All Research

All Research

The Economics of Climate Adaptation Optimism
Article
The Honest Broker

The Economics of Climate Adaptation Optimism

Well-intentioned but costly climate mitigation policies risk deepening the challenges faced by the world’s poor.

Bad Science, Big Consequences
Article
The Honest Broker

Bad Science, Big Consequences

How the influential 2006 Stern Review conjured up escalating future disaster losses

“Climate Change Presses On”
Article
The Honest Broker

“Climate Change Presses On”

The world currently has 8.2 billion people and a global economy approaching $120 trillion. The world also routinely experiences extreme weather events like tropical cyclones, floods, and tornadoes. [1] Given these facts,…

Watch Those Assumptions!
Article
The Honest Broker

Watch Those Assumptions!

Today I share my January column for Dispatch Energy. In it, I identify some important, but deeply buried, assumptions in the International Energy Agency’s (IEA ) most recent World Energy Outlook…

Global Tropical Cyclone Landfalls
Article
The Honest Broker

Global Tropical Cyclone Landfalls

Back in 2012, Jessica Weinkle, Ryan Maue, and I published the first peer-reviewed paper presenting a time series of global tropical cyclone landfalls of hurricane strength. In that paper we concluded: From currently available…

Leaving the IPCC and UNFCCC is Bad for the United States
Article
The Honest Broker

Leaving the IPCC and UNFCCC is Bad for the United States

Yesterday, the Trump administration announced via executive order that the United States was withdrawing from 66 international organizations, of which 31 fall under the United Nations (UN). [1] Among these organizations are the…

Shutting Down NCAR Is Vindictive Governance
Article
The Honest Broker

Shutting Down NCAR Is Vindictive Governance

Yesterday, the Trump Administration announced that it was taking steps to shut down the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). USA Today broke the story: The Trump administration is moving to…

Five Figures – December Bonus Issue
Article
The Honest Broker

Five Figures – December Bonus Issue

I have lots of fascinating data to share today, hence the second Five Figures of December. Before the jump, here is an excerpt from my New York Post op-ed from earlier this week, which built…

How the Financial System Invented “Climate Risk” Untethered from Climate Science
Article
The Honest Broker

How the Financial System Invented “Climate Risk” Untethered from Climate Science

Part 1 of the THB series on climate change and insurance focused on the recent financial performance of the insurance industry in the context of fevered claims of its looming collapse…

Article
The Honest Broker

A Huge Retraction, the Usual Playbook, and Reason for Optimism

Some huge news dropped today that will reverberate through climate science and policy. Nature has finally retracted “The Economic Commitment of Climate Change,” by Kotz et al. (KLW24), more than 18 months after first learning…

THB Insider #28 – Thanksgiving Reading
Article
The Honest Broker

THB Insider #28 – Thanksgiving Reading

It is Thanksgiving Day here in the US — My favorite holiday. Chez les Pielke we are getting ready to put the turkey in as the sun rises. We will…

US Hurricanes 2025 in Review
Article
The Honest Broker

US Hurricanes 2025 in Review

For the first time in a decade, the continental United States experienced no hurricane landfalls.1 Islands in the Caribbean saw multiple landfalls [1], notably Hurricane Melissa’s landfall as a Category 5 storm in…

Article
The Honest Broker

The Battle for Climate Science and Policy Past—And Why It Matters

Last week in Belém, Brazil the 30th Conference of Parties to the U.N Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) concluded with little accomplished, according to most observers. Perhaps the most significant…

Reassessing the World’s Climate Victories: The Paris Delusion
Article
The Dispatch

Reassessing the World’s Climate Victories: The Paris Delusion

In 2015 in Paris, countries from around the world agreed to accelerate the decarbonization of their economies in response to climate change. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on…

We Already Have a Social Contract for Universities
Article

We Already Have a Social Contract for Universities

The bad news for U.S. universities keeps on coming. Last week, Pew Research released the results of a September 2025 poll showing that increasingly large majorities of Republicans and Democrats believe that…