nuclear weapons are threatening each other (and everyone in between). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought about confrontations with NATO, following which, we have seen constant threats: Russia burning as Ukraine launches huge attack after Trump WW3 warning – World News – News – Daily Express US

Russian authorities said they intercepted 100 Ukrainian drones across regions overnight, including six near Moscow and 13 over border areas. The assaults disrupted flights at three major airports, including Vnukovo and Domodedovo. The apparent strikes align with Ukraine‘s summer-long campaign against Russian energy infrastructure and coincide with Kyiv’s use of domestically produced long-range drones to hit military and industrial sites. Russian officials have condemned the operation as “terrorist aggression” and vowed reprisals. The strikes occurred 48 hours after US President Donald Trump’s condemnation of Vladimir Putin‘s Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile test, conducted on October 21 and announced publicly on October 26.

Recently, the US was also reported as being interested in picking up nuclear weapons testing again:

President Donald Trump has called on US military leaders to resume testing nuclear weapons in order to keep pace with other countries such as Russia and China.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” he wrote on social media just before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.

The US has more nuclear weapons than any other country, Trump said, with Russia second and China a “distant third”. It has not conducted nuclear testing since 1992.

It comes just days after Trump denounced Russia for testing a nuclear-powered missile. The Kremlin says its tests were “not nuclear”.

More frightening is that the nuclear tension is not between the US and Russia, the two largest holders of nuclear weapons, but between Russia and NATO. I asked AI (through Google), who in NATO has the authority shown in the movie, to trigger nuclear war—either to instigate or retaliate. This is what I got:

Authority for a nuclear counter-attack in response to a Russian nuclear strike on a NATO country rests solely with the heads of government of the three NATO member states that possess their own nuclear weapons: the United States President, the United Kingdom Prime Minister, and the French President.

NATO itself, as an organization, does not own or control any nuclear weapons, so a decision to use them is a national one for these three countries, albeit made in close consultation with the Alliance.

I am following the lead of the producers of A House of Dynamite, and letting readers decide for themselves the sanity of the threat.

Climate Change:

The separate threat of nullifying (or reducing) global efforts to mitigate global climate change through the COP process will be transparent after the start of COP30. The US efforts in this direction, after the inauguration of the Trump administration, were described in last week’s blog. The present state of the global effort is summarized by the Guardian:

Recently drafted climate plans from scores of countries fall drastically short of what is needed to stave off the worst effects of climate breakdown, analysis has shown. More than 60 countries have so far submitted national plans on greenhouse gas emissions to the UN, setting out how they will curb carbon for the next decade. Taken together, these plans would cut carbon by only about 10% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels. This is only about a sixth of the drop in global emissions needed to limit global heating to 1.5C.

Going from the statistical abstract to a more concrete scenario, I have been following the effects of Hurricane Melissa, which is now hitting the Caribbean (Death toll climbs to 50 as Caribbean surveys Hurricane Melissa destruction: Live updates):

“The entire Jamaica is really broken because of what has happened, but we remain resilient,” said Jamaican Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Dana Dixon on Thursday. “We will get there… we are going to get to every single Jamaican and give them support.”

In Cuba and Haiti, heavy rainfall caused extensive damage. According to Francisco Pichon, resident coordinator for Cuba at the United Nations, more than 200 communities remained isolated and without communications due to flooding and landslides. The hurricane unleashed catastrophic flooding in Haiti, damaging homes and forcing thousands of people into emergency shelters.

Voices that used to be supportive of major global efforts to mitigate the threats are now starting to retreat:

NEW YORK — Bill Gates thinks climate change is a serious problem, but it won’t be the end of civilization. He thinks scientific innovation will curb it, and it’s instead time for a “strategic pivot” in the global climate fight: from focusing on limiting rising temperatures to fighting poverty and preventing disease. A doomsday outlook has led the climate community to focus too much on near-term goals to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause warming, diverting resources from the most effective things that can be done to improve life in a warming world, Gates said. In a memo released Tuesday, Gates said the world’s primary goal should instead be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions in the world’s poorest countries.

We will expand on this shift in messaging during and following COP30, which starts on November 10^th.

Declining Fertility + Digitization (AI):

Very early signs of using digitization, through AI, will show us if we can replace people with machines. The example below, with Amazon’s announcement that it will lay off 14,000 workers, is starting to initiate a global debate on the issues. The two links below demonstrate the stakes:

https://www.aol.com/finance/amazon-may-replace-600-000-120000770.html

As the second largest employer in America, Amazon currently employs around 1.5 million workers. (1, 2) Between 2018 and today, Amazon has onboarded hundreds of thousands of workers, effectively tripling its workforce. (3, 4) But the giant company may be planning a departure from extreme reliance on human employees in the coming years and decades.

According to internal Amazon documents reviewed by the New York Times, some departments within the company are planning to replace employees with robots, impacting up to 600,000 roles. The documents showed that Amazon hopes to avoid hiring more than 160,000 people that it would otherwise need to staff its U.S. warehouses by 2027. (5)

https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/us-senator-sanders-challenges-bezos-amazon-automations-job-impacts-2025-10-28/

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 28 (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called on Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab founder Jeff Bezos to account for what the Vermont independent said were hundreds of thousands of potential lost jobs due to automation.

“If Amazon succeeds on its massive automation plan, it will have a profound impact on blue-collar workers throughout America and will likely be used as a model by large corporations throughout America,” Sanders wrote in a letter to Bezos, which was exclusively reviewed by Reuters.

Future blogs will follow these developments.

(Source: Dariusz Okraska / EyeEm / Getty Images via History.com)

This blog will be posted two days before Halloween, saying goodbye to October and looking forward to November. I know that November will end with Thanksgiving, and I hope that in addition to saying historical thanks, we will be able to be thankful for other things happening next month. My plan for November is to travel to Washington to take part in an event organized by the Holocaust Institute. This activity triggered in me a fear of disaster and a need to face the state-triggered, “noncreative” destruction in the form of Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938) (more about “creative destruction” at the end of the blog). Meanwhile, COP30 starts on November 10^th in Brazil. What the Trump administration is doing amounts to the state-triggered destruction of mitigation efforts.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Holocaust studies are mandatory in schools in many US states, as well as in many other countries. Kristallnacht is generally taught as part of this topic. However, random polling suggests that most people don’t know much about the link between the Holocaust and Kristallnacht. A similar situation holds true for COP30. Most people know in general about climate change, but few know about the role of the yearly COP (Conference of the Parties) meetings to try to coordinate global mitigation. Consistent readers of this blog are different; just put the two terms (separately) into the search box to find out what I have said about these matters in the past.

We now have the tools to provide background without requiring people to make too much effort in reading prior writing. In the next few pages, I show two AI (through Google) summaries on the two events. The two questions that I posed to the AI are slightly different. For Kristallnacht, I simply asked for impact, while for COP30, I was interested in the current Trump administration’s efforts to contradict the group’s decisions:

Impacts of Kristallnacht (AI through Google):

Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” was a violent pogrom against Jews across Nazi Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland on November 9–10, 1938. It marked a major turning point, escalating Nazi persecution from discriminatory policy to widespread, state-sanctioned violence. 

Impacts on the Jewish community

The direct and immediate impacts on the Jewish people were devastating. 

