Paige Vega
Appearances
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
So I have good news for listeners and readers like Sophie who are concerned about what they're seeing come out of the White House and Trump's executive actions to derail the clean energy transition and climate progress. The news is our climate is not doomed. Full stop.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
As you're reading the headlines and getting really concerned about the action of the federal government, keep that in check. Like, the headlines can sound really bad, but putting those in context often, like, they don't play out the way that they're first portrayed. These transitions take a really, really long time.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
It's a very wide turn of a very big ship, and Trump does not hold all the levers to control what happens. He's also getting tangled up in the courts. So take the headlines in stride. It's not predetermined.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
But what we can do as individuals, just beyond moderating our stress and maintaining some hope in all of this, is reduce your energy usage and change some of your daily behaviors to be more sustainable in your own life. This can be really easy to do, actually.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Something like cutting 10% of meat out of your diet, just eating 10% less of that can make a huge difference, especially if that's scaled up on a population level or within your community. Opt out of factory farming. And if you can source food and meat from your own community or from your friends who hunt or something, that's always a great option. That's something that my family does.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
You can also think about acting on your personal home energy usage. Turn your thermostat up. You don't need to crank it down to 68 degrees. You may be a little less comfortable at 74, but you're saving a lot actually by doing things like that. And stay engaged. Contact your elected officials to voice support for climate action.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Keep this on the minds of the politicians that represent you in your community, on the county level, state level, and the federal level. Put pressure. Keep calling. Send emails. Post on your social media. Like, be vocal about the things that you care about. There's also a way to build your social life around just being more sustainable. Things like thrifting instead of buying new.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Like, can you buy used as much as possible? Used electronics, used home furnishings, used clothing. Being the next step in the life process. cycle of a product means you're keeping it out of the landfill for longer. And that really does make a difference in terms of emissions and also just, you know, being more taxing on the environment.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, so I have. I installed a heat pump system in my home. It actually is cheaper for me to install something like a heat pump rather than relying on my old 1940s furnace that's pulling from natural gas. It's an upfront investment, but I actually was able to get local county incentives to get that installed and state incentives. And there is still a federal heat pump incentive as well.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Trump is doing a lot of things, but we are unlikely to see all of the momentum that's been building for years around the clean energy transition fully stop. And if you do take a step back and look at the economic trends associated with wind, solar, renewable energies of all kinds across the board, EVs, the picture is much bigger than just the United States.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
So those things haven't disappeared now that Trump has suddenly taken the White House. And I just went through that situation myself, and I'm already saving money on my energy bill.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, so we're keeping track of the effectiveness of the outcomes of Trump administration policy. We want to keep an eye on continued momentum on the state level as well. So like what's going on with climate action by the states? Is that pulling in the opposite direction of some of Trump's policies?
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Like those things are really going to be interesting to watch, especially, you know, with some of these dynamics that we're seeing in red states that have big incentives to like continue investing in clean energy. What are the pace of technological advancements and cost reductions in clean energy? And I think public perception of climate change is so important as well.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Like you've seen climate change labeled recently as this like woke issue, but you also see more and more people being concerned about extreme weather and climate disasters. And climate change is like impacting us in more of our communities. Like no matter where you live, you're going to experience climate change. We're in that era now. We're in a really interesting wait-and-see period, honestly.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Like, Trump is doing a lot to derail climate progress and the energy transition, but he's not going to be able to slow that progress entirely. So it's kind of a question of how much and where. All right. Thanks for explaining this to us, Paige. Yeah, thank you so much. And I really appreciate the question. I think it's on the mind of a lot of people.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And on the global scale, there is a lot to be hopeful about there.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, he's doing a lot. And readers are right to be concerned about all of the headlines that they've been seeing over the last, you know, several weeks and months since Trump took office. But the one thing that's really important to keep in mind here before we go down, you know, this long list of assaults is that Joe Biden actually produced more oil than Trump did in his first term.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And one thing that I talk about a lot with Fox's other climate reporters is how How do we make good decisions around the stories that we're covering coming out of Trump? Because he says a lot of things. But does what he says actually translate to concrete action and consequences?
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And we looked back at his first term and wanted to really interrogate, like, what are the lasting legacies in terms of climate and energy policy that came out of Trump 1? And there wasn't actually a lot that stuck. So what happened is Trump did a lot of similar things that we're seeing him do now during his first term, but then Biden came into office and reversed a lot of those policies.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
A couple examples here. Trump pulled us out of the Paris Agreement.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Trump is also attempting to, you know, curtail the ability of states to regulate vehicle emissions. We saw him do that in his first term.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
So Trump, on day one of his second term here, he declared an energy emergency.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
and had a flurry of executive orders that are all really intended to gut federal climate efforts, roll back regulations that are aimed at limiting things like pollution. He wants to give a major boost to the fossil fuel industry, and he wants to evade efforts to really reduce global warming.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
This has really come through in a series of executive orders that are currently tangled up in the courts or haven't been fully realized. So the short answer to that question is that not much has actually happened yet. We're still in this really intense wait-and-see period.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, so basically China's eating our lunch when it comes to the energy transition and climate progress. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing because this is a developing country that's been emitting more fossil fuels in recent years. But as they're developing so rapidly, they're actually doing...
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
quite a lot to transition away from fossil fuels and dirty forms of energy to diversify that energy mix. So in 2022, China installed roughly as much solar capacity as the rest of the world combined. And then it doubled additional solar capacity in 2023. We're also seeing it do quite a lot on the EV electrical vehicle and infrastructure front as well.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
One company really stands out here, BYD, and it's very popular across the world. It's a very cheap and honestly stylish vehicle that a lot of consumers enjoy that we don't have access to in the United States.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
Yeah, BYD is really taking the lead here in terms of the global picture on the EV race.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
The states are going to be very important here in the next couple of years. Trump can't control the price of energy. Trump can't control a lot of things outside of public land. energy development and a lot of US energy production happens on state lands or on the state level.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
And many states across the country have set their own goals and targets for climate progress and have not abandoned those goals. We also see Republican states and Republican districts benefiting far more than we're seeing blue states benefit from climate incentives and things like the Inflation Reduction Act that Joe Biden passed.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
This was a major climate legislation that pumped a ton of money into the energy transition and really shifting the economy to accommodate that. So Trump's going to not face exactly an easy path to begin to reverse some of those things.
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
There's a lot to be hopeful about. What gives you that hope?
Today, Explained
Is climate progress doomed?
So I am Paige Vega. I'm Vox's climate editor, and I think I'm the only Voxer that lives in southwestern Colorado. I live in a little mountain town in the Four Corners region, and I've got two dogs, and we hang out in the mountains, and yeah, it's a pretty nice situation.