SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
February, 05 2026, 01:01pm EDT
Contact:
Larisa Manescu, larisa.manescu@sierraclub.org
Trump Administration Illegally Seeks to Cancel Millions in Funding For Electric Vehicle Charging, Again
Yesterday, the New York Post reported that the Trump administration is targeting elimination of over $900 million in federal funding from the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) grant program.
In response, Sierra Club Clean Transportation for All Director Katherine García released the following statement:
“Another day, another example of the Trump administration illegally attempting to eliminate clean energy infrastructure funds that have been promised to communities for cleaner vehicles, cleaner air, and good jobs. No matter how hard they try to bend to the fossil fuel industry in betrayal of the American people, they will not succeed in withholding Congressionally-mandated federal funds for EV charging. We fought tooth and nail to reverse the administration’s unlawful freeze of the NEVI charging program—and we won. We’ll do the same for CFI.”
Background:
In December, Sierra Club, Climate Solutions, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), and Earthjustice filed a new challenge — following a lawsuit from 16 states and D.C. — to the Trump administration’s hold on federal funding in the $2.5 billion CFI grant program.
The CFI program was created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which appropriated $2.5 billion for the program over five years. It represents one of two major federal funding programs for critical electric vehicle charging infrastructure, the other being the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program.
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
(415) 977-5500LATEST NEWS
Scientists Warn 'Garbage' Models Underestimate Risk of Economic Collapse From Climate Crisis
Current models "assume the future will behave like the past, even as we push the climate system into uncharted territory," said the lead author of a new report that's based on input from dozens of experts.
Feb 05, 2026
In a report published Thursday, UK experts highlighted the "growing gap between real-world climate risk and the economic analysis used to guide policy, supervision, and investment," while also warning that because the "window for preventing catastrophic warming" is narrowing, ambitious action "cannot await perfected models."
Various scientific institutions concur that 2025 was among the hottest years on record—and the ongoing failure of governments across the globe, particularly the Trump administration, to enact policies that would significantly cut planet-heating emissions from fossil fuels is pushing the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C and 2°C goals for this century further out of reach.
The new report from the University of Exeter and the think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative, titled Recalibrating Climate Risk, incorporates the expert opinions of 68 climate scientists from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
"Our expert elicitation reveals a fundamental disconnect: Climate scientists understand that beyond 2°C, we're not dealing with manageable economic adjustments," said Jesse Abrams, lead author and senior impact fellow at Exeter's Green Futures Solutions, in a statement.
"The climate scientists we surveyed were unambiguous," he explained. "Current economic models systematically underestimate climate damages because they can't capture what matters most—the cascading failures, threshold effects, and compounding shocks that define climate risk in a warmer world and could undermine the very foundations of economic growth."
Abrams said that "for financial institutions and policymakers relying on these models, this isn't a technical problem—it's a fundamental misreading of the risks we face, which current models miss entirely because they assume the future will behave like the past, even as we push the climate system into uncharted territory."
Current economic models miss the mark on climate risks, warning that catastrophic tipping points and extreme weather could crash the global economy, far worse than 2008.As said many times before delaying action will be far costlier than cutting emissions now.www.theguardian.com/environment/...
[image or embed]
— Ian Hall (@ianhall.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 12:46 AM
Communities around the world are already contending with devastating droughts, fires, and storms—and, as another report from researchers at Exeter and the UK's Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFOA) pointed out last month, "above 1.5°C, we enter the danger zone where multiple climate tipping points may be triggered, such as the collapse of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, permafrost melt, Amazon dieback, and changes in ocean circulation."
The IFOA report "warned that when cascading and systemic risks are taken into account, warming of 2°C by 2050 could result in a 25% hit to projected GDP, rising to a halving of projected economic growth between 2070 and 2090," BusinessGreen editor-in-chief James Murray reported Thursday. "Similarly, a report from consultancy Boston Consulting Group calculated a third of the global economic output could be lost under a scenario where temperatures reach 3°C above preindustrial levels by 2100."
