Pope spends another ‘quiet night’ resting after Vatican gives medical updates

(NEW YORK) — The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it’s happening right now and affecting what matters most to us. Hurricanes intensified by a warming planet and drought-fueled wildfires are destroying our communities. Rising seas and flooding are swallowing our homes. And record-breaking heat waves are reshaping our way of life.

The good news is we know how to turn the tide and avoid the worst possible outcomes. However, understanding what needs to be done can be confusing due to a constant stream of climate updates, scientific findings, and critical decisions that are shaping our future.

That’s why the ABC News Climate and Weather Unit is cutting through the noise by curating what you need to know to keep the people and places you care about safe. We are dedicated to providing clarity amid the chaos, giving you the facts and insights necessary to navigate the climate realities of today — and tomorrow.

Biden bans offshore oil and gas drilling in 625 million acres of ocean

Just days before he leaves office, President Joe Biden is taking executive action to ban offshore oil and gas drilling in more than 625 million acres of ocean.

Using a provision in the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that gives the president the authority to ban drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf ocean zone, Biden declared the entire U.S. East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California and portions of the Northern Baring Sea in Alaska off limits to future oil and natural gas leasing.

“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs. It is not worth the risks,” Biden said in a statement.

The decision is not unprecedented. President Barack Obama used the act to ban oil and gas production in parts of the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans. And President Donald Trump used it to prohibit drilling off both Florida coasts and the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. Trump also tried to overturn the Obama decision in 2019, but a U.S. District Court judge ruled that it would require an act of Congress to undo the ban. With that ruling, Trump may have difficulty ridding himself of the ban.

Environmental groups are praising the decision, and one senior administration official told ABC News that the ban is “one of the most significant climate actions the president could take” regarding climate protection and natural resource protection.

The American Petroleum Institute panned the move, saying, “American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it.”

The group, which represents America’s natural gas and oil industry, is urging “policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing.”

But Biden is pushing back on the criticism, and the White House says hundreds of municipalities and thousands of elected officials have formally opposed offshore drilling in these areas because of health, environmental and economic threats.

“We do not need to choose between protecting the environment and growing our economy, or between keeping our ocean healthy, our coastlines resilient, and the food they produce secure and keeping energy prices low. Those are false choices,” Biden added in his statement.

While the eastern Gulf of Mexico is considered a lucrative region for drilling, the oil and gas industry has not shown much interest in developing some of the other areas receiving the new protection. And there’s been bipartisan pressure to protect many of these locations as many legislators don’t want oil platforms near their beaches.

-ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser and ABC News White House Correspondent MaryAlice Parks

Could the UK be a model for clean electricity production?

When it comes to curbing climate change, scientists have been clear. The world needs to stop burning fossil fuels. However, much of the world still depends on significant amounts of oil, gas and coal for its energy needs.

England kicked off the coal power revolution in 1882 and, for the next 142 years, burned the greenhouse gas-emitting energy source. But last year, the U.K. became the first G7 country to phase out coal power plants. When the Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant in Nottinghamshire closed in September, it marked the end of an era for the most-polluting fossil fuel in that region.

A new analysis by Carbon Brief, a U.K.-based climate publication, found that by eliminating coal and adopting more clean energy sources, the U.K. has significantly cleaned up its electricity generation, meaning it’s generating the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions in its history.

According to the analysis, in 2024, renewable energy sources reached a record-high 45% in the country, while fossil fuels made up 29%. Nuclear energy accounted for another 13%. Over the last decade, renewable energy sources have more than doubled. As a result, carbon emissions have plunged by two-thirds over that time.

While gas-fired power plants are still the U.K.’s single-largest source of electricity, wind power has almost caught up. However, the analysis found that when new wind projects come online in the coming months, the U.K. will likely generate more power from wind than gas in 2025.

While the incoming Trump administration calls for more drilling and fossil fuel use, including coal, in the United States, the U.K. just had its cleanest year ever for electricity generation. The combination of sunsetting coal power plants and increasing the amount of renewable energy is moving the country in the direction scientists say is crucial for stopping the worst impacts of human-amplified climate change.

-ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser

New York will make polluters pay for climate change damage

New York State is establishing a “Climate Superfund” that will make companies that release large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions financially responsible for some of the damage that climate change caused to the state’s infrastructure, communities and ecosystems.

On Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul, signed a bill into law requiring large fossil fuel companies to “pay for critical projects that protect New Yorkers.” Citing the hundreds of billions of dollars the state will have to spend on climate adaptation through 2050, the law requires that the companies responsible for most carbon emissions, more than a billion metric tons, between 2000-2018 pay nearly $3 billion annually for the next 25 years.

“With nearly every record rainfall, heatwave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment,” Hochul said in a press statement.

The new law calls climate change “an immediate, grave threat to the state’s communities, environment, and economy.” According to NASA, 97% of climate scientists believe human activity, specifically burning fossil fuels, is the primary driver of climate change and global warming. And those changes to the climate have resulted in more intense and more frequent extreme weather events.

The New York legislature said the “Climate Superfund” was now possible because scientific research enables them “to determine with great accuracy the share of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by specific fossil fuel companies over the last 70 years or more, making it possible to assign liability to and require compensation from companies commensurate with their emissions during a given time period.”

“The governor’s approval of the Climate Change Superfund Act is a welcome holiday gift for New York taxpayers,” said Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, in a statement. “Until her approval, New York taxpayers were 100% on the financial hook for climate costs. Now Big Oil will pay for much of the damages that they helped cause.”

The state anticipates collecting up to $75 billion over 25 years, and the law requires that at least 35% of the funds go to disadvantaged communities.

New York State Senator Liz Krueger said the new legislation was modeled after the federal Superfund law that requires polluters to pay for toxic waste cleanups.

But not everyone is cheering the new legislation. In a letter to Gov. Hochul, urging her to veto the bill, the Business Council of New York State, which represents more than 3,000 companies, chambers of commerce and associations, wrote, “The bill discriminates by targeting only the largest fossil fuel extraction and processing firms, including petroleum, natural gas, and coal.”

The Council added, “This legislation ignores the near universal use and benefits associated with fossil fuel.” They argued that the new law would do nothing to address what they said is the primary cause of carbon emissions: “consumption.”

There are still a lot of specifics that have yet to be determined, and the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for figuring out the program’s details over the next few years. With legal challenges all but certain, it will be some time before the companies actually have to pay up.

-ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser

Could climate change bring more earthquakes?

Earthquakes are usually triggered by seismic activity deep beneath the Earth’s surface and far beyond the influence of atmospheric conditions. However, according to new research, there may be instances where climate change can impact seismic activity.

A recent Colorado State University study suggests that melting glaciers could impact earthquake activity in some areas. Researchers analyzed southern Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains during the last ice age. They found the active fault responsible for triggering earthquakes was held in place by the weight of glaciers sitting on top of it.

Thousands of years ago, as the last ice age ended and the planet began to naturally warm, glaciers in this region began to melt. The study found that as the ice melted, there was less pressure on the quake-prone fault, which triggered an increase in earthquake activity. Basically, the glacier was holding the fault in place — less ice, less weight.

There is limited scientific evidence linking changes in Earth’s climate to earthquake activity. Still, this study demonstrates that, in some cases, climate-related events, like melting glaciers, could influence seismic events.

Sean Gallen, Geosciences associate professor and senior author of the study, highlights that this research helps us better understand the factors that can drive earthquakes.

Even though the study focused on investigating links between Earth’s natural climate variability (an ice age) and seismic activity, this research shows how other glacier-adjacent faults worldwide could respond as greenhouse gas emissions accelerate global warming.

As human-amplified climate change continues to drive global glacier melt, earthquake activity along these faults could increase as glaciers recede.

“We see this in the rapid mountain glacial retreats in Alaska, the Himalayas and the Alps,” said Cece Hurtado, an author of the study. “In many of these regions, there are also active tectonics, and this work demonstrates that as climate change alters ice and water loads, tectonically active areas might see more frequent fault movements and earthquakes due to rapidly changing stress conditions.”

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

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(SEOUL) — Thousands of South Korean citizens were gathering on Sunday near impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol’s residence a day before an arrest warrant for him expires.

Protesters from both sides — one calling the warrant invalid or illegal and the other shouting for arrest — have occupied the wide four-lane road in a normally quiet neighborhood, blocking all traffic, in freezing temperatures and snow.

The effort to detain Yoon came after a South Korean court issued an arrest and search warrant on Dec. 31 over his short-lived imposition of martial law, ABC News confirmed. Yoon has been suspended from his position since Dec. 14.

The warrant is valid until Jan. 6, Yonhap reported, meaning investigators hoping to serve it would have to attempt to detain the president again by Monday.