• • • • Widespread violence and destruction:Gangs of Nazi storm troopers, Hitler Youth, and German civilians destroyed over 1,400 synagogues and other Jewish institutions. They vandalized and looted around 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses and countless homes.
      • Death and humiliation:While sources vary, more than 91 Jews were murdered during the attacks, and many more committed suicide. Jews were also publicly humiliated and assaulted.
      • Mass arrests and concentration camps:Approximately 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps like Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. This marked the first instance of mass arrests of Jews based solely on their religion. While most surviving detainees were later released, the experience was brutal.
      • Forced emigration:For many German and Austrian Jews, Kristallnacht was the “wake-up call” that there was no future for them in the Third Reich. The number of Jewish people seeking to emigrate skyrocketed in the months that followed. 

Impacts on Nazi policy

Kristallnacht fundamentally altered the Nazi regime’s approach to its anti-Jewish agenda. 

• • • • Escalation of persecution:The violence was a dramatic and public escalation of the anti-Jewish policies that had been in place since 1933. It demonstrated the Nazis’ willingness to use violent tactics to eliminate the Jewish presence in German society.
      • New anti-Jewish laws and decrees:Following the pogrom, the Nazi regime enacted numerous laws to remove Jews from German economic and public life. These included:
        • Prohibiting Jews from selling goods or services.
        • Excluding Jewish children from public schools.
        • Barring Jews from public places such as cinemas, theaters, and sports.
      • Financial extortion:The Nazi regime imposed a collective fine of one billion Reichsmarks on the Jewish community, claiming they were responsible for the damages. Insurance payments for damaged Jewish properties were also confiscated by the state.
      • Paving the way for the “Final Solution”:The lack of significant internal and international resistance signaled to the Nazis that they could continue their violent actions with minimal repercussions. This set the stage for further atrocities and the eventual mass murder of the Holocaust. 

International and societal impacts

The international community and the German public had a mixed reaction to the events. 

• • • • Limited international action:While reports of the pogrom were met with shock and outrage in the United States and Western Europe, little concrete action was taken to help German Jews. This was demonstrated at the Evian Conference in 1938, where most nations refused to admit significant numbers of Jewish refugees.
      • German public complicity or fear:The passive or compliant response of many Germans—whether due to fear or ideological agreement—indicated to the Nazis that they could continue their violent actions with minimal resistance.
      • The beginning of the Holocaust:In a wider context, Kristallnacht is often viewed as a turning point from targeted discrimination to the systematic state-sponsored persecution that would lead to the Holocaust and the murder of six million European Jews.  

AI (Through Google): What Trump’s government activities in his second term contradict COP decisions?

Following his inauguration in January 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration immediately took several actions that directly contradict the decisions and goals of the COP international climate negotiations. The core of his second-term policy is a reversal of previous U.S. climate policy, focusing instead on the expansion of domestic fossil fuel production and deregulation. 

Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

As in his first term, one of Trump’s first acts was to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, which is the key COP-enabled global accord for climate action. 

• • • • Executive Order:On January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order to initiate the withdrawal from the agreement for a second time, which will become effective in January 2026.
      • Contradiction to COP:This action directly rejects the core framework and spirit of all COP decisions, which aim to have all nations cooperate on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Undermining international climate finance

President Trump’s government significantly cut funding and support for international climate initiatives, a move that undermines the COP commitment for developed nations to assist developing ones. 

• • • • Funding Cuts:The administration is reducing or eliminating U.S. contributions to climate-focused intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.
      • Impact on Vulnerable Nations:This directly weakens global support systems and disproportionately affects developing countries, which rely on financial and technological aid to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change. 

Reversal of domestic climate regulations

A series of deregulatory actions dismantled key climate policies implemented by the previous administration. 

• • • • Rescinding the “Endangerment Finding”:The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed rescinding the finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health. This move could dismantle the legal basis for American regulations on carbon emissions.
      • Attacks on State Policies:The Department of Justice was directed to challenge state-level climate and environmental initiatives, particularly those attempting to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate impacts.
      • Contradiction to COP:COP decisions call for increasing national ambition to cut emissions, but these actions weaken both federal and state-level efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. 

Expansion of fossil fuel production

The administration is actively promoting the expansion of fossil fuels, directly conflicting with COP’s objectives of transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

• • • • Increased Drilling:Trump has pursued an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that prioritizes oil, gas, and coal. This includes opening up more federal lands and waters to drilling.
      • Coal Promotion:In August 2025, the administration issued executive orders to “reinvigorate” the coal industry by prioritizing coal leases on federal lands and removing regulations that impede production.
      • Contradiction to COP:This policy directly opposes the global push to phase out fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to renewable energy. 

Dismantling of climate initiatives

The second Trump administration immediately targeted climate-focused programs established under the previous administration. 

• • • • Inflation Reduction Act (IRA):The administration has attacked and begun rolling back provisions of the IRA, which provided significant incentives for clean energy technology and production.
      • Climate Science Censorship:Federal agencies have been directed to remove or limit climate-related language from their communications and websites, attempting to downplay climate science.
      • Contradiction to COP:These actions inhibit the large-scale investments in clean energy needed to meet emissions targets and suppress public awareness, both of which are foundational to successful COP outcomes. 
      • Attacks on State Policies:The Department of Justice was directed to challenge state-level climate and environmental initiatives, particularly those attempting to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate impacts.
      • Contradiction to COP:COP decisions call for increasing national ambition to cut emissions, but these actions weaken both federal and state-level efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. 

Expansion of fossil fuel production

The administration is actively promoting the expansion of fossil fuels, directly conflicting with COP’s objectives of transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

• • • • Increased Drilling:Trump has pursued an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that prioritizes oil, gas, and coal. This includes opening up more federal lands and waters to drilling.
      • Coal Promotion:In August 2025, the administration issued executive orders to “reinvigorate” the coal industry by prioritizing coal leases on federal lands and removing regulations that impede production.
      • Contradiction to COP:This policy directly opposes the global push to phase out fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to renewable energy

Kristallnacht is translated in many languages as the “Night of the Broken Glass.” The link below the picture of broken glass shown in the top of this blog gives more about the event and its origin. It took place in November 1938; WWII officially started 10 months later, with the invasion of the German troops into Poland. I have no idea if the photograph of the broken glass from the link had anything to do with the event. In a sense, it is irrelevant. Similar photographs can be linked to the activities of the present Trump administration in the context of climate change. Both events describe state-supported destruction. The main difference is that the Holocaust, which followed Kristallnacht, took place in the recent (within my lifetime) past, while the devastating impact of climate change is still progressing—at a bit slower of a pace. Sometime, destruction can be followed by a better thing; we call this “creative destruction.” I wrote about it (see June 4, 2025 blog) and two of this year’s Nobel Prize winners in Economics—Mr. Aghion and Mr. Howitt—were awarded for their contributions to the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction. There is no question that the destruction caused by the Holocaust cannot be labelled as “sustained growth.” Similarly, almost the whole scientific community is of one mind, that unmitigated climate change doesn’t leads to sustained growth either. The reality of the Holocaust is now fully transparent. Meanwhile, the reality of climate change is making progress at a slower pace, but its impact on all of us is accelerating. I will follow the results of the coming COP30 meeting and will try to figure out the impact of the new Trump administration on the rest of the global community’s attempts to mitigate the accelerating disaster. Once we reach Thanksgiving, we should have a clearer view.  

