2026 JANUARY ISSUE
PROGRESS REPORT
ON THE
PARIS
CLIMATE AGREEMENT
PART 28
By ANDREW SIA
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From the Desk of the Publisher
In this writeup, we talk about this winter pattern — La Niña, which is colder, wetter, and snowier in the northern hemisphere. While the southern hemisphere will be drier and warmer than normal.
Then we talk about the cost of electricity which the cost has been going higher, and our demand is increasing because of the use of artificial intelligence.
We can see the world is going into three directions, the U.S. is favoring coal, but China is increasing their capacity with renewable energy, while Europe is lagging.
Mentioning of fusion as the future of energy should be considered as the center piece of this writeup. I would suggest the reader to read through it carefully.
Then we entered the underfunding of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would lead to more climatic disaster due to the Trump’s new policy from his Department of Government Efficiency (DGE). I want to use the infamous quote of Donald Trump, “The global warming is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” And I also want to say that because of the takedown of hundreds of federal websites related to climate change for what he initiated as his Department of Government Efficiency (DGE), and I would like to mention that for every dollar cut from forecasting becomes ten dollars lost in damage in the weather forecast.
Last and not the least, Trump is pulling us back into coal generation which is the most polluted and outdated energy which even King Edward I of England discarded.
Update of La Niña by Forecasters
El Niño and La Niña represent the warm and cool phases of a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific called the El Niño—Southern Oscillation, or “ENSO.” This system shifts irregularly every two to seven years, driving predictable swings in ocean temperatures and altering typical wind and rainfall patterns across the tropics.
During La El Niña, trade winds strengthen beyond normal, pushing warm surface water toward Asia and increasing upwelling along the west coast of the Americas. This brings cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface.
These cooler Pacific waters shift the jet stream farther north, often creating drought conditions in the southern United States, while producing heavy rainfall and flooding in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada.
Based on the latest NOAA and World Meteorological Organization forecasts, the 2024-2025 strong El Niño has ended. But La Niña is developing again, and La Niña conditions are expected to dominate the winter of 2025-2026.
It is projected that La Niña would bring to the Northern Hemisphere, we are referring to Pacific Northwest and Western Canada, a winter which is wetter than normal, there is also the risk of flooding, heavy snow in mountain ranges, and stronger storms.
For the Northern U.S. and Great Lakes region the colder temperatures, frequent snowstorms, and higher risk of Arctic air outbreaks.
For the Sothern U.S., we will see warmer and drier climate than normal, but the increased drought risk, and wildfire risk in some states.
And for Southeast Asia, it will be wetter than usual, higher typhoon activity early in season, but less in later season. There is the increased flood risk in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.
As for Southern Hemisphere in Australia, La Niña usually brings wetter conditions, higher floor risk, and tropical cyclones affecting Queensland.
In Brazil, the northern part will get wetter, but the southern part drier.
Now we are entering into the forecast for 2025-2026 winter, it is predicting a moderate or strong La Niña, and the likelihood of a severe winter in northern regions. There is a higher probability of cold outbreaks across East Asia and North America.
Summary
With the return of La Niña, the world enters the new winter season with shifting jet streams, colder northern climates, and drier conditions in the south. Weather patterns may become more dramatic, bring both challenges and opportunities as nations prepare for a more severe winter ahead.
In our last July issue of the Progress Report we mentioned the predict of this winter, we quoted, “A typical La Niña winter in North America—the northern U.S. and Canada tend to be colder, wetter and snowier than average. Meanwhile, the southern U.S. would experience warmer and drier winter than normal condition.” This is exactly what is happening now.
Where is the Global AI Race Heading?
Academics at the University of Rhode Island University, University of Tunis & Providence College, both claimed that a GPT-4 model can use up to 463,269 megawatt hours of electricity a year, which is more than the annual energy consumption of 35,000 U.S. families. This demand shows the expanding share of AI workloads in data center electricity consumption.
Global use of electricity by data centers is projected to use more than double electricity by 2030, and this will reach about 1,800 terawatt-hours by 2040, enough to power 150 million U.S. homes for a year. As a result, this will drive up the price and the availability of power, also the determination of the pace for the AI progress.
