Transcript of Trump is rolling back climate solutions. What can cities and states do? New

I'm Ayesha Rascoe, and this is the Sunday Story from Up First. Our planet is getting hotter. In fact, the last 11 years have been the hottest on record. And for people working to address climate change in the U.S., the last year has been a hard one. The Trump administration has been backtracking on rules and regulations meant to reduce planet-warming pollution.

We are officially terminating the so-called Endangerment finding.

That was President Trump in February announcing his administration was rescinding the scientific finding that underpins many of the nation's rules regulating climate pollution from cars and trucks and coal and gas power plants. And that's not all. In the last year, there have been lots of other changes. The administration has rolled back tax credits for electric vehicles and solar panels. It's cut research to help us understand climate science and help us adapt to more heat and wildfires. But even in the face of these federal actions, there are states, cities, and towns across the country that are still finding innovative solutions for the climate crisis. We're joined now by Julia Simon, NPR's climate solutions correspondent. Julia, welcome to the podcast.

So nice to be here, Aisha.

Julia, I understand that you're going to help us find some bright spots in the midst of all of this kind of doom and gloom for the climate that happened this past year in the US.

Yeah.

So tell me about that.

Aisha, often the focus is on these big decisions on the federal level, but what's going on locally can be overlooked, and it shouldn't. Right now, I'm gonna take you to a gathering I went to recently that gave me a lot of hope.

Well, we could definitely use some hope.

We sure can. So last month, I went to the first international conference for the transition away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia. Burning fossil fuels, Aisha, it's the single biggest driver of climate change. So more than 50 countries, they showed up to support finding these concrete ways to transition away from oil, gas, and coal. I'm here in the plenary hall in Santa Marta, Colombia, and I see ministers from Spain, from Nigeria.

Was anyone there representing the US or somebody from the Trump administration?

There was no one there from the federal government, but there was a state official from California And there were actually lots of people representing local climate action. You had mayors from Athens, Greece, from Quito, Ecuador, from Cape Town, South Africa. And one of these local politicians I met at the conference was Juan Carlos Lozada. He's in Colombia's House of Representatives, and he says right now Colombia's federal government, it's very left-wing, very pro-climate action. That's why they co-hosted this conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels with the Netherlands. The president now, Gustavo Petro, he has a moratorium on new exploration contracts for fossil fuels. They've suspended new fracking projects. But later this month, there's a presidential election in Colombia. Here's Lozada.

If the right-wing parties win, then we're gonna be in Trump's world, and that means drill, baby, drill. That's what's gonna happen in Colombia.

But Lozada says that even if the right wing wins in Colombia. He says that won't be the end of climate action in the country. He came into the House of Representatives 12 years ago. He's been through administrations that were pro-climate action, others that weren't so much. He says the lesson for people working on climate solutions is to keep pushing on the local level.

That's why my biggest lesson is never to give up. You have to keep on going, and we have the power to keep issues in the agenda.

All these climate actions on the local level, he says, add up. And that is why NPR and the NPR Network have dedicated this past week to examples of local climate solutions across the country.

Well, that's really interesting because, you know, usually when you're thinking about climate change, you're thinking about global solutions and getting all these different countries together to try to work together to address this issue. And it can feel overwhelming, right? Like, does it really make a difference what goes on at the local level?

When you add all these local actions up, yes, actions on the city and state level matter for reducing emissions. Obviously, scientists are calling for coordinated, high-level climate actions from federal governments. But because a lot of policies for energy and transportation and building codes, those are implemented on the local level, research finds that what states and cities do actually really matters for climate. And that's why, Ayesha, I want to tell you about some communities here in the US where people are making real changes.

Today on the show, two stories of climate solutions. What happens when a city reenvisions its old infrastructure, and a neighborhood project to plant not just trees, but a pocket forest. Stay with us. We're back with The Sunday Story. I'm Ayesha Rascoe, and joining us for Climate Solutions Week is Julia Simon, NPR's climate solutions correspondent. Now, this— this is your week. This is your Super Bowl, right?

This is my Shark Week. This is one of my favorite weeks of the year.

So you're going to be like a breath of fresh air on the show today, right? Like—

That is my goal. We need some hope.

I understand that you've picked out a couple of themes and stories that really show the power of local initiatives.

Exactly, Ayesha. A lot of the stories this week are about energy because the energy sector, it's a huge driver of global warming. And in cities, a lot of that energy use, it happens through heating and cooling buildings. Colorado Public Radio's Ishaan Thakur brought NPR this story for Climate Solutions Week. It's about how one city is using old infrastructure to find new ways to heat and cool buildings. They hope that by tackling one of the biggest ways that cities make climate pollution, they can be a model for other cities across the country and save money.