Last week’s blog finished with the following two sentences: “Following the nature of the question – ‘reverse declining fertility,’ the responses focus on mitigating declining fertility. The next blog will focus on adaptation to declining fertility, using the same methodology.” I started to follow up with my promise to use AI in this blog, only to immediately realize that it would not be so simple. If AI and automation take over, there will be less need for workers, and therefore fewer jobs. I started with Co-Pilot (Microsoft), asking an identical question to the one in last week’s blog, only replacing mitigation with adaptation. I got a list of some of the same countries that showed up in last week’s blog. The content of what they are doing was basically identical. I decided to skip the country enumeration and focus on the AI summary that is given below:

AI(Co-Pilot) – Adaptation to Declining population by country:

🧠 Strategic Themes Across Countries

• • • Immigration reform is a key lever for countries with declining native populations.
    • Automation and AI are being deployed to offset shrinking labor forces.
    • Family-friendly policies—like subsidized childcare, paid parental leave, and housing support—are central to boosting birth rates.
    • Healthcare and elder care investment is critical as dependency ratios rise.

These adaptations reflect a shift from growth-centric models to sustainability and resilience in demographic planning. If you’re curious how your own country is preparing for these changes, I can dive deeper into its specific strategies.

I needed more specific input, and I tried to slightly modify the question and use a different AI (through Google):

AI (Google): Effectiveness of adaptation to declining population by country

No country has effectively solved the challenges of population decline, as long-term declining fertility has proven extremely difficult to reverse. Adaptation measures have focused on increasing birth rates, boosting labor force productivity, and using immigration to offset population loss, but no single approach has been consistently successful. 

Case studies on adaptation effectiveness

Challenges and conclusions

• • • Pro-natal policies have been largely ineffective:Despite significant investment, measures to boost fertility rates in countries like South Korea and Japan have not achieved replacement-level fertility.
    • Immigration is a key adaptation tool:Countries that have adapted most successfully have used immigration to offset population decline. However, this raises social and political challenges related to integration and cultural change.
    • Productivity growth is crucial:For developed countries, maintaining per-capita GDP growth in a shrinking workforce requires significant investment in innovation and automation.
    • Long-term solutions are needed:Addressing the challenge of an aging society also requires major reforms to social security and pension systems, which are strained by a growing retiree population.
    • A “thriving” mindset:Emerging perspectives, like those in the Nordic countries, suggest that a focus on building resilient communities and improving quality of life may be a more effective adaptation strategy than solely focusing on reversing demographic trends. 

The key sentence in the Co-Pilot response, in my opinion, was “These adaptations reflect a shift from growth-centric models to sustainability and resilience in demographic planning.” The Google AI summary (with the addition of the word “effectiveness”) showed two new perspectives. It stated specifically that no country has yet come out with a policy that can point to a possible solution for population decline. It also singled out the Scandinavian attitude that reversing a declining population might not be necessary. The Nordic countries’ attitude also reflects the fact that declining population inevitably correlates with changing population pyramids, resulting in a major increase in older populations and a decrease in younger ones. This point is basically identical to the key sentence from Co-Pilot quoted above.  Earlier blogs that emphasized environmental impact were driven by an identity with the acronym of IPAT (Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology). Just put IPAT in the search box and scan the results. For climate change specifically, the acronym takes the form shown below (See May 31, 2022):

Following the IPAT calculation, I often hear the perspective that one should not be too concerned with declining population because it would also result in a decline in environmental damage. To me, this suggests a “back to the cave” attitude where the best policy is to return to an earlier time when the average life expectancy was in the 20-40 range. 

Figure 1 – Automation to hit major sectors (Source: SHRM)

Figure 2 (Source: SUSPS)

The two AIs responses have in common that the two adaptation policies that can be used to compensate for fertility decline below replacement, are immigration and automation in forms of robotics and AI. The situation in the US is demonstrated in figures 1 and 2. There are serious issues with both policies. The technology of automation in terms of AI and robotics is in its infancy. Figure 1 is titled “automation to hit major sectors,” meaning sometime in the unknown future. Similarly, Figure 2 shows that in the US, immigration is the most important factor that keeps the population growing. However, as the first blog in this series shows (October 8, 2025), the decline in fertility is global. Even the fertility of Sub-Saharan countries is declining. It is still well above replacement, but declining. Immigration as an adaptation to population decline cannot operate on a global scale. Politically, the reliance on immigration to reverse a declining population is a source of political shakeup in many countries. Here is how AI (through Google) summarized the issue:

Global attitudes toward immigration in 2025 are complex, reflecting a mix of welcoming sentiments in some nations and growing concerns in others. A country’s stance on immigration is shaped by economic conditions, recent migration events, the skills of immigrants, and political discourse. 

Most and least accepting countries

According to a July 2025 Gallup poll, the most and least accepting countries for migrants are: 

• • • Most accepting:Iceland and New Zealand.
    • Least accepting:Macedonia, Montenegro, and Hungary.
    • Other studies have found negative sentiments to be consistently high in Turkey, Italy, and Russia. 

Attitudes in major receiving and sending countries

United States

• • • Shifting views:A July 2025 Gallup poll showed a significant rise in positive attitudes toward immigration. A record-high 79% of U.S. adults said immigration is a “good thing” for the country, a sharp increase from 64% in 2024. The percentage wanting less immigration fell by nearly half to 30%.
    • Reasons for the shift:This change coincided with a sharp drop in illegal border crossings in 2024 and was observed across all major political groups. Support for more stringent enforcement measures, such as a border wall and mass deportations, has also declined since 2024.
    • Top destination:The U.S. remains the world’s top migrant destination, with over 52 million immigrants as of 2024. 

European countries

• • • Mixed sentiment:Public opinion across Europe is often more negative towards immigration than in other regions. A 2018 Pew study found a more negative attitude shift in France, the UK, and Spain.
    • Negative sentiment:In countries that experienced high volumes of asylum seekers in 2015, such as Greece, Germany, and Italy, the initial public perception that immigrants strengthen the country dropped significantly. A 2023 survey identified Austria as the most anti-immigrant country, with other high scores in Germany, the Netherlands, and France.
    • Varied within the region:It is crucial to note that sentiments vary significantly within the European region, and no single view represents the continent. 

Key factors influencing attitudes

• • • Economics:Perceptions of economic conditions and competition for jobs can drive negative sentiments towards immigrants. However, recent research in the U.S. shows that cultural factors can be more influential than economic ones.
    • Culture:Concerns that an influx of immigrants might negatively alter a country’s culture or national identity are a major driver of anti-immigrant sentiment. Positive attitudes are more likely in countries with inclusive integration policies.
    • Skills:Immigrants’ skill level often influences public opinion. Higher-skilled immigrants are generally more accepted than lower-skilled immigrants.
    • Politics:Political rhetoric significantly influences attitudes. The issue of immigration is often contentious and is used by political parties to shape voting behavior. A shift in the political landscape can be mirrored by changes in public opinion, as seen in the U.S. in 2025. 

The AI’s response to the present US attitude toward immigration gave me the impression that it was hallucinating. It happens!

Figure 1 – Predicted population plunge, 2025-2050 (Source: UN, World Population Prospects 2024, via IMF)

I asked AI (through Copilot) what different countries are doing to reverse declining fertility. In this case, the relevant countries include China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Thailand. Countries like Ukraine and Russia, which appear in Figure 1, are not included because while war is an “obvious” mechanism for population decline, the change does not reflect fertility rates. I am copying the AI summaries below,

China:

China is ramping up national efforts to reverse its declining birth rate by offering financial incentives, expanding childcare access, and improving reproductive healthcare.

