00:00We can now bring in Rachel Cletus, Senior Policy Director, Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
00:07Thank you so much for joining us here on the program today.
00:10Now, Donald Trump says this was a tragedy that nobody expected. Is the U.S. president right?
00:17Well, not really. This is, of course, a really very difficult and challenging situation.
00:24And flash floods are notoriously difficult to forecast, especially at the fine grain local level.
00:31But unfortunately, with climate change, these kinds of events are likely to happen more often.
00:36Warmer air carries more moisture. The warmer oceans are giving more moisture up into the air so that we're seeing more of these extreme precipitation events.
00:46But that said, this is an absolutely unspeakable tragedy.
00:50More than 80 people have lost their lives thus far. And it's really calling out the holes in the early warning system.
00:57We know that the National Weather Service alerts were solid and they were sent out.
01:01But whether they reach the people in time, that's been the big breakdown.
01:05What happened at the local level so that people get the information in a timely way and actually be evacuated, which clearly didn't happen.
01:12Talk us through this specific pocket of Texas where people had gathered for the 4th of July weekend and there was camps as well for young children.
01:22Yeah, this is a really, really terrible series of catastrophes because, of course, there were a lot of people.
01:31This was the 4th of July weekend. A lot of people along campsites, along this river that rose so suddenly, so fast.
01:38It happened at night, at a time when many people were unaware.
01:43There were cell phone alerts sent out from the National Weather Service.
01:48But at that time of night and in such a remote location, it's not clear that people even got those alerts.
01:54And there wasn't a good, strong local emergency alert effort to complement the National Weather Service's weather forecast.
02:03You mentioned about how, with climate change, we're going to see these sorts of events occur more frequently.
02:11Given that they can happen very quickly, are alert systems going to become obsolete?
02:17What do you think we can do to improve, though, the alert system?
02:23Actually, basic alert systems, including loud alarms, having local officials spread the word through social media, etc., are very, very effective.
02:32But they need to be followed through all the way to the last mile, so to speak.
02:37Because even with the best weather forecast, it's very challenging to predict exactly where the flash flooding will happen, depending on where the rainfall stalls.
02:46Like in this case, the very heavy, heavy rainfall was predicted, but where it would exactly fall and where the rivers would rise, that always comes down to the last few hours in the case of flash floods like this.
02:59But as I mentioned, climate itself is loading the dice to have more of these extreme precipitation events.
03:05This is what we should expect going forward, and we must invest right now to better prepare people and communities.
03:13Have the Trump cuts had an impact on FEMA thus far?
03:17Well, so a really interesting thing to recognize in this context is that the Trump administration appropriately has immediately signed a major disaster declaration for Texas so that they get the aid they need.
03:30But on the other hand, the administration is saying it wants to cut FEMA, dismantle it, push onto states the burden of dealing with major disasters like this.
03:41And as the situation in Texas is showing, a state cannot deal with this scale of disaster on its own.
03:47Federal resources are needed.
03:49So the Trump cuts or the threatened cuts to FEMA are absolutely going against what it takes to keep people safe.
03:55And at the same time, they're threatening to cut NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, even more.
04:02And that will make it much harder for weather forecasters to provide these kinds of timely, accurate forecasts.
04:09So on all fronts, they're making people less safe, both by cutting the advanced warning, the science, the data, the tools, as well as the recovery efforts after the fact.
04:20You yourself have been affected by Trump cuts.
04:24If you could talk us through what exactly you what's been impacted from your work.
04:29Well, the Union of Concerned Scientists does not take federal funding, but of course, we are very involved in making sure that the best available science is what's used to help inform policymaking.
04:43And the Trump administration has pretty much been trying to bury the evidence on climate change.
04:48They have dismantled the National Climate Assessment.
04:52I was one of the volunteer authors on that report.
04:55There is no word on when this congressionally mandated climate report will be done, whether it will be done.
05:02On many fronts, they're taking down websites, publicly available information, the data, the tools that we need to better understand how our world is being dangerously altered by climate change.
05:15They essentially call in climate change a hoax and trying to bury the evidence.
05:19But the reality is so clear in people's lives.
05:23And it's just irreprehensible that they're trying to avoid and evade the responsibility for addressing climate change, even as the mounting human and economic toll is so clear.
05:36Rachel, we are seeing it as very clear.
05:37I see that you're in Europe.
05:39Last week here in Paris, we had sweltering heat.
05:43It's not normal to have such high heat in late June, early July, but yet we had it nevertheless.
05:50And then, of course, we have Europe who's trying to make moves to better mitigate the impacts of climate change, whereas in the U.S., the president there is all about drill, baby drill.
06:02So it's difficult to find the right balance here.
06:06We're having questions about air conditioning.
06:07Should we have air conditioning, not have air conditioning?
06:10But it's a tricky task, isn't it, for European authorities when there are countries in the world, powerful countries, big countries in the world, who think that this is all a hoax?
06:22Yeah, it is going to take a collective global effort to address climate change.
06:28And when you have the world's biggest historical emitter of heat-trapping emissions, the United States step back and roll back its clean energy policies.
06:36That's a big blow to global efforts.
06:38Nevertheless, I think it's really important for other countries to stay the course.
06:43We absolutely have to do our utmost to limit as much as possible of dangerous climate change.
06:48As you pointed out, the heat wave last week in Europe is just one of many extreme events we're seeing supercharged by climate change.
06:57And so it's in our self-interest, every single country's self-interest, to do everything they can to cut emissions and invest in resilience measures right now.
07:07Rachel Clevis, thank you so much for joining us on the program today.