In this, China has a head start and already in 2024 it added a record amount of renewable energy capacity mainly from new solar and wind installations. Its solar power alone increased by about 277 gigawatts, while wind contributed about 80 gigawatts. Its total increase of 357 gigawatts which exceeded the total capacity in the U.S.
Beijing has linked the increase of the renewable energy to its industrial policy in trying to take the lead in AI by reinforcing the national grid, developing large solar projects in Inner Mongolia, expanding hydropower in Sichuan and build high voltage transmission lines to move cheaper inland electricity to coastal demand centers.
Local authorities are granting preferential electricity rates to companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance to boost local AI computing. These subsidies help to offset the lower efficiency of domestic chips from Huawei, allowing China to operate AI models at a lower overall cost.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. wholesale electricity costs have increased as much as 267% in comparison with the cost five years ago. Investments in wind and solar renewable energy have been scaled back at the beginning of the year when Trump entered the White House. It has also cancelled an executive order ending subsidies for wind and solar power.
It is without any doubt that the chip of Huawei’s 910B is lag to Nvidia’s H100 in terms of bandwidth and performance. The imbalance is the performance of advanced chips powering computers and smartphones that appears to the industry.
But the differences now are the cost of the electricity which in China is declining, and that can expand the amount of computation that allows to make up the performance of the chip.
The U.S. government is trying to curb the advance chips and not allow them to be used in China. But the cheap cost of power in China allows the AI models running.
China’s Transformation in Clean Energy
China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gas and has yet to reduce its emission significantly. But after a decade after the Paris climate accord was signed, the world is becoming more divided. The U.S. President Trump pulled the U.S. out again after its last President Biden reentered four years ago. Europe and Canada hesitated at the cost and political unpopularity at home for climate measures.
This time at the COP30 in Belém, Brazil, China emerges as the clean-tech superpower. Its massive manufacturing investments in the sector have reduced the cost of clean energy plummeting. It is becoming competitive with fossil fuels in many markets with few or no governmental subsidies.
China’s manufacturing of solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles are flooding the global market. The cost of solar power is less than half of what analysts in 2015 predicted that it would be in 2025. Electric vehicles in China are cheaper than combustion vehicles in China. Its production of batteries for electric vehicles and grid-level storage has slashed the cost of those products. The poorer countries have access to solar energy at very affordable cost without financial aid from wealthier countries.
Coal is no longer the cheapest sources of electricity, but solar panels paired with batteries, and this is benefitting the developing countries.
We have to keep reminding ourselves that when the Paris accord was signed ten years ago by 190 nations, it was calling for governments to limit the global warming to keep under the 2 degrees Celsius, or better still by 1.5 degrees. Most analysts now believe that 1.5-degree goal is out of reach as global emissions have surged, and China is about a third of the global total emissions.
Our global average temperature last year was 1.55 degrees higher than pre-industrial temperatures. We have to put our acts together to keep this under control before it is too late. Right now, we have to depend more on the renewables.
World’s New Renewable Superpower – China
This time we have seen the world is so divided especially at their climate policy. We have seen the U.S. government sabotaged the climate action, Europe is limping behind to come up with their obligation, Brazil, India and Vietnam are catching up with the use of renewable energy generated by solar and wind power, Ethiopia and Nepal are using more battery-operated cars, Nigeria, a petrostate, plans to build its first solar panel manufacturing plant, Morocco is creating a battery hub to supply European automakers, and Santiago, capital of Chile has electrified more than half of its bus fleet in recent years.
Having saturated its own market with solar panels, wind turbines and batteries, Chinese companies are exporting their wares to the developing countries and have invested billions in factories making solar panels in Vietnam and electric cars in Brazil. China is shaping its development trajectory in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
We have to know that the facts are the majority of those developing countries still get their majority of their energy from fossil fuels. Indonesia is still mining vast amounts of coal, India and Chi a are still building their coal plants for power generating. Brazil is planning to export its oil. But on the other hand, they are investing in renewable energy using the technology from China at a reducing cost of equipment now.
