Editorials of The Times

Into the bleak landscape that is the Trump administration’s environmental record comes a new report — from the government’s own analysts — that lays out in the grimmest terms yet the consequences of continued inaction on climate change. The National Climate Assessment, issued Friday when most Americans’ attention was on shopping, football and leftovers, predicts devastating effects from a warming planet and stands in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s blithe rejection of the basic science of climate change. The report details the environmental, human and economic costs of a changing climate in the United States, including worsening drought, more vicious wildfires, wider crop failures and accelerating property damage. The impacts could reduce domestic economic activity by as much as a tenth by 2100, the report says.

The president shrugged it off — “I don’t believe it,” he said Monday — as he has all previous studies on climate change, even as his administration pursues policies that will in all likelihood make the problem worse. In fact, the administration’s retrograde policies and its assault on President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda have been so broad that it’s become something of a game to ask which of Obama’s initiatives on climate change and the environment still have life. The news site Axios tried this exercise recently and came up with a rather short list, albeit one that might suggest some tactics to win at least modest protections for the environment even from this administration. It included a possible reprieve for a threatened bird that Obama had hoped to save, but none of his ambitious efforts to attack global warming. Trump is determined to weaken Obama’s rules restricting greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and power plants — the chief culprits in the warming climate.

As for the positive bits, Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency, got top billing for pledging to move ahead with stronger air pollution standards for heavy trucks, as promised by Obama. Wheeler convinced the trucking lobby and truck and engine manufacturers to go along with the new standards (to be issued in 2020) in return for simpler compliance rules. This is big news from an agency that has torpedoed one clean air initiative after another.

The Interior Department rated two mentions. One was Secretary Ryan Zinke’s announcement of a forthcoming auction of federal waters off Massachusetts as a possible site for wind turbines. Offshore wind is a carbon-free source of power, and Obama promoted it as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Trump administration advertises it as part of the president’s “all of the above” energy strategy and a way to promote U.S. wind turbine builders. With only one offshore wind farm in U.S. waters, America lags far behind the rest of the world.

There were also hints from the Interior Department of a reprieve for the greater sage grouse, a colorful little bird whose numbers had dropped so alarmingly across its Western habitat that environmental groups had sued to place it on the endangered species list. To keep that from happening, the Obama administration started a collaborative effort involving state governments, landowners and commercial interests to protect millions of acres of the bird’s remaining range, much of it coveted by oil and gas companies. The result was one of the most successful wildlife conservation efforts in memory.

Within months of Trump’s inauguration, Interior announced its intention to revisit the plan; oil and gas interests, emboldened by Trump’s election, had bent Zinke’s ear, and the bird seemed in trouble. But then came significant pushback from state officials, Republican and Democrat, who had invested a great deal of energy and political capital in the complex plan. The word now is that the plucky bird will be more or less left alone. We will see.

One important Obama policy decision still stands, at least in part because it has been largely ignored, even though it is of considerable value not just to the planet but also to the U.S. economy. It is the 2016 Kigali amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol. The protocol, to this day the most successful global environmental agreement, was aimed at rebuilding the thinning ozone layer by requiring all nations to phase out their use of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting chemicals. So far it has done the job. A new report from the United Nations says the ozone layer is on the mend, and large parts could be completely healed by the 2030s.

The Montreal Protocol, however, produced a downside. The replacement chemicals, including a more ozone-friendly cousin called hydrofluorocarbons, known as HFCs, turned out to be powerful global warming gases. Hence the Kigali amendment, under which nations agreed to phase out HFCs and find substitutes that were friendlier to the atmosphere.

To date, 60 countries, not including the United States, have ratified the amendment. The Obama administration signed it 2016, but the Trump White House has not sent it to the Senate for ratification. The question is how best to engage Trump’s interest. Selling it to him as a climate measure could be a serious problem, since he is copiously on record as dismissing global warming as a problem. Presenting it to him as a jobs and trade measure would be much smarter, since he talks about both all the time.