Here’s a detailed look at the key measures China is implementing:

🍼 National-Level Policies

• Childcare Subsidy: As of July 2025, families receive 3,000 yuan (~$418) annually for each child under age three.
• Free Preschool Education: Beijing plans to roll out free preschool nationwide, reducing early education costs for families.
• Epidural Access Mandate: All hospitals with over 500 beds must offer epidural anesthesia during childbirth by the end of 2025, and smaller hospitals by 2027.

🏡 Local Incentives

• Hohhot (Inner Mongolia): Offers up to 100,000 yuan (~$13,900) per family for having a second and third child, paid annually until the child turns 10.
• Hangzhou and Other Cities: Provide childcare vouchers, daycare subsidies, housing support, and job training for parents.

🧬 Fertility Support

• Insurance Coverage for IVF: Public health insurance now covers assisted reproductive technologies (ART) like IVF in cities such as Beijing. Over 32,000 patients accessed these services in the first nine months after coverage began.

⚠️ Challenges and Limitations

• High Cost of Child-Rearing: Raising a child in China costs over 538,000 yuan—more than 6.3 times the GDP per capita.
• Cultural and Economic Barriers: Young people are delaying marriage, and many women cite career pressures, gender inequality, and employment insecurity as reasons for not having children.
• Limited Impact So Far: Despite these efforts, birth rates have only slightly increased in some regions, and the national population continues to decline.

Japan:

Japan is tackling its fertility crisis with a sweeping “New Dimension” strategy that includes expanded child allowances, universal daycare, and enhanced parental leave benefits.

Here’s a breakdown of Japan’s latest efforts to reverse its declining birth rate:

🍼 “New Dimension” Fertility Strategy

Launched by Prime Minister Kishida Fumio in 2023, this initiative includes four major pillars:

• Expanded Child Allowances:
• Monthly payments doubled to 30,000 yen (~$200) for the third child and beyond.
• Eligibility extended to high school students.
• Income caps abolished, allowing all families to receive support.
• Universal Daycare Access:
• Previously, unemployed parents couldn’t use daycare centers.
• Now, all children are eligible, regardless of parental employment status.
• Maternity Expense Coverage:
• Social insurance will now cover maternity-related costs, reducing out-of-pocket expenses.

Enhanced Parental Leave Benefits:

• If both parents take leave, they receive 100% of their after-tax income for up to 28 days (up from 80%).

💰 Financial Commitment

• Japan earmarked 5.3 trillion yen (~$34 billion) in 2025 alone to support families.
• An additional 3.6 trillion yen annually will be spent over the next three years on child allowances, education, and childcare.

🌍 Immigration Reform

• Japan is loosening visa rules to attract foreign workers, especially in elder care and agriculture.
• Goal: Triple the number of foreign workers by 2040 to offset labor shortages.

⚠️ Challenges Ahead

• Japan’s fertility rate hit 1.20 in 2024—far below the replacement rate of 2.1.
• Births dropped to 730,000 last year, while deaths hit 1.58 million.
• Experts warn that cultural shifts, workplace reform, and gender equality are also crucial to reversing the trend.

South Korea:

South Korea is confronting its record-low fertility rate with aggressive national policies, local incentives, and cultural reforms—but the challenge remains steep.

Here’s a comprehensive look at what South Korea is doing:

🍼 National-Level Policies

• Expanded Parental Leave:
• Parents can now take up to 18 months of paid leave.
• Government covers 80% of income for the first 3 months, then 50% for the remainder.
• Childcare Subsidies:
• Monthly cash allowances of up to 700,000 won (~$520) for children under 12 months.
• Free childcare services for children aged 0–5.
• Fertility Treatment Support:
• IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies are fully covered by national health insurance for eligible couples.
• Education Cost Relief:
• Government is expanding free preschool and subsidizing after-school programs to reduce the burden on working parents.

Local Government Incentives

• Hwaseong City:
• Offers 100 million won (~$74,000) in housing subsidies for families with three or more children.
• Sejong City:
• Provides priority housing, free public transport, and childcare vouchers to families with multiple children.
• Other Municipalities:
• Some offer cash bonuses, discounted utilities, and parenting support centers.

👩‍💼 Workplace Reforms

• Flexible Work Hours:
• Encouraging companies to adopt family-friendly schedules and remote work options.
• Anti-Discrimination Enforcement:
• Strengthening laws to protect women from pregnancy-related job discrimination.

📉 The Challenge

• South Korea’s fertility rate dropped to 0.72 in 2024—the lowest in the world.
• Births fell below 230,000, while deaths exceeded 370,000.
• Cultural factors—long work hours, high education costs, gender inequality, and housing prices—continue to deter young couples from having children.

Germany:

Germany is expanding parental benefits, childcare access, and workplace flexibility to counter its declining fertility rate, which fell to 1.35 in 2024—the lowest in nearly two decades.

Here’s a detailed look at Germany’s approach:

🍼 Family and Childcare Support

• Parental Leave Benefits:
• Parents can take up to 14 months of paid leave, with 67% of net income covered.
• If both parents share leave, they receive two extra months of benefits.
• Elterngeld Plus Program:
• Allows parents to stretch benefits over a longer period if they work part-time.
• Designed to support dual-income families and encourage shared parenting.
• Childcare Expansion:
• Federal and state governments are investing in Kita (daycare) infrastructure.
• Goal: Universal access to full-day childcare by 2030.

🏡 Financial Incentives

• Kindergeld (Child Benefit):
• Monthly payments of 250 euros per child, regardless of income.
• Paid until the child turns 18, or 25 if in education or training.
• Tax Relief for Families:
• Families receive income tax deductions and housing subsidies based on number of children.

👩‍💼 Workplace and Gender Equality

• Flexible Work Laws:
• Employees can request reduced hours or remote work to balance family life.
• Employers are encouraged to offer family-friendly schedules.
• Gender Equality Measures:
• Government campaigns promote equal parenting roles and female workforce participation.
• Funding for women’s career re-entry programs after maternity leave.

📉 Fertility Trends and Challenges

• Fertility Rate: Dropped to 1.35 children per woman in 2024, with German citizens averaging just 1.23.
• Births: Only 677,117 children were born in 2024—a 2% decline from 2023.
• Average Age of First-Time Parents: 30.4 years for mothers, 33.3 for fathers.
• Regional Gaps: Berlin had the lowest fertility rate (1.21), while Lower Saxony had the highest (1.42).

Thailand:

Thailand is expanding parental leave, introducing paternity benefits, and enhancing workplace support to address its declining fertility rate, which stands at just 1.2 births per woman in 2025.

Here’s a detailed look at Thailand’s latest efforts:

🍼 Expanded Parental Leave (2025 Draft Legislation)

• Maternity Leave: Increased from 98 to 120 calendar days.
• Employers must pay full salary for the first 60 days.
• Social security covers 50% of wages for the next 45 days.
• Final 15 days are unpaid.
• Paternity/Spousal Leave:
• 15 paid workdays for the mother’s partner, gender-neutral.
• Must be taken within 90 days of birth, paid fully by the employer.
• Carer Leave:
• Mothers can take 15 workdays at 50% pay if the child has health issues.
• Leave must be taken as one continuous period.

🧑‍💼 Employer Implications

• The bill shifts more financial responsibility to employers, especially for maternity and spousal leave.
• Currently, only a minority of Thai companies offer benefits beyond statutory requirements.

📉 Fertility Crisis Context

• Thailand’s fertility rate is among the lowest in Southeast Asia, far below the replacement level of 2.1.
• A recent survey found that while 71% of Thais view the declining birth rate as a crisis, only 35.8% plan to have children.
• Experts warn of a shrinking workforce and urge urgent policy action.

