By Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney, Health & Science, September 28, 2018<\/p>\n
Last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement<\/a>, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous seven degrees<\/a> by the end of this century.<\/p>\n A rise of seven degrees Fahrenheit, or about four degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. Many coral reefs would dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be underwater without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would routinely smother large parts of the globe.<\/p>\n But the administration did not offer this dire forecast, premised on the idea that the world will fail to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet\u2019s fate is already sealed.<\/p>\n The draft statement, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was written to justify President Trump\u2019s decision to freeze federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020. While the proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, the impact statement says, that policy would add just a very small drop to a very big, hot bucket.<\/p>\n \u201cThe amazing thing they\u2019re saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they\u2019re saying they\u2019re not going to do anything about it,\u201d said Michael MacCracken, who served as a senior scientist at the U.S. Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002.<\/p>\n The document projects that global temperature will rise by nearly 3.5 degrees Celsius above the average temperature between 1986 and 2005 regardless of whether Obama-era tailpipe standards take effect or are frozen for six years, as the Trump administration has proposed. The global average temperature rose more than 0.5 degrees Celsius between 1880, the start of industrialization, and 1986, so the analysis assumes a roughly four degree Celsius or seven degree Fahrenheit increase from preindustrial levels.<\/p>\n The world would have to make deep cuts in carbon emissions to avoid this drastic warming, the analysis states. And that \u201cwould require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today\u2019s levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically feasible.\u201d<\/p>\n The White House did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n World leaders have pledged to keep the world from warming more than two degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, and agreed to try to keep the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But the current greenhouse gas cuts pledged under the 2015 Paris climate agreement are not steep enough to meet either goal<\/a>. Scientists predict a four degree Celsius rise by the century\u2019s end if countries take no meaningful actions to curb their carbon output.<\/p>\n Trump has vowed to exit the Paris accord and called climate change a hoax. In the past two months, the White House has pushed to dismantle nearly half a dozen major rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, deregulatory moves intended to save companies hundreds of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n If enacted, the administration\u2019s proposals would give new life to aging coal plants<\/a>; allow oil and gas operations to release more methane into the atmosphere<\/a>; and prevent new curbs on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators <\/a>and air-conditioning units. The vehicle rule<\/a> alone would put 8 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere this century, more than a year\u2019s worth of total U.S. emissions, according to the government\u2019s own analysis.<\/p>\n Administration estimates acknowledge that the policies would release far more greenhouse gas emissions from America\u2019s energy and transportation sectors than otherwise would have been allowed.<\/p>\n The statement is the latest evidence of deep contradictions in the Trump administration\u2019s approach to climate change.<\/p>\n Despite Trump\u2019s skepticism, federal agencies conducting scientific research have often reaffirmed that humans are causing climate change, including in a major 2017 report that found \u201cno convincing alternative explanation.\u201d In one internal White House memo, officials wondered whether it would be best to simply \u201cignore\u201d such analyses.<\/p>\n In this context, the draft environmental impact statement from NHTSA \u2014 which simultaneously outlines a scenario for very extreme climate change, and yet offers it to support an environmental rollback \u2014 is simply the latest apparent inconsistency.<\/p>\n David Pettit, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who testified against Trump\u2019s freeze of car mileage standards Monday in Fresno, Calif., said his organization is prepared to use the administration\u2019s own numbers to challenge its regulatory rollbacks. He noted that NHTSA document projects that if the world takes no action to curb emissions, current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would rise from 410 parts per million to 789 ppm by 2100.<\/p>\n \u201cI was shocked when I saw it,\u201d Pettit said in a phone interview. \u201cThese are their numbers. They aren\u2019t our numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n Conservatives who condemned President Barack Obama\u2019s climate initiatives as regulatory overreach have defended the Trump administration\u2019s approach, calling it a more reasonable course.<\/b><\/p>\n Obama\u2019s climate policies were costly to industry and yet \u201cmostly symbolic,\u201d because they would have made barely a dent in global carbon dioxide emissions, said Heritage Foundation research fellow Nick Loris, adding: \u201cFrivolous is a good way to describe it.\u201d<\/p>\n NHTSA commissioned ICF International Inc., a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Va., to help prepare the impact statement. An agency spokeswoman said the Environmental Protection Agency \u201cand NHTSA welcome comments on all aspects of the environmental analysis\u201d but declined to provide additional information about the agency\u2019s long-term temperature forecast.<\/p>\n Federal agencies typically do not include century-long climate projections in their environmental impact statements. Instead, they tend to assess a regulation\u2019s impact during the life of the program \u2014 the years a coal plant would run, for example, or the amount of time certain vehicles would be on the road.<\/p>\n Using the no-action scenario \u201cis a textbook example of how to lie with statistics,\u201d said MIT Sloan School of Management professor John Sterman. \u201cFirst, the administration proposes vehicle efficiency policies that would do almost nothing [to fight climate change]. Then [the administration] makes their impact seem even smaller by comparing their proposals to what would happen if the entire world does nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n This week, U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres warned leaders gathered in New York, \u201cIf we do not change course in the next two years, we risk runaway climate change .\u2009.\u2009. Our future is at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n Federal and independent research \u2014 including projections included in last month\u2019s analysis of the revised fuel-efficiency standards \u2014 echoes that theme. The environmental impact statement cites \u201cevidence of climate-induced changes,\u201d such as more frequent droughts, floods, severe storms and heat waves, and estimates that seas could rise nearly three feet globally by 2100 if the world does not decrease its carbon output.<\/p>\n Two articles published in the journal Science since late July \u2014 both co-authored by federal scientists \u2014 predicted that the global landscape could be transformed<\/a> \u201cwithout major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions\u201d and declared that soaring temperatures worldwide bore humans\u2019 \u201cfingerprint<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWith this administration, it\u2019s almost as if this science is happening in another galaxy,\u201d said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists\u2019 climate and energy program. \u201cThat feedback isn\u2019t informing the policy.\u201d<\/p>\n Administration officials say they take federal scientific findings into account when crafting energy policy \u2014 along with their interpretation of the law and Trump\u2019s agenda. The EPA\u2019s acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, has been among the Trump officials who have noted that U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants have fallen over time.<\/p>\n But the debate comes after a troubling summer of devastating wildfires, record-breaking heat and a catastrophic hurricane \u2014 each of which, federal scientists say, signals a warming world.<\/p>\n Some Democratic elected officials, such as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, said Americans are starting to recognize these events as evidence of climate change. On Feb. 25, Inslee met privately with several Cabinet officials, including then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt, and Western state governors. Inslee accused them of engaging in \u201cmorally reprehensible\u201d behavior that threatened his children and grandchildren, according to four meeting participants, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details of the private conversation.<\/p>\n In an interview, Inslee said that the ash from wildfires that covered Washington residents\u2019 car hoods this summer, and the acrid smoke that filled their air, has made more voters of both parties grasp the real-world implications of climate change.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is anger in my state about the administration\u2019s failure to protect us,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you taste it on your tongue, it\u2019s a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n