The Trump administration finds a 7-degree increase in global temperatures by 2100

Last month, at the heart of a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: on its current course, the planet will warm a horrifying seven degrees by the end of the century.

According to scientists, an increase of seven degrees Fahrenheit, or about four degrees Celsius, from pre-industrial levels would be catastrophic. Many coral reefs would dissolve into increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be submerged without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would regularly stifle large parts of the globe.

But the administration has not offered this appalling prediction, based on the idea that the world would fail to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes that the fate of the planet is already sealed.

The draft statement, issued by the NHTSA, aimed to justify President Trump's decision to freeze federal fuel consumption standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020. proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions. said that this policy would just add a tiny drop to a very big hot compartment.

"The amazing thing they say is that human activities will lead to this increase in carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they say they will not do anything about it, "said Michael MacCracken, who was a senior researcher at the US Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002.

The document predicts that the global temperature will increase by nearly 3.5 degrees Celsius from the average temperature between 1986 and 2005, whether the Obama era's escape standards are applied or that they be frozen for six years, as proposed by the Trump administration. The global average temperature increased by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius between 1880, the beginning of industrialization, and 1986. The analysis therefore assumes an increase of about four degrees Celsius or seven degrees Fahrenheit per preindustrial levels.

According to the report, the world needs to drastically reduce carbon emissions to prevent this drastic global warming. And this "would require substantial increases in technological innovation and adoption from current levels and would require the economy and fleet to move away from fossil fuels, which is currently neither technically nor technically feasible. economically feasible ".

The White House has not responded to requests for comment.

World leaders pledged to prevent the world from warming to more than two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, and agreed to try to keep the temperature at 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, the current cuts in greenhouse gases announced under the 2015 Paris climate agreement are not steep enough to achieve one or the other goal. Scientists predict an increase of 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century if countries take no meaningful action to reduce their carbon production.

Trump promised to break out of the Paris deal and called climate change a hoax. In the past two months, the White House has attempted to dismantle nearly half a dozen important rules to reduce greenhouse gases, deregulation measures designed to save hundreds of millions of dollars. dollars to businesses.

If adopted, the administration's proposals would give new life to aging coal plants; allow oil and gas operations to release more methane into the atmosphere; and avoid further restrictions on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioning units. According to the government's analysis, the vehicle rule alone would put 8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere this century, more than a year of total emissions in the United States.

The government's estimates recognize that policies will emit much more greenhouse gases from the US energy and transportation sectors than would otherwise be allowed.

The statement is the latest evidence of deep contradictions in the Trump administration's approach to climate change.

Despite Trump's skepticism, federal agencies conducting scientific research have often reaffirmed that humans are causing climate change, including in a major report of 2017 that found "no compelling alternative explanation". In an internal memo to the White House, officials wondered whether it would be better to simply "ignore" such analyzes.

In this context, NHTSA's Environmental Impact Statement project – which simultaneously describes a very extreme climate change scenario, while offering it to support an environmental shift – is just the latest apparent inconsistency.

David Pettit, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said on Monday in Fresno, California, that Trump's frozen car mileage scheme was ready to use the administration's own numbers. He noted that the NHTSA document predicts that if the world takes no action to reduce emissions, current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would rise from 410 to 789 ppm by 2100.

"I was shocked when I saw him," Pettit said during a phone interview. "These are their numbers. They are not our numbers. "

Conservatives who condemned President Barack Obama's climate initiatives as a regulatory drift defended the Trump administration's approach, calling it a more reasonable solution.

Obama's climate policies were costly for industry but "mostly symbolic" because they would have done little to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions, said Heritage Foundation researcher Nick Loris, adding, "Frivolous is a good way to describe it. "

NHTSA commissioned ICF International Inc., a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Virginia, to assist in the preparation of the impact statement. A spokesman for the agency said the Environmental Protection Agency and NHTSA welcomed comments on all aspects of the environmental scan, but declined to provide additional information on temperature forecasts. long-term agency.

Federal agencies generally do not include centennial climate projections in their statements of environmental impact. Instead, they tend to assess the impact of regulation over the lifetime of the program – the years that a coal-fired power station would be operating, for example, or the length of time that certain vehicles would be on the road.

The use of the non-intervention scenario "is a classic example of how to lie with statistics," said John Sterman, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management. "First, the administration is proposing vehicle efficiency policies that would do almost nothing. [to fight climate change]. so [the administration] comparing their proposals to what would happen if the whole world did nothing.

This week, United States Secretary-General António Guterres warned leaders meeting in New York: "If we do not change course in the next two years, we risk rapid climate change. . . Our future is at stake. "

The Mendocino complex burns near the Mendocino National Forest and Highway 20 northwest of Lakeport, California on Tuesday morning. River and ranch fires burn as part of the Mendocino complex near Lakeport, California, early Tuesday morning, July 31, 2018. As of Monday, the two fires, managed as a single complex, have an area of ​​55 000 acres and 10% are under control, both fires being threatened. the cities of Lakeport and Upper Lake. Northern California was under a haze of smoke as multiple fires ravaged the north of the state.

Federal and independent research – including the projections included in the revised energy efficiency standards review last month – reflect this theme. The environmental impact study cites "evidence of climate-induced changes", such as more frequent droughts, floods, violent storms and heat waves, and estimates that the seas could rise nearly three feet in the world by 2100 if the world does not decrease its carbon output.

Two articles published in the journal Science since the end of July, both co-authored by federal scientists, predicted that the global landscape could be transformed "without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions," and stated that the surge in Temperatures in the world bore the "fingerprint" of man.

"With this administration, it's almost as if this science is happening in another galaxy," said Rachel Cleetus, political director and senior economist with the Climate and Energy Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "This return does not inform politics."

Administration officials say they take into account federal scientific discoveries in the development of energy policy, as well as their interpretation of the law and Trump's program. EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler is a Trump official who noted that carbon dioxide and other pollutant emissions in the United States have decreased over time.

But the debate comes after a troubling summer, marked by devastating forest fires, a record heat and a catastrophic hurricane, which, according to federal scientists, mark a global warming.

Some elected Democrats, such as Washington Governor Jay Inslee, said the Americans were beginning to recognize these events as evidence of climate change. On February 25, Inslee met privately with several cabinet officials, including the then EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, and the governors of the western states. Inslee accused them of engaging in "morally reprehensible" behavior that threatened his children and grandchildren, according to four participants at the meeting, who spoke under cover of anonymity to provide details. on the private conversation.

In an interview, Inslee said that the ashes of the fires that covered the hood of the cars of the Washington residents this summer, along with the acrid smoke that filled them, allowed a greater number of voters from both parties to seize the real implications of climate change.

"There is anger in my state about the failure of the administration to protect us," he said. "When you taste it on your tongue, it's a reality."

A woman watches rising floodwaters from the garage of a house in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, on Wednesday, September 26, 2018. (Doug Strickland / Chattanooga Times Press Free / Associated Press)

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