Yoon declared martial law in a televised speech on Dec. 3. The president said the measure was necessary due to the actions of the country’s liberal opposition, the Democratic Party, which he accused of controlling parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing the government.

Animosity has been sky-high between the two sides, after over 100 investigators from the CIO anti-corruption agency and the police retreated from the residence after a tense standoff with the presidential security service.

Yoon’s die-hard supporters have been camping on the street vowing to protect him from “pro-North Korean forces about to steal away the presidency.” Anti-Yoon protesters who are backing of the opposition party claim that Yoon must be jailed for insurrection.

Arrest warrant questioned

Many law experts question the validity of the warrant, which specified that certain key provisions of South Korea’s Criminal Procedure Act should be excluded, which meant the police could search the military and government-classified presidential residence.

This court order is widely seen as a first-ever and as being highly irregular, along with being criticized by some as being outside the limits of the judiciary’s authority, violating the principles of separation of powers.

Typical search warrants include clear parameters of space, time and items to retrieve but excluding the application of legal provisions entirely is unprecedented, experts say.

Yoon’s declaration of martial law had sparked protests, and hours after the declaration, the National Assembly voted to demand that the president lift the martial law order. A majority of parliament — all 190 members who were present, out of the 300-person body — voted to lift the decree — requiring that it then be lifted, under the South Korean constitution.

Following the National Assembly’s vote, Yoon said he withdrew the troops that had been deployed to carry out martial law and “will lift martial law as soon as we have a quorum in the cabinet.” The State Council then convened to vote to officially lift it.

The country’s Democratic Party called on Yoon to resign following what it called the “fundamentally invalid” declaration of martial law. Without Yoon resigning, the opposition party worked to enact impeachment proceedings against the president.

Yoon has been suspended from his position since Dec. 14, when the National Assembly voted for his impeachment in a 204-85 vote.

Presidential security service facing charges

While politicians and lawyers argue heatedly over the validity of the warrant in higher courts, the Presidential Security Service has found itself in the limelight.

The CIO has been leading a joint investigation with police and prosecutors, but say detaining Mr. Yoon would be “virtually impossible” as long as he is protected by the security team.

CIO and the opposition party are seeking charges against the head of the president’s security team for obstruction of justice after the police were blocked from entering the residence on Friday.

The security team formed a barricade comprising about 10 buses and vehicles, at one point forming a human chain of about 200 officers to block access, according to CIO.

The opposition has criticized the president’s security team as being over-excessive and summoned the chiefs and deputy chiefs. The Presidential Security Service defied the order, citing that this is not the time to leave their positions.

“Some media and political circles are saying that the Presidential Security Service is a private soldier (to President Yoon),” Park Chong-Jun, Head of Presidential Security Service, said in a video press release. “I can’t help but feel terrible and sad as the presidential security officer”.

He added that fake news reports of him ordering to fire with live ammunition are “absurd claims,” there was no violence on Saturday, and that they should not be forced to be associated with political ideology.

ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.

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(LONDON) — President-elect Donald Trump will return to office on Monday having promised a peace deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, which is still raging nearly three years after President Vladimir Putin troops crossed into Ukraine expecting to be welcomed as heroes.

It is hard to say how Trump will try to unpick the twisted knot constricting eastern Europe.

The president-elect has hinted at territorial concessions and reduced aid for Ukraine in pursuit of peace, but has also suggested the U.S. will expand military support if Putin refuses to come to the table.

Ukrainian lawmakers and a former official told ABC News they are bracing to again deal with perhaps the most unpredictable president in living memory — one who former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her memoir engaged on “an emotional level.”

Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee, nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize in November — an honor the president-elect has long coveted.

“Trump takes some things personally and we should establish human contact with him,” Merezhko told ABC News. “Our destiny and survival depends also on Trump — we should be respectful and constructive towards him.”

President Joe Biden “used to say that international relations are interpersonal relations — and it’s true,” Merezhko added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to have embarked on a Trump charm offensive of his own.

Zelenskyy was quick to laud Trump’s “historic landslide victory” in November, echoing the president-elect’s own “peace through strength” slogan.

A meeting with Trump in Paris in December was “good and productive,” Zelenskyy said, with the Ukrainian president praising Trump’s “strong resolve” and repeating the “peace through strength” mantra.

After a December meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels, Zelenskyy told reporters, “I think that President Trump is a strong man and I want very much to have him on our side.”

