https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-bill-mckibben.html
"...Here’s the good news: Green energy is getting better and cheaper, faster than we had ever dared hope.
This next sentence was unimaginable even a few years ago: In April, the energy think tank Ember found that all of the new electricity demand around the world in 2025 was met with green power. That is wild.
But here is the bad news: Climate change is accelerating. We’re discovering new ways that the climate system is more fragile, more sensitive to emissions, than we previously had thought.
We have not been talking that much about climate change lately, but that doesn’t mean it has stopped happening. Europe is in the midst of an extraordinary heat wave. The world is staring down the barrel of a powerful El Niño.
And climate politics is in almost total disarray. Donald Trump has gutted the Inflation Reduction Act. His administration is accelerating fossil fuel production and kneecapping green energy...."
This is an edited transcript of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts.
Here’s the good news: Green energy is getting better and cheaper, faster than we had ever dared hope.
This next sentence was unimaginable even a few years ago: In April, the energy think tank Ember found that all of the new electricity demand around the world in 2025 was met with green power. That is wild.
But here is the bad news: Climate change is accelerating. We’re discovering new ways that the climate system is more fragile, more sensitive to emissions, than we previously had thought.
We have not been talking that much about climate change lately, but that doesn’t mean it has stopped happening. Europe is in the midst of an extraordinary heat wave. The world is staring down the barrel of a powerful El Niño.
And climate politics is in almost total disarray. Donald Trump has gutted the Inflation Reduction Act. His administration is accelerating fossil fuel production and kneecapping green energy.
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Let’s go back to the great missed opportunity, which was the 1970s. Jimmy Carter was facing an oil crisis, and with the first intimations of some of the climate effects of fossil fuel, decides that solar is the way out. He famously puts solar panels on the White House. But he goes to give a speech where he says — prophetically, sadly, as it turns out:
A generation from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.
He actually says that?
He put money that was sufficient, people thought, to power the research and development such that America would have 20 percent of its energy coming from solar power by the year 2000. Had that happened, we would live on a different planet, a cooler one.
Instead, of course, Ronald Reagan ripped the solar panels off the White House. More important, he ripped that money out of the federal budget and committed us to the project of ever more drilling — which is what has landed us where we are now.
5-25-2026
Query To ChatGPT -- what is science saying today about climate change, whether we are making progress fast enough against it? What does the projected outlook over the next 10 years look like? Next 25 years? What major mistakes are we making now that should be fixed.
The scientific consensus today is roughly this:
Here’s the clearest way to think about the current state of the science.
The central scientific view, represented by organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Energy Agency, and United Nations Environment Programme, is:
We are in the early-to-middle stages of climate disruption now.
Scientists now see:
as already statistically linked to warming.
The world has already warmed about 1.2–1.3°C above preindustrial levels.
The Paris Agreement aimed to:
The scientific concern is that impacts rise nonlinearly beyond those levels.
No — but it’s not hopeless.
That nuance matters.
The energy transition is happening faster than many scientists expected 10 years ago.
Major positive developments include:
This is probably the single biggest positive surprise.
Solar electricity and battery storage costs collapsed faster than most projections anticipated.
In many regions:
The world is installing enormous amounts of:
The IEA now believes fossil fuel demand may peak before 2030 under current policies. (Reddit)
Parts of Europe, and to some extent the U.S., have reduced emissions while still growing economically.
That weakens the old argument that decarbonization necessarily destroys prosperity.
Scientifically and technologically, we largely know how to cut emissions substantially:
The challenge is now mostly political, financial, and infrastructural.
Despite clean-energy growth:
The UNEP Emissions Gap Report says current national policies still point roughly toward about 2.6–3.1°C warming this century. (UNEP - UN Environment Programme)
That is substantially better than older “business-as-usual” projections from decades ago — some of which exceeded 4°C — but still dangerous.
Many scientists now think:
The remaining carbon budget for staying below 1.5°C is now very small. (UNEP - UN Environment Programme)
Scientifically, the world probably experiences:
Global temperatures likely continue rising steadily.
The world may temporarily exceed 1.5°C during some years in the 2030s.
This is highly likely.
Expect:
Scientists expect noticeable increases in:
Not apocalypse — but increasing economic and social stress.
Governments and businesses will spend far more on:
Climate adaptation becomes a major economic sector.
This is under-discussed but important.
Some regions may become:
Climate-driven migration pressures likely increase.
This depends enormously on decisions made this decade.
But the most mainstream scientific expectation today is something like:
This is probably the current median outlook.
Features:
This is bad, but not human extinction.
If policy accelerates strongly:
This significantly reduces long-term damage.
If geopolitical fragmentation and fossil expansion continue:
Scientists are especially worried about crossing thresholds in:
Scientists and energy analysts repeatedly point to several big failures.
This is the central issue.
The world still invests huge amounts in:
while simultaneously claiming climate goals.
That contradiction is the heart of the emissions gap problem.
Many countries announce:
while failing to:
Scientists increasingly emphasize:
emissions cuts this decade matter far more than distant promises.
This is a huge bottleneck.
The world needs:
Far more than it currently has.
Ironically, in many places renewable projects are delayed not by technology but by bureaucracy and grid constraints.
Methane is extremely powerful in the short term.
Major opportunities exist to rapidly reduce warming through:
Scientists often describe methane reduction as one of the fastest climate wins available.
Increasingly, experts see climate as:
Countries that frame it only as “environmentalism” often move too slowly.
Scientists consistently identify political polarization as a major obstacle.
The scientific debate about whether warming is happening is essentially over.
The real debates now are:
But public discourse often remains stuck decades behind the science.
The scientific outlook today is neither:
It is closer to:
Humanity still has substantial control over how bad climate change becomes, but the window for avoiding more severe outcomes is narrowing quickly.
That distinction matters enormously.
The difference between:
is not academic. It represents very large differences in:
And those outcomes are still heavily shaped by choices being made right now. (UNEP - UN Environment Programme)