A report in the spring from two trade groups — the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute and the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, which counts big companies like Dow and Carrier among its members — estimated that the United States would gain 33,000 additional jobs and $12.5 billion in annual economic output by 2027 solely by ratifying the amendment. The U.S. Chamber of Congress likes the agreement, and so do many members of Congress. In June, 13 Senate Republicans wrote a letter to the president urging him to send them the agreement for approval because of its obvious economic benefits. Here’s a case where Trump could just say “yes” and make his base (and the rest of us) happy. He doesn’t even have to mention “climate.”

Russia’s attack on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea was a violation of international law and a dangerous escalation of the undeclared war the Kremlin has waged for more than four years against Ukraine in Crimea, in the breakaway provinces of eastern Ukraine, and now at sea.

The Kremlin can shout all it wants about a provocation, about an attempt by the Ukrainian president to create a political diversion or about anything else, but none of that changes the fact that Russia had no legal justification for firing on three Ukrainian boats and seizing them.

The vessels, two small armored boats and a tugboat, were headed for the Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from Russia and is the only entrance to the Sea of Azov, where much of Ukraine’s coastline lies. Russia claimed they had crossed into Russian waters, but that is based on its illegal claim to Crimea, which it seized in 2014.

Ukraine and most every other state in the world still regard Crimea and its coastal waters as Ukrainian territory. And under a treaty ratified by Ukraine and Russia in 2004 — a now hard-to-imagine time when they could still refer to each other as “historically brotherly nations” — the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait were defined as shared territorial waters. That treaty, signed by President Vladimir Putin of Russia, is still in force.

Yet ever since Putin opened a new bridge over the Kerch Strait in May, Russia has moved steadily to impose its control over the strait and the Azov Sea. The Kremlin has moved several gunboats into the shallow sea and has begun stopping and inspecting cargo vessels headed for the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, creating long delays and causing large losses to shipping companies and the ports.

Whatever reasons Ukraine might have had for sending three boats toward the strait, it was within its rights. Russia’s reaction — to ram the tugboat after an expletive-rich chase caught on video; to open fire on the boats and seize them, wounding several sailors and taking 23 captive; to scramble fighter jets and block passage under the Crimea Bridge with a freighter — was dangerous, arrogant, illegal aggression.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, declared at a Security Council meeting that Russia’s actions were an “outrageous violation of sovereign Ukrainian territory.” NATO, the European Union and European leaders all joined in condemning Russia. In this chorus of condemnation, however, President Donald Trump’s voice was muted, though Haley indicated she was speaking also for him.

“We do not like what’s happening either way,” Trump said on his way to a political rally in Mississippi. “We don’t like what’s happening, and hopefully it’ll get straightened out.” He added: “I know Europe is not, they are not thrilled. They’re working on it, too. We’re all working on it together.”

The clash at sea had the unfortunate consequences of further muddling Ukraine’s already messy politics. Hours after the ships were seized, the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, called a meeting of his security chiefs and declared martial law in southern and eastern provinces, which the Ukrainian parliament approved, limited to 30 days. The prospect of martial law had raised considerable concerns, since it gives the government greater powers while restricting public gatherings, the media, free movement and other civil liberties.

By limiting the period to one month, Poroshenko lifted the greatest worry, that he would postpone national elections in March, which he is almost certain to lose. But the notion of imposing controls on selective regions was more likely to exacerbate regional frictions while not doing much for Ukrainian defenses. It’s important that Poroshenko and his Western supporters ensure that the clampdown is not used to harass citizens who speak Russian and who are clustered in the affected regions, or give the impression that he is using the crisis for political advantage. Political turmoil is not a victory that Russia should be allowed to claim.

Above all, Russia cannot be allowed to get away with this continued bullying of Ukraine. By steadily tightening its hold on Crimea, it is gambling that the West will not have the stomach or stamina to impose ever more punishment or provide more military support for Ukraine. But a direct attack on Ukrainian ships cannot go unpunished. Strong condemnations will not do.

The United States and its Western allies can impose stronger economic sanctions, bar their ships from entering Russian ports in the Black or Azov Seas or increase military support for Ukraine.

These actions all carry risk, but so does doing nothing.