Asked how he would feel when Trump does take office in January, the Ukrainian president responded, “Welcome Donald! What can I say?”

Art of the deal
In 2024 unlike in 2016, foreign leaders appeared prepared for a Trump election victory, their immediate reactions tailored to appeal to the president-elect’s transactional world view.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte framed aid to Ukraine as “a good deal” for Trump and the U.S.

Macron said he was ready to work towards “peace and prosperity” with his next American counterpart. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was looking forward to working towards “prosperity and freedom” with the incoming administration.

Ukraine will need to make itself attractive to the self-styled master dealmaker, mindful of the transactional brand of foreign policy he pursued in his first term and promised for his second.

Amid the leaks and innuendos, Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News he had seen little in the way of concrete policy about the future of Ukraine.

“We’ve used this time to deliver our position and our conditions for these new peace negotiations,” Cherniev said. “We’ve tried to explain and give information — not only to officials, but to U.S. citizens and Western people — that this war was started not for several territories of Ukraine or even for the whole of Ukraine as a country, but for the revision of the world order.”

Without NATO membership or a binding bilateral security deal with the U.S. akin to its agreements with Japan, South Korea or Israel, “it will be a failure of the whole Western world,” Cherniev said. “This is our position, and we try to deliver this position to officials in the Trump administration.”

Jonathan Eyal of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., told ABC News there are indications that may encourage Kyiv, despite Trump’s repeated hints at Ukrainian concessions.

“It appears that Trump seems to have bought into the idea that he can’t end the Ukraine war with an American retreat, that this would look very bad for him to start his presidency with — a retreat that would look as humiliating as Biden’s from Kabul in the summer of 2021.”

“So, there is this search for something that could be presented as an end to the war that is also an honorable one and not one that ends up with a sellout — or with the sacrifice of — Ukraine,” he said.

Trump selected retired general Keith Kellogg as his special envoy to Ukraine and Russia. The pick, Eyal said, might pique hope in Kyiv.

“Kellogg is on record in a lot of media interviews and articles saying that the war could be brought to an end only from a position of strength, and only if Putin is impressed by America’s determination to otherwise continue the war,” he said.

“I think there is a level of optimism in Kyiv that somehow the administration seems to have accepted that merely to get Putin to the negotiating table for a ceasefire, the United States will have to appear to be determined to defend Ukrainian interests rather than betray them,” he added.

Peace through exhaustion
Some in Ukraine may have their own personal political calculations. Zelenskyy, for example, will be under pressure to quickly hold the presidential election scheduled for spring 2024 but delayed due to the conflict.

The wartime leader became a global icon for his gruff fortitude in the opening stages of the war, but his domestic popularity has since dipped. There is no guarantee that a post-war election will deliver Zelenskyy another term, especially if his legacy is tainted by territorial concessions to Moscow.

“He doesn’t want to lose, obviously,” a former Ukrainian official told ABC News on the condition of anonymity. “And for this, he needs to blame Trump for a fast peace, for a ceasefire, as if Ukraine could win the territories. But everybody knows we cannot, and he also knows he cannot.”

Many Ukrainians are hopeful despite the thorny question of concessions, the former official said. “When people heard that Trump promised to finish the war, they understood it’s not possible to do in 24 hours, but at least it was a break of the status quo,” they said.

“These calls to stay as long as is needed with Ukraine — that lost any meaning long ago,” the former official added of the common refrain offered by allied leaders since February 2022.

“People don’t care anymore about losing territories or how it will happen,” the former official said. “They want suspension, they want a break, they want a ceasefire, any deal.”

“That’s why so many of them were so joyful to see Trump coming in power, and many still have big hopes that he is strong enough to stop this war.”

There remain many unknowns. Lawmaker Merezhko said his efforts to build ties with Trump’s team had so far not been reciprocated.

“I have the impression that they might be hesitant to reach out to Ukrainian politicians before the inauguration,” he said. “Perhaps they don’t know yet what Trump’s policy is with regard to Ukraine.”

But like many of his compatriots, Merezhko said he remained hopeful. “I don’t have a feeling that Trump’s presidency will be catastrophic for Ukraine,” he explained.

“Of course, he will make an attempt to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine, but I doubt that it will be a success,” Merezhko continued. “Not because of Trump, but because of Putin, who is absolutely not interested in peace or a ceasefire.”

“Reality — harsh reality — is more powerful than any plans, ideas or desires of politicians.”

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