This benefits the emerging countries where their large population can have access to cheaper electricity now. They are moving to the use of electric vehicles in Ethiopia and Nepal and banned the combustion vehicles. Brazil wants Chinese automakers like BYD to open plants in Brazil to serve the market.
China’s manufacturing investments around the world since 2011 have reached $225 billion, and three-fourth of that investments go into the low-income countries and emerging economies.
India is wary of relying on imports from China, is providing incentives to install huge amounts of solar power and make much more solar equipment at home. It set its target for 2030 to half of its electricity demand by using wind, solar, and hydropower.
Ten years ago, when the Paris Accord was signed, it was the rich and developed countries like the U.S. and Europe who were urging the developing countries to take action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Their response at that time was asking for financial aid for transition to cleaner fuels. But mostly of the financial help doesn’t materialize.
This time China has taken up the leading role, especially after Trump administration said that it would withdraw from the Paris Summit. With Chinese exports of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries hitting the record in 2025, many American and European leaders are expressing their concerns at China’s growing dominance which has undercut their own industries. They have their reason to worry about China now.
What We Need to Know About the Power Juggling Behind the Wind-Power in Europe
Europe is betting big on wind power to curb its greenhouse emissions. It is committed to double its installed wind-power capacity by 2030 to reach 425 gigawatts. Britain’s commitment for 50 gigawatts will require it to quadruple its effort.
Over the last two decades, Europe’s solar-panel producers have been reduced by cheap imports. But its three wind-turbine producers — Vestas, Siemens Gamesa, and Nordex — each have a large installed base outside China. But it has been a difficult few years for them as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 cut the supply of steel and pushed up its price.
It has other challenges, such as the lack of bidders in Germany’s last round of offshore-wind farm operation, an activist, Ananym Capital, bought a stake in Siemens Gamesa’s parent company, Siemens Energy, and called for the struggling wind division to be spun off. These are not helping as China’s threat in wind-turbine is at their doorstep now. In 2024, China accounted for more than 70% of new wind-power installation globally.
China on itself is not without challenge as its overcapacity has squeezed its margins. China had the capacity of producing 99 gigawatts-worth of turbines but was only able to install 87 gigawatts. Its turbine manufacturing margin shrunk from 18% in 2021 to 10% in 2024. This has encouraged its manufacturers — Goodwind and Mingyang — to look abroad. They added 9 gigawatts worth of units for overseas in 2025 up from only 2 gigawatts in 2024 and 1 gigawatt in 2023. So far it was for Egypt and eastern Europe, but they are making inroads in the continent’s big western markets.
In September 2025, Mingyang struck a deal with Octopus, Britain’s largest power utilities to develop 6 gigawatt of wind power. But this has received the criticism from its opposition Conservative Party who expressed the concern for national security.
Same from Germany where Mingyang was about to enter into the deal to supply a wind development off the country’s northern coast was called off, and the contract was awarded to Siemens Gamesa.
Some predicted that protectionism and security concerns will ultimately prevent China’s turbine from conquering the European market. Although China captured around 18% of the global market outside China in 2025, triple the figure in 2024, their presence in Europe is still limited. This has made the goal to decarbonize all the harder to achieve.
Transform Fusion as the Future of Energy
Transform the fusion for energy is a great breakthrough. The United States is counting on private industry and American innovation to deliver result in this energy transformation, but China has made it a national priority. Recently a Shangia start-up essentially match an engineering breakthrough by America’s best-funded fusion company — Commonwealth Fusion Systems — in much less time. Over the summer, the Chinese government and private sectors invested $2.1 billion into a new state-own fusion company, and that investment alone is two and a half times the U.S. Energy Department’s annual fusion budget.
Commonwealth Fusion announced that by 2027 the experimental device it is building in Massachusetts will pull off a remarkable achievement, that is to produce more energy it takes to generate electricity for data centers, steel mills, and more.