Following the nature of the question – “reverse declining fertility,” the responses focus on mitigating declining fertility. The next blog will focus on adaptation to declining fertility, using the same methodology.

Figure 1 – Fertility rate by world region, 1950 -2021 (Source)

It’s time to shift to a recent global trend that is less dependent on chaotic governments’ decisions. Among the five main global trends that I have discussed throughout my blog  (see June 11, 2024), the one that fits this description best is globally declining fertility. The earliest of my blogs that addresses the issue is “Future Populations” from December 24, 2013. It begins a series that goes through February 25, 2014, including a guest blog by Jim Foreit titled, “How Does Population Decline?” (January 14, 2014). I made a very long comment on Jim’s blog; I’m including two key sentences from it below:

The nature of exponential growth or decline is such that left unchecked they will lead to disasters. As Jim’s blog made clear, we have yet to develop some understanding of how to stabilize populations at any level. The UN fiat of stabilizing the population at replacement rate without suggesting what policies have a chance of accomplishing it, is untenable.

During the 11 years since that blog was posted, the situation hasn’t changed much.

The top figure shows the changes in fertility in the different global regions from 1950 to the present. Over this period, fertility in all global regions has declined. Fertility around the world, except in Africa, is trending around the replacement value of 2.1. Fertility within the rich countries of North America, most of Europe, Australia, and much of Asia is now well below replacement values. (Those of us not familiar with the concept of replacement value are invited to put the two words in the search box for further discussion of the concept.).

A few days ago, we had a visit from two demographer friends. The top graph was an obvious focus of discussion—specifically, the impact of wealth on fertility. The main (in my opinion) point that they raised was the problem of using GDP/Capita as a measure of wealth. To demonstrate the issue, I will focus below on three large countries that together account for 40% of the global population, and include the top representatives of the World Bank’s low-, middle-, and high-income economies: India, China, and the US:

Table 1 (Source: World Population Review)

Median Income 2020      Mean Income 2020      GDP/Capita 2023 (PPP)

US                   $19,306                       $25,332                                   $82,769

India                                                    $1,314                                     $10,166

China                                                   $4,246                                     $24,569

Table 1 and Figure 2 demonstrate the issue. Figure 2 shows the situation in China, but the inequity of wealth distribution is common throughout the world. Fertility, on the other hand, is an intensive function (not dependent on the number of women used for the calculation) of the country, with equal contributions throughout. Understanding such uneven distribution plays a key role in the now “banned” DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives in organizations supported by the federal government.

Figure 2 – Wealth distribution in China  (Source: Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions)

Now we go to Wikipedia to find out what they have to say on the correlation of fertility with income:

Income and fertility is the association between monetary gain on one hand, and the tendency to produce offspring on the other. There is generally an inverse correlation between income and the total fertility rate within and between nations.^[3][4] The higher the degree of education and GDP per capita of a human population, subpopulation or social stratum, the fewer children are born in any developed country.^[5] In a 1974 United Nations population conference in Bucharest, Karan Singh, a former minister of population in India, illustrated this trend by stating “Development is the best contraceptive.”^[6] In 2015, this thesis was supported by Vogl, T.S., who concluded that increasing the cumulative educational attainment of a generation of parents was by far the most important predictor of the inverse correlation between income and fertility based on a sample of 48 developing countries.^[7]

Generally a developed country has a lower fertility rate while a less economically developed country has a higher fertility rate. For example the total fertility rate for Japan, a developed country with per capita GDP of US$32,600 in 2009, was 1.22 children born per woman. But total fertility rate in Ethiopia, with a per capita GDP of $900 in 2009, was 6.17 children born per woman.^[8]

Demographic–economic paradox

Herwig Birg has called the inverse relationship between income and fertility a “demo-economic paradox“. Evolutionary biology predicts that more successful individuals (and by analogy countries) should seek to develop optimum conditions for their life and reproduction. However, in the last half of the 20th century it has become clear that the economic success of developed countries is being counterbalanced by a demographic failure, a sub-replacement fertility that may prove destructive for their future economies and societies.^[9]

Figure 3 –  Demographic transition – Wikipedia (By Max Roser – Email from author, author of website http://ourworldindata.org/data/population-growth-vital-statistics/world-population-growth, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47036003)

Figure 4 – Global fertility distribution as a function of GDP/capita (PPP) (Source: Medium)

The Wikipedia entry on democratic transitions explains in detail the five stages shown in Figure 3 and their implications on the population pyramids. It shows that in all cases, stages 2, 3, and 4, in which the birth rate considerably increases compared to the death rate, are transitory and eventually most systems return to equilibrium. How long such a transition takes varies among countries and depends on many socio-economic factors. Figure 4 represents 2015 data, showing the random convergences around and below the replacement rate.

Figure 5 –  Total U.S. Fertility Rate by Family Income : r/Natalism

Figure 5 shows another perspective of the fertility dependence on wealth in the US, down to family level.

Figure 5 also shows that the definition of fertility is directly connected to women’s reproductive span. The complexity of the income distribution, down to the family level, is perhaps best illustrated by one individual—the richest individual in the world: Elon Musk. Musk is the dad of 14 kids that he fathered with 4 different women.

Yet, he is taking the position that the global decline in fertility is the most urgent existential threat that the world is facing:

Elon Musk has never been one to shy away from controversial statements. One of his most consistent warnings in recent years has been a warning about the collapse of global birth rates. Recently, he posted a striking map of fertility data from around the world, underscoring what demographers and economists increasingly recognize: the problem facing humanity is not overpopulation but rather underpopulation.

Inadvertently, Musk is putting the burden of solving this existential threat on women. The next blog will focus on the present global efforts to address declining populations.

Figure 1 – Source: The Conversation) 

These are two of the main issues of concern that came out in President Trump’s speech to the UN, as reflected by the White House highlight:

Climate Change:

• • • “I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the ‘green energy’ scam, your country is going to fail. If you don’t stop people that you’ve never seen before that you have nothing in common with, your country is going to fail.” (Watch)
    • “The challenge with trade is much the same as with climate: the countries that followed the rules, all their factories have been plundered… by countries that broke the rules. That’s why the United States is now applying tariffs to other countries.” (Watch)

Globalization:

• • • “What makes the world so beautiful is that each country is unique — but to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders.” (Watch)
    • “The entire globalist concept of asking successful, industrialized nations to inflict pain on themselves and radically disrupt their entire societies must be rejected completely 4and totally — and it must be immediate.” (Watch)

The response by executives of the oil and gas industry was different than expected (Oil and gas executives sour on their cheerleader-in-chief – POLITICO):

President Donald Trump used the world stage this week to sell American oil and gas. But U.S. oil and gas producers are increasingly feeling sour about the president.

A quarterly survey of oil and gas companies released today by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas quotes industry executives who blast Trump on everything from tariffs and policy uncertainty to his attacks on renewable energy.

“Life is long, and the sword being wielded against the renewables industry right now will likely boomerang back in 3.5 years against traditional energy,” wrote one unnamed executive.

The global response was overwhelming:

At a climate summit at the United Nations on Wednesday, the vast majority of the world’s nations gathered to make their newest pledges to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.

Geopolitical heavyweights including China, Russia, Japan and Germany were there. Dozens of small island states were there. The world’s poorest countries, including Chad and the Central African Republic, were there. Venezuela, Syria, Iran — there, too.

The United States was not.

