Europe folds aggressive climate plans in face of Trump opposition
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European leaders faced a barrage of hostility from President Donald Trump this week as he escalated his criticisms of their economies in hopes of securing his Ukraine peace plan by Christmas. While the leaders held firm on Ukraine, they folded another hand in a battle over climate regulations, ending years of planning with a whimper.
The European Union’s agreement to dramatically scale back sustainability rules intended to require climate risk reporting and monitoring of supply chains effectively guts the rules for all but the largest European companies and international trading partners.
The new rules will apply only to companies with more than 5,000 employees, up from 1,000, and will reduce penalties for non-compliance to almost nothing. Efforts to require companies to work to mitigate global warming by cutting their pollution were either delayed until later in the decade or taken out altogether.
It’s easy to see how lawmakers buckled under pressure. The White House tied these rules to ongoing trade talks, and in the face of rising energy costs and weakening economies nobody wanted to risk a broader trade war over climate regulations that would take as much as a decade to begin having an impact.
But it’s a sad ending for a region that had led the world for most of the past five years in pushing to require industries to work to mitigate global warming. And it will be some time before lawmakers try again. Time that large parts of southern Europe might no longer have.
Don’t forget to contact me directly if you have suggestions or ideas at dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.
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Zeus: The race for 2026 markets starts today
. . . . With the Fed’s final rate cut out of the way this week, the starting gun on 2026 has been fired, writes David Callaway. After a record year for commodities such as gold and silver, for U.S. stocks and particularly AI stocks and renewable energy stocks, investors will spend the last few weeks of December positioning their portfolios for an economy next year that looks to be slowing, but still with several bullish trends in energy consumption and AI data centers. While a break in sky high AI valuations is likely, it’s hard to see how the trend toward more tech as well as low interest rates out of Washington won’t continue next year.
Thursday’s subscriber insights
New York’s congestion pricing ends after first year with pollution down
. . . . One of the biggest efforts to curb pollution in the U.S. this past year was New York City’s traffic congestion pricing initiative, which made the Big Apple the first city in America to try what many European and Asian cities have done to reduce traffic, auto pollution, and raise money for transportation.
Admittedly, each time we came to New York this past year the traffic still looked terrible and cab drivers and Uber drivers still complained it was costing them money. But most also said that at least it made getting across the bridges and through the tunnels a bit easier. The latest numbers reflect that.
The congestion pricing initiative cut pollution by as much as 22%, according to a Cornell University study, which tracked air quality monitors throughout the city each day. It also reduced traffic by 11% and raised more than $500 million in net revenue to be applied to fixing up the city’s ageing subway system, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority.
Hardened New Yorkers griped it was just another state money grab and none other than President Donald Trump said he would get rid of it, but as we get ready to turn the year the initiative is still in place. It’s hard to argue with new revenue.
More importantly, it’s one effort to cut pollution that succeeded in a year full of headlines about drilling more oil and rolling back green projects. Even New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has been criticized for rolling back climate initiatives in the face of rising energy costs and opposition from Trump, didn’t mess with this one.
In the end, nobody fled New York because of it and if anything, drivers just grimaced and paid the $9 extra dollars when they had to, their business in the city worth far more than that. We’re not sure New Yorkers are ready for an electric robotaxi boom yet, as we’ve seen in San Francisco and other cities. But at least this year, they took a step forward.
Editor’s picks: Bracing for the real impacts of climate change; plus, objections to Trump’s face on park passes
Watch the video: Check out ways that people are preparing for extreme weather and natural disasters as climate change continues to alter our world in this special report from CBS Saturday Morning.
Lawsuit challenges Park Service passes featuring Trump
An environmental group has filed a lawsuit claiming the National Park Service’s plan to emblazon President Donald Trump’s face on some 2026 annual passes to national parks is illegal. The New York Times reports the lawsuit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, argued it would violate federal law to put the president’s face on passes. They have traditionally featured photos of scenic landscapes and wildlife. The suit says the proposed pass changes would “violate the 2004 Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, which requires the passes to display the winner of an annual photo competition held by the National Park Foundation, a nonprofit that helps raise private funds for the Park Service.” The NYT said representatives for the Park Service and the Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
This year is currently tied with 2023 to be the second-warmest year on record, according to new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The monthly climate update also reveals November 2025 was the third-warmest globally, with notably warmer-than-average temperatures recorded across Northern Canada and the Arctic Ocean. The month was marked by a number of extreme weather events, including tropical cyclones in Southeast Asia, causing widespread, catastrophic flooding and loss of life, CCCS says. Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said, “For November, global temperatures were 1.54°C above pre-industrial levels, and the three-year average for 2023–2025 is on track to exceed 1.5°C for the first time. These milestones are not abstract — they reflect the accelerating pace of climate change and the only way to mitigate future rising temperatures is to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Words to live by . . . .
“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” — Ansel Adams.