Unexpected externalities, space-based solar, and the latest policy developments
Observatory Insights | July 2026 Stocktake
The political and funding volatility of the current moment remains the primary focus of Climate Reserve’s observatory capacity. By leveraging the collective intelligence of our 40+ coalition partners, we are tracking how structural erosion is moving from federal budget lines into the very institutions and legal frameworks that define the field. Below are the themes currently surfacing across our network of scientists, data stewards, and state partners.
July 2026 Stocktake
Canadian Wildfires are a new kind of Climate Crisis
Over the last weeks millions of Americans and Canadians have been waking up to orange skies, an experience both surreal and increasingly familiar as a feature of summer in the Anthropocene. Robinson Meyer argues we might begin to consider wildfire smoke a new type of extreme weather that appears on a semi-regular basis rather than a once-in-a-generation event, and shared a Nature study that “climate-driven smoke deaths result in economic damages that exceed existing estimates of climate-driven damages from all other causes combined in the U.S.A.” (emphasis ours). It was a harrowing but useful reminder that there are externalities to climate change that our best modeling and scenario planning efforts will underestimate or miss entirely. Zeke Hausfather’s has an excellent overview of the ways Canadian boreal wildfires (and the strategies for combatting them) are distinct from the frequent-fire dry forests of the western US.
One of the groups looking to address this new normal is Climate Reserve grantee Environmental Protection Network. As the EPA’s advisory bodies have been dismantled and staffed with people without air quality expertise, the EPN is working to reassemble an Air Quality Advisory Working Group to help review air quality science and related regulatory decisions, assess the scientific basis for air quality standards, and produce recommendations to support stronger air quality protections. Another nascent effort worth following in the wildfire space is the Earth Fire Alliance FireSat program (h/t Nick van Osdol) which recently launched its first three satellites to improve wildfire detection and response.
Climate implications of the new housing act
The recently passed ROAD Act is the most significant housing affordability bill in decades. There’s a lot to parse through (it’s worth looking through this guide for a synopsis) and a number of areas have implications for mitigation and adaptation efforts. One example: Title I provisions support for “a pilot program to install temperature sensors in federally assisted rental housing to monitor compliance with heating and cooling standards” may have implications for heat pumps or other air conditioning technology.
Some of the legislation concerns manufactured housing (at its 1970s peak it represented 20% of all new housing supply, closer to 6% today). There’s an opportunity for manufactured or “prefab” housing to become more energy efficient, relevant both because energy costs disproportionately affect lower-income households and because historically manufactured homes have fared much worse on energy efficiency and insulation (NREL and Urban Institute)
The administration has one year to update minimum energy-efficiency standards for these homes, and there’s a related window for action for the various stakeholders and ecosystem actors. Per Canary Media: “The law also removes a mandate that manufactured houses, once widely called “trailers,” be built on a permanent steel chassis that allows them to be transported. Some 90% of such homes never move after their initial setup. As housing manufacturers retool their facilities according to the new chassis rule, they also have an opportunity to make adjustments to account for upcoming efficiency requirements”
One Climate Reserve Coalition partner, the Union of Concerned Scientists, is calling for additional support for climate resilience & disaster recovery: investments in preserving and retrofitting existing housing; building to stronger standards in less risky places; workforce training and supply chain innovation for more resilient homes; and ensuring that resources are made quickly available to communities post-disaster.
FCC grants approval to solar test satellite
Space-based solar is an emerging technology worth following closely; there are both potential upsides and downsides that warrant attention. The FCC has granted approval to Reflect Orbital (NYC and Wired) to launch a test satellite, prompting excitement amongst its supporters and alarm from concerned scientists. Typically the label of space-based solar has referred to approaches that employ photovoltaic panels on satellites to convert sunlight into DC power, which is in turn converted into microwave energy and transmitted back to a receiver on earth.
Reflect Orbital’s approach instead deploys expandable mirrors on satellites that can reflect sunlight back to solar panels on Earth; their test satellite contains a 60-foot mirror that can illuminate a three-mile circular area. Solar panels traditionally have a capacity factor of ~25%, and space-based solar mirrors could theoretically increase that significantly higher by bringing sunlight to solar farms at night, turning an intermittent resource into something closer to clean firm power. There are concerns about the externalities for the downsides, including disruptions to astronomical observations, pilots, drivers, and animal circadian rhythms. Reflect claims the light is contained within the area, can intentionally avoid sensitive areas like research observatories or protected habitats, and that the light cannot be concentrated past maximum natural sunlight irradiance or start fires.
New head appointed to WH climate research coordination office
Several Coalition members have flagged that the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), responsible for producing the annual National Climate Assessment, is now being led by someone who has publicly criticized climate change research. Although imperfect (e.g., see this recent article from a previous assessment contributor with calls for reforms to increase its utility for decisionmakers), the National Climate Assessment has been an essential source of rigorous research and analysis that has benefitted both the US and the global community.
NSF Grantmaking Down
The grant disruption tracker Grant Witness issued a recent report noting that pauses to NSF grantmaking are unprecedented and undermine its general reputation for consistency and continuity. The agency is “on track for its worst grantmaking year since 1985” (h/t Jordan Dworkin) with ~2,200 awards granted in FY26 compared to a ~ 6,000 annual average from FY21-24. Hundreds of programs have seen reductions of 20% to 30% in their annual budgets, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science notes that reductions may be tied to the recent announcement of the X-Labs initiative, which garnered general excitement but did not disclose the source of its funding.
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