The implications of the US “defining” climate change as non-existent, in advance of the coming COP30 meeting in Brazil (scheduled to start November 10^th) are predictable, especially after the State Department negotiators were fired:

The Trump administration fired the last of the US climate negotiators earlier this month, helping cement America’s withdrawal from international climate diplomacy. It may also have handed a huge victory to China.

The elimination of the State Department’s Office of Global Change — which represents the United States in climate change negotiations between countries — leaves the world’s largest historical polluter with no official presence at one of the most consequential climate summits in a decade: COP30, the annual UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, in November.

Without State’s climate staff in place, even Capitol Hill lawmakers who usually attend the summits have been unable to get accredited, a source familiar with the process said.

To support the presidential US positions, facts and data need to be “eliminated” (Energy chief suggests Trump administration is altering previously published climate reports | CNN)

Energy Sec. Chris Wright said Tuesday night the Trump administration is updating the National Climate Assessments that have been previously published, which the administration recently removed from government websites.

“We’re reviewing them, and we will come out with updated reports on those and with comments on those reports,” Wright told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in an interview on “The Source.”

However, it seems that inertia is irreversible in this case, as seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Global electricity generation by source

Let’s hope!

Figure 1 – Cited research by place of origin  (Source: Nature)

The world seems to be breaking its reliance on US research and thus on its leadership in mitigating and adapting to changes in global trends. The main shift, as the top figure shows, is a steady decline in productive research (in terms of citations of publications) by the US, with a corresponding increase in Chinese research. This trend preceded both Trump presidencies but seems to be expanding and accelerating with Trump’s second term. The summary below is focused on the recent balance with Europe:

• Summary

• EU governments prepare to go it alone on some data after Trump cuts

• Data on sea-level rise and extreme weather events put at risk by cuts to NOAA

• Efforts builds on “guerrilla archiving” – a dash by independent scientists to preserve U.S. data

BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON/BERLIN, August 1 (Reuters) – European governments are taking steps to break their dependence on critical scientific data the United States historically made freely available to the world, and are ramping up their own data collection systems to monitor climate change and weather extremes, according to Reuters interviews.

The effort – which has not been previously reported – marks the most concrete response from the European Union and other European governments so far to the U.S. government’s retreat from scientific research under President Donald Trump’s administration.

Research plays a big role in understanding existential trends and thus finding effective ways for society to minimize current and predicted danger.  These strategies include mitigation, adaptation, and training all elements of society with new sets of applicable skills. One of the best examples of this rests in the effort to address climate change. The state of these efforts has been addressed throughout this blog. Below is a short description by AI (through Google) of the advancements that have resulted from these efforts:

Science is tackling climate change effects through advancements like shifting to renewable energy sources (solar, wind), developing carbon capture technologies, promoting sustainable agriculture to reduce farm emissions, and creating more energy-efficient systems in homes and transportation. Other efforts include improving waste management to reduce pollution, designing smart cities for better urban planning, and using AI and data science to monitor and predict climate impacts. Scientists are also focused on food innovation, such as cultured meat and plant-based diets, to reduce the footprint of our food systems.

The federal agencies that personify this research efforts are the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The present situation in the Department of Energy, under the new Trump administration, was described in last week’s blog. This blog is focused on the National Science Foundation. Here is how AI (through Google) describes the NSF:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) was established in 1950 as a U.S. federal agency to support non-medical basic research and education, inspired by Vannevar Bush’s 1945 Science, The Endless Frontier report. Signed into law by President Harry S. Truman, the NSF Act of 1950 aimed to foster scientific progress, advance national well-being, and secure the national defense. The NSF is the major source of federal support for university research in many fields and played a key role in the development of the commercial Internet.

This role is now being reversed and it’s going to have major impacts:

The National Science Foundation this week eliminated most of its top career executive positions, with impacted staff either being demoted or reassigned to vacant roles.

NSF initiated a reduction in force to eliminate the Senior Executive Service roles, which will take effect in early October. Employees will not actually be separated from the agency, provided they accept their new assignments.

Attempts to use the judiciary to block the move have failed:

A federal judge in New York declined in a ruling on Friday to order the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in terminated funding that had been awarded to research institutions by the National Science Foundation.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in May in which a coalition of 16 states argued that the grants were critical to maintaining the United States as a leader in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, subjects, and that the cuts were “in complete derogation of the policies and priorities set by Congress.”

The science foundation had announced policy changes meant to align its mission with that of the broader Trump administration. The changes included updating what the plaintiffs call the foundation’s priority directive to exclude the funding of activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The suit asked the court to find the foundation’s new priority directive unconstitutional and to issue an injunction blocking further cuts to universities and other higher education institutions.

As was mentioned before, the main role of NSF is to support basic research, which forms the foundation for any applied research that follows. Figure 2 shows specific societal changes that basic research supports.

Figure 2 – Basic research (Source: Ohio State University)

The importance of research in training students to adapt to future societal changes, and the role of the federal government in support of this effort, are topics that I discussed in earlier blogs (see a recent series of blogs all titled “The Federal Role in University Research,” dated February 25 – March 11, 2025). Figure 3 shows the evolution of (or in the terms of the NYT, “the increased dependence on”) the federal government’s financing of these efforts.

Figure 3 – Seventy years of university research funding (Source: NYT)

The US federal government is now using universities’ financial dependence on grants—which are earned through competitive proposals—to have veto power over the content of the research. The disastrous consequences that such threats impose can be illustrated with the threats on perhaps the greatest accomplishments of university research in the last decade: the detection of gravitational waves as an addition to electromagnetic radiation, as a tool to investigate the universe. Below is the essence of this issue:

More ominously, President Trump has proposed slashing LIGO’s operating budget in 2026 by 40 percent, to $29 million from $48 million, and eliminating one of the antennas. That could spell disaster, as it takes two antennas to triangulate the origins of gravitational waves.

Elimination of the second antenna in LIGO basically makes the detector useless, and fully reliant on detectors in other countries. Under these new policies, America has stopped being the dominant force for global betterment through science.

(Source)

I will start with the big picture: “The US government has declared war on the very idea of climate change” focused on the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency):

Americans are used to whiplash in their climate policy. The US has been in and out and in and out again of the key Paris climate agreement over the past four presidencies.

But in his second administration, President Donald Trump is not just approaching climate science with skepticism. Instead, his administration is moving to destroy the methods by which his or any future administration can respond to climate change.

These moves, which are sure to be challenged in court, extend far beyond Trump’s well-documented antipathy toward solar and wind energy and his pledges to drill ever more oil even though the US is already the world’s largest oil producer.

A similar perspective, with a bit more history, from the NYT:

Ever since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson’s science advisory committee warned of the dangers of unchecked global warming, the United States has taken steps to protect people from these risks.

Now, however, the Trump administration appears to be essentially abandoning this principle, claiming that the costs of addressing climate change outweigh the benefits. The effect is to shift more of the risk and responsibility onto states and, ultimately, individual Americans, even as rising temperatures fuel more extreme and costly weather disasters nationwide, experts say.

“It’s a radical transformation of government’s role, in terms of its intervention into the economy to try to promote the health and safety of citizens,” said Donald Kettl, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy.

Direct target for this attitude is redirecting the agency that is supposed to provide direct assistance to states that suffer the impacts of major losses, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). Below is how AI (through Google) describes what FEMA does:

FEMA, or the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is a U.S. government agency that supports citizens and first responders by preparing for, protecting against, responding to, recovering from, and mitigating all hazards. It provides financial and technical assistance to individuals and communities after disasters, offers guidance on flood insurance and risk reduction, and supports programs that help people and organizations recover and rebuild.

