Olivier Douliery/Getty

We still don’t know who will be president come January 20, 2021. But as of Wednesday afternoon, there are three certainties on the climate front.

First: As of a few hours ago, the United States has officially left the Paris Agreement, the international community’s leading plan to slow global warming. As TNR’s Kate Aronoff notes, President Trump last fall delivered on one of his key campaign promises by filing notice to withdraw from the deal. Now the exit is complete. If Trump ends up winning this election, the U.S. will go another four years without coordinating with the world to stave off catastrophe. If Biden wins, the U.S. could reenter the deal as soon as February—but a solely symbolic move could be counterproductive. “The risk,” a climate activist told Kate, “is that the U.S. will use their reinstatement politically, to push and reinforce the application of false solutions, such as carbon markets, that will dangerously delay climate action” and spread the “false global public idea that the problem is being addressed.” Rebuilding U.S. climate diplomacy will require serious, concrete commitments.

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Second: Jim Wright, owner of an oil-field service company in Texas, seems to have won a statewide race for the Railroad Commission, a little-known but vital body empowered to regulate fossil fuel production. Democrat Chrysta Castañeda ran on a promise to restrict gas flaring, in which drillers burn off excess fuel, polluting the atmosphere. Wright, on the other hand, ran for the seat after the commission declined to let him and his industry friends ghostwrite fossil fuel regulations. Wright’s companies are embroiled in multiple lawsuits over environmental violations and alleged fraud. In a podcast interview last month, he claimed climate change was just the Earth “evolving” and suggested that wind turbines are wiping out geese. Even some of his industry peers were scared at the prospect of a Commissioner Wright. “I’m a dedicated Republican voter, but I don’t think Jim is the man for the job,” James McAda, head of an oil-field service company currently suing Wright, told the Austin American-Statesman in August. “Based on personal experience, I don’t want that dude running anything,” said Travis McRae, head of another oil-field service company, which has accused Wright of “fraudulent transfers” to avoid a property lien placed after his company failed to pay up. That dude, alas, is set to run something rather important. You’ll want to read Kate’s full piece on him. Third: This election was not the landslide that climate activists were hoping for. The Republicans appear likely to hold the Senate, which would mean that we won’t see Congress pass an ambitious—or maybe even meager—climate plan for the next four years. If Biden prevails, he may have to chip away at the climate problem through executive orders and the like. We’ll be publishing more on this topic as the election results come into focus.

—Heather Souvaine Horn, deputy editor

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Slate handily wins the title for best election night coverage (let’s face it, cable news was nonsensical), with a roundup of random odd headlines, three of which had to do with whales. It’s not all, strictly speaking, good whale news, but an improvised Sri Lankan rescue team did save over 100 whales after a mass beaching.

Ethiopia is on the brink of civil war, with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordering an attack on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the north. The region is highly  vulnerable to climate change, which can cause crop failures that lead to food shortages, and studies have long shown that global warming and armed conflict can be mutually reinforcing. 

That’s the number of environmental rules and regulations The Washington Post reckons the Trump administration has weakened or eliminated so far, “with 40 more rollbacks underway.” 

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