Ashish Kumar Sen

The past few weeks have produced a steady stream of bad news for the Earth. Here’s a look at some stories making headlines.

Trump's 'Huge Mistake'   US President Donald J. Trump’s decision to take the United States out of a global agreement that seeks to limit the damage caused by climate change is “shortsighted and reckless,” a “huge mistake,” and cedes US energy leadership to China and Europe, according to Atlantic Council analysts. “The president’s decision to withdraw from Paris is a huge mistake. There is no upside,” said Richard Morningstar, founding director and chairman of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center.

Trump’s Energy, Climate Positions Causing Concern  While there is “quite a bit of concern” about the direction of US President-elect Donald Trump’s energy policy, he is unlikely to take the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement for the simple reason that doing so would cause “huge collateral damage” to the United States, Todd Stern, a former US State Department special envoy for climate change, said in Abu Dhabi on January 13.

Here’s What You Need to Know About COP21   Officials from one hundred and ninety-six governments are gathered in Paris with the goal of reaching the first-ever global climate change agreement. The negotiators’ main objective is to agree on legally binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions intended to keep the global average temperatures below a 2° Celsius increase over pre-industrial levels. Heather Zichal, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center and former advisor to US President Barack Obama on energy and climate change, discussed the expectations from the COP21 summit in an e-mail interview with the New Atlanticist’s Ashish Kumar Sen.

Would You Care More About Climate Change if You Knew it Would Change Your Life?  Do you care much about climate change? How about the fate of polar bears gingerly making their way across thinning Arctic ice? Most people would probably care a lot more if they heard how dramatic temperature spikes and rising sea levels would disrupt their own lives, panelists said April 29 at the Atlantic Council.