On the other hand, China’s leading plasma-physics lab is aiming for its new machine, which is named BEST, in the twin-armed building in the country’s east, to cross that milestone in the next few years as well. China’s commitment comes from the very top. Its five-year plan, covering 2026 through 2030 is backed by “extraordinary measures” to secure breakthroughs in fusion energy, and other areas.
China’s state-owned nuclear company is preparing detailed fusion research proposals, calling it ‘the race in future scientific and technological competition among the great powers.”
The country was a startup in fusion only two decades ago, and it grew by teaming up with other nations. It worked closely with France to develop its most modern tokamak, a type of doughnut-shaped fusion machine. It became a key contributor to the 33-nation ITER fusion experiment. In its past decade, American and Chinese scientists conducted joint experiments and praised the two nations’ friendship in plasma physics.
Now China is going for the cutting-edge research facilities of their own. The Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Phasma Physics is building both the BEST tokamak and a 100-scre complex nearby where researchers will develop and test components to operate under the extreme conditions of a fusion device.
China has learned a lot from being part of ITER, and now it is applying that knowledge to make its own advances. It is known that even if the core technology works, however fusion reactors won’t power the world until companies figure out how to build and operate them affordably and at industrial scale.
China’s expertise in engineering and construction gives it a distinctive advantage, as normally for the U.S. is to create a viable technical pathway first, but China engineers and scales it up almost at the same time.
Further Action Taken by Trump to Distant Away from Global Warming
Since the start of Trump’s second term, he has taken down hundreds of federal websites related to climate change According to Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI).
Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) was formed in November 2016 shortly after the election of Donald Trump. It was for the purpose of documenting and analyzing potential threats to federal environmental data and governance practices and growing into a network monitoring environmental information.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was officially founded and became effective on October 3, 1970, by President Nixon. It was created by combining several agencies, including the Weather Bureau, Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), and the National Satellite Center, to provide better environmental understanding and resource management. It is operated within the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The NOAA has been understaffed and funding threats undermining its function, and dozens of datasets, from earthquake intensity to climate disasters have been decommissioned or removed. Weather balloon launches, which collect data for forecasting, have been cutback.
Hundreds of federal websites dedicated for weather forecasting have been scrubbed and scientists purged.
NOAA, the parent agency of the National Weather Service, has lost thousands of staff in 2025 after a purge by the Department of Government Efficiency (DGE) of probationary employees, as well as a hiring freeze, and a push for employees to retire early.
The White House wants to downsize NOAA’s budget, and it proposed a cut of $1.6 billion cut to NOAA’s 2016 fiscal year budget which is roughly 26% year-on-year decrease. The international scientists and industry experts are warning that consequences of censoring information on climate change and funding work to understand the data are drastic. This is not only affecting to long-term research, but also essential to enable nearer-term weather forecasting that may affect disaster management, insurance, fisheries, and industry.
Accurate forecasts and understanding longer-term climate trends are important for extreme weather loss litigation, as well as insurance pricing and agriculture, where inaccurate predictions can incur steeper losses for farmers.
It is said that if we need to have weather forecast more than a day or two, we need observations at the continental level. But if we want to go beyond three days, we will need observations over the entire planet.
International weather agencies are worried that a withdrawal of the U.S. weather and climate research could weaken the resilience of global forecasting systems.
The loss of about 2,000 NOAA employees has put a lot of pressures and increasing of the workloads of the existing staff. If the White House gets its way, the cut to NOAA could be even deeper. It would weaken NOAA’s research, but it would cut into its climate forecasting. There will be an inaccuracy of hurricane forecast by 20 to 40%.
If we look back at Hurricane Erin in August, the severe understaff of NOAA failed to alert the people on the path of the hurricane, although in the past decade NOAA and National Weather Service (NWS) repeatedly reported their vacancies in key forecasting offices, loss of experienced meteorologists, outdated equipment, and inadequate funding for new satellites and supercomputers. In 2023-2024, some NWS offices were operating with 30-40% staffing shortages.
Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DGE) cuts affect the functions of NOAA and NWS. It also resulted NOAA failed to accurately warn about Hurricane Erin as it intensified faster than expected. The communication to public was slower than ideal. Flood modeling underestimated rainfall totals in some regions, and evacuation alerts were issued to late in certain counties.