Okay, that sounds like a win-win. So, so tell us more.

Since the 1880s, downtown Denver, they've had this very special heating system. It involves underground pipes that connect the buildings in a network of sorts. Aishaun actually went to an old boiler plant that used to be a key part of this system. Squeaky old leaky pipes. Today it's this cavernous building filled with rattling pipes. And Aisha, there's— No other way to say it, it's a pretty gross place. It's got asbestos, piles of dead cockroaches.

Uh, it looks like a good place for a rave or potentially a horror movie to be filmed at this moment.

That's Denver Mayor Mike Johnston. This old boiler plant was designed to make steam. That steam then snaked through that old network I mentioned earlier. Now, heating buildings this way, it was very innovative in the 1800s. But today it's super leaky, it's expensive, and it's also polluting. So Mayor Johnston says that he has this big vision for this boiler plant and the system it was a part of.

And we think we are standing what can be the future of energy in Denver.

Well, so how are they going to do this?

The city is re-engineering some of this old underground pipe system. Instead of sending steam around, they're gonna send water around, which is more efficient because right now the steam loses a lot of heat before it even gets into buildings. Under the city's new idea, they will use water as this source of energy to heat and cool buildings. And to do that, they're gonna use something called a heat pump.

Okay, I feel like people who are really into climate like to talk about heat pumps.

Oh, we love our heat pumps. We climate nerds. So basically, these buildings will be looped together with a network of pipes full of water. If a building's too cold, the heat pumps suck out heat from the water in the pipes. If the building's too hot, the heat pumps dump that extra heat into the water and cool the building down. And also, the buildings, they share heat between one another. So if, say, an art museum is overheated, for example, the heat pump can dump its excess heat into the water, and then that water can flow into a nearby municipal building where another heat pump could draw that extra heat to warm up. You're just not wasting heat, and that efficiency means that the city will end up saving money using this system.

Uh, so how far along are they?

It's still early days. Denver's climate office hopes 2 buildings will be heated and cooled using a version of this system in the next year or 2, plus a sidewalk snowmelt system. In a decade, they hope it will be much more. And Ayesha, I should note that powering the heat pump, getting that water to the right temperature in the loop, it does require energy. As the new system gets up and running, the energy's gonna come from some renewables, but also natural gas. Eventually, Denver hopes to get the system off of fossil fuels entirely. A big way they hope to do this is by using less energy to heat and cool the water in the Loop.

So how are they going to do that?

Well, they are going to tap into two sources of energy, or heat, that the city already has. The first source of energy, they have to dig for it.

Okay, that's geothermal heat. That's another thing climate people like to talk about.

Oh, yes.

Geothermal. You know it.

We definitely do. So they're gonna use this heat from under the Earth. That's geothermal. And then they also plan to tap into another type of heat that they already have in the city. Let me play you a sound to kind of give you a little hint. So they're going to get the heat from sewage, from warm wastewater.

Wait, wastewater is warm?

Yeah. Yeah. Let's just sit with that for a second.

That's kind of gross.

It's kind of gross, but technically, technically clean.

When you say clean, you don't mean clean. You mean clean as far as carbon emissions, right?

Yes. Right. Clean in the not-fossil-fuel sense, right. Okay. Denver wants to repurpose some of this heat from the sewage, which is just, you know, being wasted down the drain. Okay.

Well, I mean, that's really making use of everything, and nothing's going to waste.

A renewable resource. Exactly.

Yes. Yes. So what's the lesson here from Denver?

Denver hopes to be a blueprint for other cities, especially those that already have these old networks of pipes, like New York City, Boise, Idaho. What Denver is saying is, "Look, dense cities across the US, you too can pipe your water around, heat and cool buildings. If you already have the pipes from old systems, great. If you need to build new pipes, that also works." This system is way more efficient, it's way more climate-friendly, and it saves money.

So, I mean, this does sound like a really innovative and cool way to move away from fossil fuels.

Mm-hmm.

But it is a long-term project that's being pushed by the city's officials.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And obviously, not every city is going to be able to implement changes to their infrastructure like this. But there are some other amazing efforts going on that pretty much anyone could help with.

When we come back, a look at a neighborhood forest in Massachusetts. We're back with the Sunday Story. Julia, so it sounds like this next climate solution is super local.

