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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Australia battles record heat and extreme bushfires; Trump withdraws U.S. from bedrock United Nations climate treaty; Trump EPA will no longer consider benefits like lives saved when calculating the cost of pollution rules; PLUS: Trump loses again on offshore wind… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 1/13/2026

‘Green News Report’ – January 13, 2026  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – January 13, 2026  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Trump’s EPA could limit its own ability to strengthen air pollution rules; Court rules Trump illegally blocked clean energy grants to Dem states; Alito’s recusal in oil case renews questions about justice’s investments; White House finalizes overhaul of environmental permitting rules; Ocean warming breaks record for ninth straight year… PLUS: Congress is rejecting Trump’s steep budget cuts to science… and much, MUCH more! …

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…

• Australia battles record heat and extreme bushfires:
• One person dead as PM visits bushfire-ravaged towns with 300 structures destroyed and 350,000 hectares burned (Guardian)
• Flying foxes die in their thousands in worst mass-mortality event since Australia’s black summer (Guardian)
• VIDEO: Man killed and hundreds of structures destroyed in Central Victoria fire disaster (ABC Australia)
• Tragedy as body found with fires burning out of control (AP)
• The data doesn’t lie: it’s getting hotter and fossil fuels are fanning the flames (op-ed, Sydney Herald)
• Rain one minute, heatwave the next. How climate ‘whiplash’ drives unpredictable fire weather (The Conversation)
• Trump pressures Big Oil, criticizes Exxon, on Venezuela investment:
• Trump’s $100 Billion Venezuela Oil Plan Gets a Cool Reception (NY Times):
  Darren Woods, who leads the largest U.S. oil company, Exxon Mobil, was especially blunt during a televised portion of the meeting. “We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes,” he said. “Today it’s uninvestable.” For the company to return to Venezuela, legal changes would have to be made, and there would need to be “durable investment protections,” Mr. Woods, Exxon’s chief executive, said.
• Trump ‘inclined’ to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after CEO response at White House meeting (AP)
• VIDEO: Trump meets with oil executives at White House after Venezuela strikes (CBS News/YouTube)
• Trump EPA will stop considering lives saves in weighing pollution rules:
• E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution (NY Times):
  In a reversal, the agency plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.
• The EPA is changing how it considers the costs and benefits of air pollution rules (Oregon Public Radio):
  The EPA will no longer consider the economic cost of harm to human health from fine particles and ozone, two air pollutants that are known to affect human health. The change was written into a new rule recently published by the agency. It weakened air pollution rules on power plant turbines that burn fossil fuels, which are sources of air pollution of many types, including from fine particles, sometimes called soot.
• Trump to withdraw U.S. from UN Framework Convention on Climate Change:
• Trump Pulls Out of Global Climate Agreement (no paywall, NY Times)
• US will exit 66 international organizations as it further retreats from global cooperation (AP)
• Outrage as Trump withdraws from key UN climate treaty along with dozens of international organisations (Guardian):
  Donald Trump has sparked outrage by announcing the US will exit the foundational international agreement to address the climate crisis, cementing the US’s utter isolation from the global effort to confront dangerously escalating temperatures…The UNFCCC treaty forms the bedrock of international cooperation to deal with the climate crisis and has been agreed to by every country in the world since its inception 34 years ago. The US Senate ratified the treaty in October 1992.
• Trump Withdrawal From Bedrock UN Climate Treaty Raises Legal Questions (Reuters):
  Some international law experts said the president’s unprecedented move on Wednesday raises major legal questions because case law has not been clear on whether a president can unilaterally withdraw the country from a treaty that has been ratified by a majority of the Senate.”
• Outcry Builds Over Trump’s Withdrawal From International, Climate Treaties (Inside Climate News)
• AUDIO: Jean Su, Trump to Congress, Climate, U.N., Rule of Law, World: DROP DEAD (‘BradCast’, The Brad Blog)
• Judge orders construction to resume on R.I. offshore wind farm:
• Offshore wind developer prevails in court as Trump says the US ‘will not approve any windmills’ (AP)
• Danish Wind Farm Developer Scrambles to Salvage U.S. Projects (NY Times):
  Orsted’s C.E.O. says it plans to move quickly to complete a $6.2 billion wind farm off Rhode Island after a judge struck down President Trump’s bid to halt it…”We have seven turbines left to install” on the project, called Revolution Wind, Rasmus Errboe, the head of the energy company Orsted, said in an interview. He added that he expected the wind farm to begin generating some electric power “within weeks,” with completion coming later this year.
• Judge reverses Trump order halting Revolution Wind (Politico):
  It marks the second time Lamberth has overturned an Interior order seeking to halt construction of the project off Connecticut and Rhode Island. In September, he rejected Interior’s claim that the project constituted a threat to national security, calling it the height of “arbitrary and capricious action.”…Trump, a longtime critic of offshore wind, bragged about stopping construction of wind farms during a meeting with oil executives Friday. Those types of statements appeared to hurt the government’s case in court.

‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Daily Headlines page

• Trump’s EPA Could Limit Its Own Ability to Strengthen Air Pollution Rules (Pro Publica)
• Court Says Trump Illegally Blocked Clean Energy Grants To Dem States (AP)
• Alito’s Recusal in Oil Case Renews Questions About Justice’s Investments (Inside Climate News)
• White House Finalizes Overhaul of Environmental Permitting Rules (Bloomberg Law)
• Pulling out of 66 international organizations, Trump turns his back on science, facts, reason (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
• Ocean Warming Breaks Record for Ninth Straight Year (Inside Climate News)
• High Court Hears Arguments In Suit Over Damage To Louisiana Coast (SCOTUSblog)
• Trump Administration Moves To Reverse Mining Ban Near Boundary Waters (Minnesota Public Radio)
• States Need More Help Replacing Lead Pipes. Congress May Cut Funds Instead (Inside Climate News)
• Congress Is Rejecting Trump’s Steep Budget Cuts to Science (NY Times)
• The True Cost of Recovering From the LA Wildfires, and how to prepare: (NY Times)
• Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in ‘grim’ report (Yale Climate Connections)
• How Trump’s War on Climate Science impacts all Americans (Bloomberg)
• Solar Is Liberation (Rolling Stone)
• Governments legally required to address climate change, global court says (Inside Climate News)
• David Attenborough’s ‘Ocean’ is a brutal, beautiful wake-up call from the sea (AP)
• Wall Street Journal: Clean energy transition is unstoppable (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Can we avoid the enshittification of clean-energy tech? (David Roberts, Volts)
• Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check (Dr. Andrew Dessler, Climate Brink)
• Who Will Care for Americans Left Behind by Climate Migration? (Pro Publica)
• Is the Atlantic Overturning Circulation Approaching a Tipping Point? (The Oceanography Society)
• How Oil Companies Manipulate Journalists (Drilled)
• How To Spot 5 Of The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Biggest Disinformation Tactics (Guardian)
• The Oceans We Knew Are Already Gone (The Atlantic)
• How to electrify your life when you rent (The Verge)
• Complete Series: Farmers Under Attack for Supporting Clean Energy (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Feeling Overwhelmed About Going All-Electric at Home? Here’s How to Get Started (Inside Climate News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon’s Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)