The sad part is that FEMA is being redirected toward blocking immigration, much of which is accelerated from the impacts of global threats on the rest of the world. I discussed this topic in a previous blog (January 16, 2024), before the results of the 2024 elections were known.

Here is what the present Trump administration is trying to do to FEMA:

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) – The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to send $608 million to states to construct immigrant detention centers as part of the Trump administration’s push to expand capacity to hold migrants.

FEMA is starting a “detention support grant program” to cover the cost of states building temporary facilities, according to an agency announcement, opens new tab. States have until August 8 to apply for the funds, according to the post.

The threat is provoking a response that reminds us all of a previous response where FEMA didn’t do a great job, almost 20 years ago to the day:

Employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote to Congress on Monday warning that the Trump administration had reversed much of the progress made in disaster response and recovery since Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast two decades ago.

The letter to Congress, titled the “Katrina Declaration,” rebuked President Trump’s plan to drastically scale down FEMA and shift more responsibility for disaster response — and more costs — to the states. It came days before the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest and costliest storms to ever strike the United States.

This adversarial response is not limited to FEMA. The federal government department with the central responsibility for mitigating climate change by replacing the reliability on fossil fuels that are at the center of the anthropogenic impact on the climate, carbon dioxide, is the Department of Energy. Below is what the new head of the department is now doing… (Energy chief suggests Trump administration is altering previously published climate reports | CNN):

Energy Sec. Chris Wright said Tuesday night the Trump administration is updating the National Climate Assessments that have been previously published, which the administration recently removed from government websites.

…with the following result: (https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/DOE_Critical_Review_of_Impacts_of_GHG_Emissions_on_the_US_Climate_July_2025.pdf):

Over my lifetime, I’ve had the privilege of working as an energy entrepreneur across a range of fields—nuclear, geothermal, natural gas, and more—and I now serve as Secretary of Energy under President Donald Trump. But above all, I’m a physical scientist who sees modern energy as nothing short of miraculous. It powers every aspect of modern life, drives every industry, and has made America an energy powerhouse with the ability to fuel global progress. The rise of human flourishing over the past two centuries is a story worth celebrating. Yet we are told—relentlessly—that the very energy systems that enabled this progress now pose an existential threat. Hydrocarbon-based fuels, the argument goes, must be rapidly abandoned or else we risk planetary ruin. That view demands scrutiny. That’s why I commissioned this report: to encourage a more thoughtful and science-based conversation about climate change and energy. With my technical background, I’ve reviewed reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. government’s assessments, and the academic literature. I’ve also engaged with many climate scientists, including the authors of this report. What I’ve found is that media coverage often distorts the science. Many people walk away with a view of climate change that is exaggerated or incomplete. To provide clarity and balance, I asked a diverse team of independent experts to critically review the current state of climate science, with a focus on how it relates to the United States.

The adversarial response penetrates directly to the data collection, disabling preparation for effective mitigation. There is some counteracting effort to shift reliance of data collection to the private sector. (Private Companies Step up to Gather Weather Data for NOAA as Staffing Cuts Hobble Agency Forecasting – Inside Climate News):

As the beleaguered weather service struggles to maintain its forecasting and other services, it’s leaning on private companies to pick up the slack. For example, WindBorne, which is backed by Khosla Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on investing in companies with innovative business models and technologies, is opening five new balloon launch sites in the U.S. this year as it expands its work with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent agency of the NWS.

​The impacts on health are early signs of the threats and are being reevaluated. (National Academies Launch Fast-Track Review of Latest Evidence for Whether Greenhouse Gas Emissions Endanger Public Health and Welfare | National Academies):

WASHINGTON — A new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study will review the latest scientific evidence on whether greenhouse gas emissions are reasonably anticipated to endanger public health and welfare in the U.S.

The committee conducting the study will focus on evidence gathered by the scientific community since 2009 — when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency first declared greenhouse gas emissions a danger to public health. Any conclusions in the committee’s report will describe supporting evidence, the level of confidence in a conclusion, and areas of disagreement or unknowns.

The EPA recently announced that it intends to rescind its “endangerment finding,” a statement issued by the agency in 2009 that found that greenhouse gas emissions do pose risks to public health and welfare. The National Academies study will be completed and publicly released in September, in time to inform EPA’s decision process.

“It is critical that federal policymaking is informed by the best available scientific evidence,” said Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences. “Decades of climate research and data have yielded expanded understanding of how greenhouse gases affect the climate. We are undertaking this fresh examination of the latest climate science in order to provide the most up-to-date assessment to policymakers and the public.”

The annual gatherings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) serve as a governing body to assess progress on climate goals, negotiate agreements, and drive collaborative climate action among almost every country in the world. This year the COP meeting is supposed to take place in Belem, Brazil on November 10th. To those of you who have no idea where Belem is, you’d better check the map. It is one of the largest cities in the Brazilian Amazon, with a population of about 1 million inhabitants. The US, once a major participant in these meetings (put COP into the search box to follow previous entries), is expected to be seriously underrepresented:

The Trump administration fired the last of the US climate negotiators earlier this month, helping cement America’s withdrawal from international climate diplomacy. It may also have handed a huge victory to China.

The elimination of the State Department’s Office of Global Change — which represents the United States in climate change negotiations between countries — leaves the world’s largest historical polluter with no official presence at one of the most consequential climate summits in a decade: COP30, the annual UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, in November.

Without State’s climate staff in place, even Capitol Hill lawmakers who usually attend the summits have been unable to get accredited, a source familiar with the process said.

The courts are not providing much help with the broad changes that the administration is now instituting.The US can’t attempt to mitigate future threats without an agreement or even discussions by Congress:

Sept 2 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration can proceed with terminating more than $16 billion in grants awarded to non-profit groups to fight climate change, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden’s signature 2022 Inflation Reduction Act had awarded the grants aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency under Trump had sought to terminate the grants.

Next week’s blog will try to address the role of science in trying to predict future global threat developments and how the present US administration is trying to decapacitate this tool.

(Source: Statista; Data based on Word Meteorological Organization)

The data are coming with the comment that “Economic losses were reported for only 37% of all weather, climate- and water related disasters. 2025 global GDP is estimated at 114 Trillion US$. We are talking big numbers here.

This blog will focus on the global aspects of the threats and the actions of the Trump administration to confront them.

Global threats, such as climate change, require global mitigation. Mitigation is a slow process, so increasing threats require global adaptation. But adaptations in most cases are local. The world is a very uneven place, so, financing remedies to global threats needs to follow. It does not. Below is an AI summary (through Google) of the global financial stresses between developed and developing countries:

Developed vs. developing countries

A major source of global tension is the historical responsibility for causing climate change and the resulting financial obligations.

• “Polluter pays” principle: Developing nations argue that developed countries, which are responsible for the bulk of historical greenhouse gas emissions, should bear the largest share of the financial burden.
• Self-interest shapes spending: Developed countries, however, have different motivations. Investing in mitigation projects in a developing country yields a global benefit that all countries share. In contrast, funding adaptation primarily benefits the recipient country, which may reduce the incentive for politicians in donor countries to favor adaptation spending.
• The $100 billion promise: Developed countries pledged to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance to developing nations by 2020. They reported exceeding this goal in 2022, but the pledge was still met two years late, and only a fraction of the total went to the poorest countries.
• The heavy burden on developing nations: When compared to their GDP, least developed countries (LDCs) face the heaviest costs for climate action. For some, addressing climate change could require up to 40% of their GDP, far exceeding what is provided in international assistance.