Exactly, Aisha. My next example, it's about a neighborhood level. Solution, something that communities can do to cope with a changing climate. And to understand, we're going to an old abandoned baseball field. Bianca Garcia at WBUR in Boston brought us this story. Earlier this month, she met up with about 50 volunteers at this old baseball field in Attleboro. It's a small city in Massachusetts. So she saw these volunteers wearing gardening gloves and wellies. They formed sort of a production line to plant trees and shrubs. Some volunteers were dunking saplings in troughs full of nutrient-rich water. Others stepped on shovels and they dug holes for the saplings. People zoomed by with wheelbarrows full of mulch. Some walked into a nearby forest and they dug up some mushrooms to replant near the saplings so that this underground network of mycelium could improve soil health. And there was one student, her name's Sydney Battle. She held a sapling in her hand. She's a sophomore at Attleboro High School. She was trying to figure out where to plant it.

I don't want to put an American chestnut right next to another American chestnut. I want to put, like, a variety so it's, like, diverse.

And Ayesha, this planting style that these volunteers are following, it's something called the Miyawaki method of planting.

What— Miyawaki method of planting? Like, what is that?

Yeah, so it's named after Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, who started doing it in the 1970s. Basically, it's a way to plant entire forests' worth of trees on these tiny plots of land. Very dense, little forests. It could be on a neighborhood block. It could be a few parking spaces even. Mini forests, or as they're sometimes called, pocket forests.

Now I've never heard of a pocket forest.

But doesn't it sound adorable?

Yeah, they do! Like Polly Pocket.

Oh, from Polly Pocket. Yeah. They are really small, but they can be great for neighborhoods. And these pocket forests, they're spreading across the US, all across the world, really.

And I mean, when you say they're really small, like, how small are we talking?

Sometimes an area as big as 6 parking spaces can fit 350 plants. And this density makes the trees race towards the sunlight before they can be overshadowed by the others. So this method essentially fast-tracks forest growth.

So, so this is Climate Solution Week. Are these pocket forests a climate solution?

Well, trees suck up carbon dioxide, but Trees don't last forever. They can burn up in fires or die other ways, and then they can release that carbon dioxide again. There's a lot of debate about how trees are used to fight climate change. But as a climate solution, what is clear is that when it comes to adapting to a hotter planet, there's more convincing scientific evidence, Ayesha, that planting trees can really help cool people down.

Oh, so this is more of, like, adaptation than just, like, mitigation?

Exactly. Mitigation, that would be reducing emissions. At this point, scientists have more evidence that planting trees helps with adaptation. And it's not just about heat. There's something else these pocket forests can help with when it comes to adaptation. In Attleboro, that town in Massachusetts that was doing the planting, They had a flood in that area in 2023. Residents in Attleboro spoke about terrible flooding. In the nearby town of North Attleboro, almost a foot of rain fell in town, and that water didn't drain. Around 200 homes were flooded or damaged. And as we know from climate science, the atmosphere is getting hotter because of those greenhouse gasses, and that hotter atmosphere holds more moisture. And this makes rainstorms and flooding more intense. So residents hope that these pocket forests, like the one they just planted, will be able to soak up more moisture from future floods.

Well, it sounds like pocket forests can do a lot. And a little forest in a neighborhood, I mean, it can just make you feel better, right? Totally. It can improve the quality of life. I love looking— I love looking at trees.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, so Often I think it seems like if the federal government doesn't do it, it won't get done. But these stories seem to suggest that each individual can make a difference.

Yeah, you know, the reality is people want their federal governments to do more. According to a survey from Oxford in 2024, 80% of people worldwide, they want stronger climate action from their governments. But if you're in a place like the US where your federal government isn't acting on climate change in the way you like, what these stories show us is that there are ways to take local-level actions that will have concrete impacts on climate emissions and on adapting to climate change right now.

That's NPR's climate solution correspondent Julia Simon. Julia, thank you so much for these glimmers of Oh, thank you, Ayesha. This episode features reporting by—

Ishan Takour, CPR in Denver.

Bianca Garcia, WBUR in Boston. Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Broadcasting in Kennewick, Washington. Lauren Gallup, Northwest Public Broadcasting in Tacoma, Washington.

You can find these stories and more at npr.org/climateweek. This episode of The Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yan. It was edited by Jenny Schmidt and Sadie Babbitt, with help from Leanna Simstrom and Rachel Waldholz. Fact-checking by Aida Poversad. The engineer was Jimmy Keely. The Sunday Story team includes Andrew Mambo and our executive producer Irene Noguchi. I'm Aisha Roscoe, and Up First is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week.

Week.

Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.