"The studies stand in stark contrast to some mainstream economic models that have suggested warming of 2°C or more will only reduce projected economic growth by a few percentage points—analyses that have been seized upon by opponents of climate action to argue that decarbonization policies can be dropped or delayed," Murray noted.
Abrams told the Guardian that some current economic models "are saying we'll have a 10% GDP loss at between 3°C and 4°C, but the physical climate scientists are saying the economy and society will cease to function as we know it. That's a big mismatch."
Your periodic reminder that the economic models that suggest climate change will knock a couple of percent of future GDP - models that are used widely by governments, investors, and businesses - are almost certainly complete garbage. www.businessgreen.com/news/4525211...
[image or embed]
— James Murray (@james-bg.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 7:08 AM
Laurie Laybourn, a Carbon Tracker board member and executive director of Strategic Climate Risks Initiative, cited another recent report that provides a bleak picture of the current moment and what lies ahead.
"As the UK government's landmark security assessment of ecosystem collapse showed last week, we are currently living through a paradigm shift in the speed, scale, and severity of risks driven by the climate-nature crisis," she said. "Yet, beyond this report, there has not been a corresponding paradigm shift in how regulators and government as a whole assess these risks."
"Instead, they're routinely underestimated if not missed entirely, meaning many regulations and government action are dangerously out of touch with reality," she continued. "This threatens disaster when that reality catches up with us. So, it's critical that policymakers change course, providing clear signals and guidance to markets that these risks should be priced accordingly, rather than downplayed."
And, as the experts emphasized Thursday, it's not just policymakers—investors are also still relying on "flawed economic advice," said Carbon Tracker founder and CEO Mark Campanale. The result is "widespread complacency... with many investors viewing climate scenario analysis as a tick-box disclosure exercise."
"Until the gap between scientists and economists' expectations of future climate damages is closed and government bodies act to ensure the integrity of advice upon which investment decisions are made," he added, "financial institutions will continue to chronically underprice climate risks—meaning that pension funds and taxpayers will remain dangerously exposed."
Hetal Patel, head of sustainable investment research at Phoenix Group, the UK's largest and retirement and savings business, said that her firm "supports the report's call for a more robust and coordinated approach to climate‑risk modeling. Underestimating physical risk doesn't just distort financial analysis and investment decisions, it underplays the real‑world consequences that will ultimately affect customer outcomes and society as a whole."
The new report stresses that addressing the "fundamental disconnect between what climate scientists understand about climate impacts and how these impacts are represented in economic models" would require "research investments spanning years," but rather than simply waiting for better modeling, decision-makers "must proceed on the basis of precautionary risk management, physical climate science, and observed impacts."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Mamdani Endorses Hochul, Citing Commitment to Ending 'Era of Empty Promises'
"New Yorkers deserve leaders who believe in transformation. Leaders who understand that hope is inspired by a vision, and sustained by change."
Feb 05, 2026
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani opened his essay explaining his decision to endorse Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in her run for reelection with the same words she spoke last month when the pair announced—just days after Mamdani was sworn in—that they had reached an agreement to deliver a universal childcare program for his city.
"The era of empty promises ends," Mamdani, also a Democrat, wrote at The Nation.
The universal childcare program for children aged 6 weeks to 5 years, which Hochul agreed to fund for its first two years, is "as consequential a policy victory as our movement has seen in quite some time," said the mayor, who is an avowed democratic socialist.
Although he and Hochul have "real differences, particularly when it comes to taxation of the wealthiest, at a moment defined by profound income inequality," Mandani wrote, the governor moved to provide $1.7 billion in state funding to expand the social safety net for millions of New York City families.
"We delivered this historic win together," he wrote, emphasizing that the unlikely duo, should Hochul win reelection, plan to continue engaging "in an honest dialogue that leads to results."
I'm endorsing Gov. @KathyHochul because she's someone willing to engage in honest dialogue that delivers results.Along with the movement that powered our campaign, it's how we secured a historic agreement on childcare. And we're just getting started.www.thenation.com/article/poli...