Hurricane Erin caused approximately $20-30 billion in total economic losses, and claimed 13 lives. It brought flooded homes and businesses, infrastructure damage, transportation disruption, roads and bridges were destroyed, agricultural losses, and insurance claims. Trump’s proposed budget cut was $1.6 billion, a year-to-year decrease of yearly budget. I have left speechless for this decision by the Trump administration.
Perhaps it was also Trump’s speaking at the UN General Assembly in September, and there he quoted, “The global warming is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
This act is to weaken our scientific institutions that protect us and instead of going forward, we may have to go backward and find out from the Old Farmer’s Almanac.
Coal Is a “Four-Letter” Word
It was in 1306 when King Edward I of England issued a royal proclamation prohibiting the burning of coal in London. Smoke from the burning of coal was leading to widespread pollution, health problems for Londoners and social unrest. This proclamation is often considered as the first ever environmental law.
Now more than 700 years later, Trump is trying to revive the beleaguered U.S. coal industry. The Trump administration outlined a coordinated plan to increase both the mining and burning of coal. He rolled back regulations aimed at limiting pollution.
Most of the coal mined in the U.S. today fuels aging electric power plants such as Cumberland coal plant in northwestern Tennessee, which is also one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the U.S. But lately it failed when customers need electricity the most as it was during June. Cumberland’s 52-year-old plant is planned for retirement in 2026 and 2028. It has warned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that keeping the plant operating would need significant investment, and it can still create economic and reliability risks.
It was in 1306 when King Edward I of England issued a royal proclamation prohibiting the burning of coal in London. Smoke from the burning of coal was leading to widespread pollution, health problems for Londoners and social unrest. This proclamation is often considered as the first ever environmental law.
But this time, Trump told the Interior Department to open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal mining and reduce the royalty rates that companies would need to pay to extract coal. It would offer $625 million to upgrade existing coal plants around the country. It would also repeal dozens of regulations set by the previous administration to curb carbon dioxide, mercury, and other pollutants from coal plants. These moved the long-term trajectory for coal, which is being displayed by cheaper and cleaner sources of energy including natural gas, solar, and wind power.
Though the burning of coal is the largest contributor to climate change worldwide, it remains the second-largest source of energy in the world, after oil, according to the International Energy Agency.
While coal has been contributing less power to the U.S. electrical grid in recent decades, it remains a major source of energy in other big countries, including China and India.
China remains the world’s largest consumer of coal and continues to build new coal-fired power plants. China President Xi Jinping told the United Nations that China would reduce the overall greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, China has been racing to adopt clean energy technologies and to move away from coal.
Coal miners are a rapidly declining portion of the American workforce. There are about 40,000 coal miners left, down from 70,000 a decade ago in according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As for the coal mines in the U.S., in 2013 there were about 518 mines. It is now down to about 200 mines in according to the Energy Information Administration.
If the U.S. government wants to bring back the manufacturing, for instance Trump wants to bring back the steel and aluminum and this will need energy. But we have known the fact that power technology and grid operations have evolved significantly in the last two decades. Wind and Solar have no fuel cost and more recently with the battery storage, it can send power to the grid as needed. Battery can be used to store power when demand is low in the daytime and then send the power back into the system when demand is high during nighttime. This capability didn’t exist in the grid until recently. Unlike coal power, it can’t respond quickly to changes in the grid demand.
While coal power struggles with higher fuel cost, and high operating and maintenance costs, unlike the cost of solar and wind, with the battery storage costs are projected to continue falling while performance improves, further undercutting coal’s competitiveness.
Even for those coal-friendly states, like Wyoming, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Kentucky, they have converted or are planning to convert their existing coal plants to burn natural gas to keep them open and operating. It is often cheaper and reliable to retrofit a coal plant to burn gas than to keep operating it as it is.
Cumberland coal plant is building a 1,450-megawatt natural gas plant as a replacement but may face the pressure from the Trump administration to continue operating the facility past its planned closure dates. It is all because of one man’s irrational judgement and his infamous quote, “The global warming is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”