Developing countries and domestic finance

• Developing nations cannot rely on international assistance to cover all climate-related investments. Nearly half of the required funding needs to come from domestic sources.

• For the most vulnerable nations, particularly Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), a greater share of international funding often comes as grants to avoid further increasing their debt burden.

• In contrast, many middle-income developing countries receive a higher proportion of funding through loans, which can worsen debt problems.

Climate change impact doesn’t strike on its  own. Anthropogenic (originating in human activities) impacts intensify natural weather patterns. Climate disasters took place before humans were around, and atmospheric turbulence is observed on planets where life is not observed. Attributions to anthropogenic causes are key to the mitigation of such events. A key earlier blog that describes the issue of attributions, is the one published on October 3, 2017, under the title of “Doomsday: Attributions.” I strongly recommend looking at that background issue.

The rest of the blog will focus on quantifying specific sectors:

• Global Insurance (Natural disasters caused $135 bn in economic losses in first half of 2025: Swiss Re):

Natural disasters caused $135 billion in economic losses globally in the first half of 2025, fueled by the Los Angeles wildfires, reinsurer Swiss Re said Wednesday.

Swiss Re, which serves as an insurer of insurance companies, said first half losses were up from the $123 billion in the first half of 2024.

The Zurich-based reinsurance giant estimated that of this year’s first half losses, $80 billion had been insured — almost double the 10-year average, in 2025 prices.

The Los Angeles blazes in January constitute the largest-ever insured wildfire loss event by far, reaching an estimated $40 billion, said Swiss Re.

It said the “exceptional loss severity” of the fires was down to prolonged winds, a lack of rainfall and “some of the densest concentration of high-value single-family residential property in the US”.

• Mortgage lenders (https://safeguardproperties.com/how-climate-change-could-cause-foreclosure-rate-to-spike-nearly-400/#:~:text=Industry%20Update,July%2031%2C%202025&text=Climate%20change%20could%20be%20responsible,click%20the%20source%20link%20above):

Climate change could be responsible for a 380% increase in foreclosures by 2035, according to research firm First Street’s most recent National Risk Assessment.

The assessment also predicts the economic impact of these foreclosures on lenders, and the potential losses could be staggering. First Street’s analysis expects mortgage lenders to lose $1.2 billion in natural disaster-related foreclosures in 2025. That figure is expected to go as high as $5.4 billion by 2035. Losses that big could change how mortgage lenders calculate risk.

Currently, most mortgage lenders consider the borrower’s income, credit history, and debt load as the biggest potential risks in processing loan applications. First Street believes lenders may be forced to consider how extreme weather events could elevate their risk level when making underwriting decisions. Most banks don’t consider the possibility of climate-change-driven foreclosure risk in making loan decisions. First Street assessment suggests they should.

Swiss Re said losses from wildfires had risen sharply over the past decade due to rising temperatures, more frequent droughts and changing rainfall patterns — plus greater suburban sprawl and high-value asset concentration.

“Most fire losses originate in the US and particularly in California, where expansion in hazardous regions has been high,” it said.

• Corporations
  • Net Zero Targeting (​https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/net-zero-corporate-climate-targets-1.7338799)

In what is becoming something of a trend, a number of companies are abandoning their carbon emissions targets — in a year scientists have determined is likely to end up being the hottest on record.  Earlier this month, Volvo announced it was dropping its goal of having a fully electric lineup of vehicles by 2030. In the summer, Air New Zealand said it was abandoning a pledge to reduce its emissions by about 29 per cent by 2030. And in March, Shell announced it was easing its target of reducing the total “net carbon intensity” of all the energy products it sells by 20 per cent. “I don’t think [the trend] is really new, but given the state of the world, it’s more apparent,” said Charles Cho, a professor of sustainability accounting and the Erivan K. Haub Chair in business and sustainability at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. The message from a lot of these companies is that meeting their climate targets has become too costly, a theme emphasized by some American banks last month at NYC Climate Week, an annual gathering for organizations to discuss global warming. After more than 190 countries signed the Paris Accord in 2015 — codifying an international push to keep global temperatures well below 2 C warming from pre-industrial levels — many companies made bold climate pledges. A lot of them promised deep emissions cuts. Many said they’d reach net zero — that is, modifying their operations so their net emissions were zero — by 2030. But Cho says a lot of them didn’t really specify how they would get there. And now, a decade later, in the absence of any meaningful enforcement for countries and companies alike, many companies are realizing those goals are unattainable. “I think there was a rush to make those targets visible on their [corporate] reports, but … I think they spoke too fast,” said Cho. The stated reasons for these retrenchments vary. For example, Air New Zealand has blamed its decision on poor access to efficient planes and sustainable aviation fuel. Volvo has cited stagnant demand for electric vehicles and inadequate charging networks, while Shell emphasized continuing demand for oil and gas and uncertainty about the speed of the global energy transition.

• Balancing Short Term Profit with Long Term Responsibilities (https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/2-Trillion-Funding-Gap-Casts-Shadow-over-Energy-Transition.html):

Investments in the energy transition are falling way short of what is needed for its success. The fresh warning comes from BlackRock, which said annual investments in the shift away from hydrocarbons need to almost double from their current record levels. But it’s getting less likely this would ever happen.

In a new edition of its Investment Institute Transition Scenario, the bank said that moving the transition forward would require more money from both public and private sources and that, for its part, would require “alignment between government action, companies and partnerships with communities,” according to Michael Dennis, head of APAC Alternatives Strategy & Capital Markets at BlackRock, as quoted by CNBC.

BlackRock mentioned the $4-trillion figure as the necessary sum to be invested in the transition annually back in December when it released the original IITS. The amount was as impressive as it is now, not least because it was double the amount of earlier investment estimates. What makes it even more impressive is the fact that last year’s record transition investments came in at less than half that, at $1.8 trillion.

However, impacts of governments fluctuate and corporations are aware of that. Inertia plays an important role in running successful corporations. The concept of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investments is probably the best indicator for the susceptibility of corporations to societal changes. I wrote about it in an earlier blog (February 18, 2025), with the following summary:

The ESG (environmental social governance) concept has appeared frequently throughout this blog. Two of the more recent blogs are from August 16, 2022, and March 28, 2023. Specific issues that ESG addresses are marked on the figure above, including aspects of DEI. You can find more entries through this blog’s search box. The issue that I am addressing in this blog is the new Trump administration’s attitude toward the concept and its impact on businesses. I’m especially interested in the differences between and similarities to the administration’s attitude toward DEI that was discussed in last week’s blog. In the March 28, 2023 blog, I tried to make the case that politicizing ESG means politicizing our future.

Below is how inertia is playing a role around these shifts:

The vast majority of large U.S. companies are maintaining or even increasing investments in ESG initiatives, as most executives view sustainability as a driver of competitive advantage and growth, but many are talking less about it publicly in the face of growing political and regulatory scrutiny, according to a new survey released by business sustainability ratings and solutions provider EcoVadis. For the report, “2025 U.S. Business Sustainability Landscape Outlook,” EcoVadis surveyed 400 executives responsible for business and operational decision-making at companies with over $1 billion in revenues in industries ranging from consumer and industrial, to technology and services.

The next blog will focus on what the present Trump administration is doing to the US ability to mitigate and adapt to global threats.