[image or embed]
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 9:25 AM
Mamdani endorsed Hochul over Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who chose India Walton, a democratic socialist who ran for mayor of Buffalo in 2021, as his running mate this week. Delgado has positioned himself as a progressive challenger to Hochul, who has faced criticism from environmental justice groups for approving a fracked gas pipeline and has not thrown her support behind the single-payer New York Health Act as Delgado has.
Although Mamdani and Hochul disagree on some key issues, the mayor emphasized that he has “come to trust” the governor since she endorsed his campaign last September, when other top Democratic lawmakers like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) refused to do so.
"For too long, our politics has been defined by a familiar cycle: big promises, bitter fights, and little tangible progress. This stagnation has taken a toll," wrote Mamdani. "Those of us entrusted with the sacred oath of service must heed that call and work together to honor it. That requires not the absence of disagreement but the presence of trust. We must be able to disagree honestly while still delivering for the people we serve. Over the past six months, Gov. Hochul and I have done exactly that."
He added that in his collaboration with Hochul, he has seen a model for what the Democratic Party can be.
"At its best, the Democratic Party has been a big tent not because it avoids conflict but because it channels conflict toward progress," Mamdani wrote. "A party united not by conformity but by a commitment to structural change—and to the work required to achieve it."
"New Yorkers deserve leaders who believe in transformation. Leaders who understand that hope is inspired by a vision, and sustained by change," he wrote. "Gov. Kathy Hochul has earned my endorsement because she has chosen to govern in that spirit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'So Much for the Golden Age of America': Layoffs Hit 17-Year High Under Trump
The latest job cuts report signals "employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026," said one analyst.
Feb 05, 2026
While President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim that the US economy is the hottest in the world, new data released Thursday shows that announced layoffs in January hit a high not seen since the Great Recession of 2009.
The new report by corporate outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas shows that that US employers announced more than 108,000 job cuts last month, more than double the nearly 50,000 job cuts that they announced one year before.
In fact, the announced job cuts were higher than any January since 2009, when the economy was in the middle of a global financial crisis.
Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said that the January 2026 job cuts were "a high number" and a signal that "employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026."
The biggest cuts on the month came from UPS, which announced that it would be slashing 30,000 jobs, and Amazon, which announced workforce reductions of 16,000 jobs.
"So much for the 'Golden Age of America'," said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), as he noted layoffs surging to the highest levels in 17 years.
The healthcare industry, which has been a rare bright spot in terms of job growth in recent months, announced more than 17,000 jobs cuts in January, the highest number in that sector since April 2020 when the US was in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report also showed that artificial intelligence was only responsible for 7% of layoffs announced last month, although Challenger acknowledged that it's "difficult to say how big an impact AI is having on layoffs specifically."
Additionally, the report found that US employers had announced just over 5,300 hiring plans in January, which it noted was "the lowest total for the month since Challenger began tracking hiring plans in 2009."
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, pointed to "the worst job numbers since the Great Recession" in a social media post. The union leader noted that the 5,300 hiring plans were "the lowest one record since the early 2000s," while adding that "layoffs are up over 100% since last January, and over 300% since January of 2024."
Mohamed El-Erian, economist at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, described the Challenger report as "sobering," and pointed to a potentially ominous trend regarding wealth inequality in the US.
"These layoffs are occurring while GDP continues to grow at approximately 4%," he observed in a social media post, "accelerating the decoupling of employment from economic growth—a phenomenon that, if it persists, has profound economic, political, and social implications."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, said that the job cuts were yet more evidence that Trump and Republicans' economic policies were a failure.
"'If you give more tax cuts to corporations, those corporations will create more jobs,' is the lie politicians who are funded by corporations tell people to justify giving their corporate donors more tax cuts," she wrote. "Trump’s corporate and billionaire tax cuts create profits—not jobs."
Laura Ullrich, director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said during an interview with ABC News published on Tuesday that workers in the current economy are "hugging onto [their current job] more than they normally would" because so few companies are taking on new staff.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular