(FOX40.COM) -- There are many popular beliefs surrounding where earthquakes come from, their impact, and whether they can be forecast.

Here's what some experts had to say about myths surrounding the powerful geological event.

Animals can sense when an earthquake will strike

A long-held belief is that animals have a sixth sense about potentially catastrophic events — including earthquakes. Changes in animal behavior prior to earthquakes have been reported, but that behavior is not consistent, according to the California Department of Conservation.

Studies show there are no perceptible behavior changes in animals before an earthquake.

Weather impacts earthquake probability

Experts say a common misconception is "earthquake weather," a term used to describe the idea of earthquakes and weather being related. Many people believe that earthquakes occur during hot and dry weather, but the California Office of Emergency services said they can happen at any time in any weather. 

Doorways are the safest place to be

Doorways were once considered to be among the strongest parts of a building’s structure. This led to the idea that doorways offer greater protection from earthquakes, however, experts say they are no safer than any other part of a household. COES said modern building codes and construction have "significantly improved the structural integrity of all parts of buildings," so the best thing to do during in an earthquake is “drop, cover, and hold on.”

California can sink into the ocean because of an earthquake

A prominent myth about earthquakes in California is the idea that a big enough rattle could cause the Golden State to fall into the sea. Experts said the shaking from earthquakes cannot cause California to sink, however, earthquakes can spark landslides that slightly change the shape of the coastline.

The ground can open and swallow people

The myths of people falling into the earth during an earthquake are only partly true.

Earthquakes are caused by faults that are within the earth. If a fault could open, there would not be any friction. Without friction, there is no earthquake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey

Although faults do not open, earthquakes cause settling and other ground deformation such as open fissures that people, cars, animals, and other objects can fall into.

California has the most earthquakes in the US

California has a reputation for being the home of earthquakes, but the myth of the state having the most earthquakes in America is only partially true, according to USGS. Alaska has the title for the most earthquakes each year, with California placing second.

California, however, has the most damaging earthquakes because of its larger population and extensive infrastructure. Most of Alaska’s large earthquakes occur in remote locations which leads to less damage and fatalities.

"Wood is good," Ricky Linex, a retired wildlife biologist from the Natural Resource Conservation Service, told about 50 participants who gathered to learn about water conservation on Tuesday afternoon.

He was referencing woody trees, which he says provide shade to withering rivers like the Rio Grande, which can help to conserve water.

Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley is currently under a disaster drought declaration. That's partly due to a lack of rainfall, and due to Mexico's failure to pay an expected annual allotment of water to the Rio Grande, under a 1944 international water treaty.

Mexico technically has until October 2025 to pay the 1.75 million acre-feet of water it owes, but experts agree that is near impossible since Mexico has, so far, barely paid the U.S. one year's worth of water it owes.

Amistad Dam, which supplies water to the Rio Grande Valley, was at 27% capacity on Thursday, according to the Texas Water Development Board.

Texas A&M Agrilife on Tuesday held a workshop on preserving stream and river ecosystems and the land surrounding them -- called riparian zones. Experts say the key is ensuring the land embankments are lush with different types of vegetation and plants and trees.

“When there is a lot of vegetation present, our land is better protected, and it doesn't erode as much. But when we have these bare spots or areas that are disturbed, that's when we will have a lot more erosion, and further water quality issues resulting from erosion and runoff," Alexander Neal, of the Texas Water Resources Institute, told Border Report.

Vegetation protects the land banks, stabilizes water channels, dissipates water flow energy and slows the velocity of streams. Plants even absorb flood water and help to purify water by cleaning pollutants, like chemicals and pesticides, before they enter waterways.

“Every stream, every tributary matters. The more riparian areas and the better functioning ecosystems we can have along every little tributary of the Rio here, the more water can be held in all of these systems. They all act like sponges, so when there's a lot of vegetation there more water can be held, literally in the ground beneath our feet, at these locations," Neal said.

Neal came down from Dallas to lead Tuesday's day-long program which was attended by about 50 people, including park rangers, and students from UTRGV.

In the afternoon, the group walked a trail at the state park and Linex pointed out various species of plants, how deep their roots are, how long they take to grow, how they replicate and their benefits.

Despite 90-degree heat, active beehives and mounds of fire ants, Linex strolled slowly amidst the cedar and elm trees clutching a wooden walking stick and pointing out the virtues of everything he saw.

An embankment along the Arroyo Colorado too thick to traverse was a delight to his eyes. That's because he says you need multiple plants in the riparian zone to protect the water and help conserve it.

"We're just trying to spread the word on how to take better care of our riparian services, which are the areas of green on either side of the creeks and rivers," Linex told Border Report.

Borderland owners, especially those along the Rio Grande, can help to bolster the international river, as experts say every drop of water counts right now.

Some tips to providing healthy riparian wetlands around the Rio Grande include:

• Not mowing up the water's edge. Leave natural thicket and brush.
• Allow wild grasses and other vegetation to grow unfettered.
• Have a variety of trees, including young and old, to provide a shade canopy that can help reduce evaporation of the water.
• Have stabilizing plants with deep roots, like switchgrass, and elms and sycamore and willow trees.
• Make sure there are at least 10 different types of species for a good variety of vegetation.

"Organic matter holds 18 to 20 times its weight in water and recycles nutrients," Linex said.

Jude Benavides, a professor at the UTRGV School of Earth, Environmental and Marine Sciences, said the geography of the Rio Grande Valley is a delta that drains to the Gulf of Mexico and has hundreds of water sources.

"There are more waterways in the Valley than there are roadways," he said.

That includes streams, resacas, canals, and rivers like the Rio Grande, and the Arroyo Colorado, which runs through Estero Llano Grande State Park.

Neal said bare spots on embankments cause erosion and lead to trouble.

Border Report asked him about the clearing of land for border wall, concertina wire and other border security operations. Neal said he could not comment directly on any impact.

But Laiken Jordahl, of the Center for Biological Diversity, recently told Border Report that border wall and other border security infrastructure that requires land to be cleared on the Rio Grande causes harm to wildlife and the ecosystem.

His nonprofit has filed a handful of lawsuits against wall construction.

And they want scientific studies that analyze harm to the environment, ecosystem, wildlife and habitat.

"We really are flying blind. And that's because Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security refuses to engage with communities. They refuse to meet with scientists with affected tribal members with local elected officials. This is an agency that is operating with no accountability. And we deeply need to change that they need to be accountable to the communities that they work in. They need to be accountable to elected officials to tribal members, and to all of us who care deeply about the borderlands," Jordahl said.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@Borderreport.com.

For the first time in the process, negotiators discussed the text of what is supposed to become a global treaty. Delegates and observers at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution called it a welcome sign that talk shifted from ideas to treaty language at this fourth of five scheduled meetings.

Most contentious is the idea of limiting how much plastic is manufactured. That remains in the text over the strong objections of plastic-producing countries and companies and oil and gas exporters. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels and chemicals.

As the Ottawa session ended, the committee agreed to keep working on the treaty before its final meeting later this year in South Korea.

The preparations for that session will focus on how to finance the implementation of the treaty, assess the chemicals of concern in plastic products and look at product design. Rwanda’s representative said negotiators ignored the elephant in the room by not addressing plastic production.

“In the end, this is not just about the text, it’s not just about the process," said Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, executive secretary of the committee. "It is quite simply about providing a better future for generations and for our loved ones.”

Stewart Harris, an industry spokesperson with the International Council of Chemical Associations, said the members want a treaty that focuses on recycling plastic and reuse, sometimes referred to as “circularity.”

They don't want a cap on plastic production, and think chemicals should not be regulated through this agreement. Harris said the association was pleased to see governments coming together and agreeing to complete additional work, especially on financing and plastic product design.

Dozens of scientists from the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty came to the meeting to provide research on plastic pollution to negotiators, in part, they said, to dispel misinformation.

“I heard yesterday that there’s no data on microplastics, which is verifiably false: 21,000 publications on micro and nanoplastics have been published,” said Bethanie Carney Almroth, an ecotoxicology professor at Sweden's University of Gothenburg who co-leads the coalition. “It’s like Whac-A-Mole.”

She said scientists were being harassed and intimidated by lobbyists and she reported to the U.N. that a lobbyist yelled in her face at a meeting.

Despite their differences, the countries represented share a common vision to move forward in the treaty process, Ecuador's chief negotiator, Walter Schuldt, said.

“Because at the end of the day, we’re talking about the survival of the future of life, not only of human life but all sorts of life on this planet,” he said in an interview.

The treaty talks began in Uruguay in December 2022 after Rwanda and Peru proposed the resolution that launched the process in March 2022. Progress was slow during Paris talks in May 2023 and in Nairobi in November as countries debated rules for the process.

When thousands of negotiators and observers arrived in Ottawa, Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the committee chair from Ecuador, reminded them of their purpose to deliver a future free of plastic pollution. He asked them to be ambitious.

The delegates have been discussing not only the scope of the treaty, but chemicals of concern, problematic and avoidable plastics, product design, and financing and implementation.

Delegates also streamlined the unwieldy collection of options that emerged from the last meeting.

“We took a major step forward after two years of lots of discussion. Now we have text to negotiate,” said Björn Beeler, international coordinator for the International Pollutants Elimination Network. “Unfortunately, much more political will is needed to address the out of control escalating plastic production.”

Many traveled to Ottawa from communities affected by plastic manufacturing and pollution. Louisiana and Texas residents who live near petrochemical plants and refineries handed out postcards aimed at the U.S. State Department saying, “Wish you were here."

They traveled together as a group from the Break Free From Plastic movement, and asked negotiators to visit their states to experience the air and water pollution firsthand.

“This is still the best option we have to see change in our communities. They’re so captured by corporations. I can't go to the parish government,” said Jo Banner, of the St. John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana. “It feels this is the only chance and hope I have of helping my community repair from this, to heal.”

Members of an Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus held a news conference Saturday to say microplastics are contaminating their food supply and the pollution threatens their communities and ways of life guaranteed to them in perpetuity. They felt their voices weren’t being heard.

“We have bigger stakes. These are our ancestral lands that are being polluted with plastic,” Juressa Lee of New Zealand said after the event. “We’re rightsholders, not stakeholders. We should have more space to speak and make decisions than the people causing the problem.”

In the Bay of Plenty, a source of seafood on New Zealand's northern coast, the sediment and shellfish are full of tiny plastic particles. They regard nature's “resources” as treasures, Lee added.

“Indigenous ways can lead the way," Lee said. "What we're doing now clearly is not working.”

Vi Waghiyi traveled from Alaska to represent Arctic Indigenous peoples. She's reminding decision-makers that this treaty must protect people from plastic pollution for generations to come.

She said, “We come here to be the conscience, to ensure they make the right decision for all people.”

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

"We had just gotten here to do the rehearsal for the wedding on Saturday, and then got in the building and shortly thereafter, the storm hit," Heather Jonas, the mother of the bride, said. "We kind of ran to the bathroom and (it) sounded like a train was getting ready to come through the building."

Annette Johnson, the wedding coordinator, said there were around 25 people in the building when the storm arrived.

"Everything started rattling when the roof ripped off and we got everyone to safety," she said. "It was a little bit of chaos, but we stayed very calm and tried to keep our guests calm, but nobody was hurt."

Nearby barns were also destroyed in the storm, but no one was injured at the 350-acre event venue.

"Once we knew everyone was OK, we went outside and practiced and rehearsed for the wedding," Jonas said. "Everyone was good, (we) kind of celebrated and we were all safe."

The team at Brookdale Farms worked overnight to assess structural integrity and make repairs. In photos shared to Facebook, workers could be seen replacing the roof of the wedding venue in preparation for Saturday's reception.

"We are optimistic that we will be able to host their wedding here at 5 p.m.," James Vivak, general manager of Brookdale Farms, said Saturday.

Come the day of the wedding, the happy couple — Kyle and Taylor O'Driscoll — were able to celebrate (almost) as planned, complete with photos in front of a damaged barn.

Wedding photographer Mindee Malloy, speaking with Nexstar, said she wasn't present at the rehearsal dinner, but praised Brookdale Farms for their impressive turnaround.

"Brookdale Farms did an outstanding job dealing with the situation and making sure Taylor and Kyle were still able to have the day they deserved," Malloy said.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Thursday it had finalized a suite of rules that aim to cut the plants’ pollution. 

One such rule, which regulates greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal and new gas plants, will require them to install technology that prevents 90 percent of their carbon emissions. 

It also finalized rules that aim to reduce coal plants’ releases of toxic substances like mercury into the air and pollution discharges into wastewater. 

A fourth agency rule issued Thursday tightens restrictions on the disposal of toxic coal waste, also known as coal ash, to prevent leaks that can contaminate groundwater. 

Alongside the EPA rules, the Energy Department announced that it will create a fast-track for environmental reviews for upgrading power lines and set a two-year timeline to speed approvals for new power lines. 

“Today, EPA is proud to make good on the Biden-Harris Administration’s vision to tackle climate change and to protect all communities from pollution in our air, water, and in our neighborhoods,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a written statement. 

He said that with the new rules, the agency is “cutting pollution while ensuring that power companies can make smart investments and continue to deliver reliable electricity for all Americans.”

The greenhouse gas emission rule

The most high-profile rule issued Thursday is the greenhouse gas restriction, which applies to both existing coal plants and newly constructed natural gas plants. 

Under the rule, these power plants are expected to have to capture 90 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions to prevent them from going into the atmosphere and heating the planet — or come up with another way to reach equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. 

When it proposed the rule last year, the administration also planned to make it apply to some existing natural gas power plants.

But it said in February that it will not be regulating existing gas-fired power plants at this time — and will instead regulate them through a separate rule at a later date. Gas plants produce fewer emissions than coal plants but are still significant contributors to climate change.

The Biden administration said that this rule alone is expected to prevent 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon emissions through 2047, the equivalent of taking 328 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.

Combined with investments in climate-friendly power sources from the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, the rule could help bring the power sector’s carbon dioxide emissions down by 62 percent below where they were in 2022 by 2035. 

The costs of compliance are expected to average about 1 percent of the total projected costs to produce electricity from 2024 through 2047. 

The rule gives coal plants more time to comply with the rules than the proposal, as they now have until 2032 to install the technology instead of 2030. However, the rule moves up the timeline for new gas plants, saying they have to be installed by 2032 instead of 2035. 

The rule comes after the Supreme Court in 2022 restricted how the EPA can regulate power plants, saying the EPA cannot explicitly mandate a shift from a more polluting energy source to a power source with fewer emissions. 

But it did not bar the EPA from requiring improvements at the power plant sites. 

In addition to climate benefits, the rule is also expected to improve public health, resulting in pollution reductions that prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths in 2035 alone. 

The power sector is currently responsible for a quarter of the U.S.’s planet-warming emissions. Electric power’s demand in the years ahead may grow as more of the nation shifts toward electric cars and building appliances, making emissions cuts from the sector even more impactful. 

The mercury and air toxics rule

The EPA is also finalizing a rule that requires coal and oil-fired power plants to reduce their releases of mercury and pollutants including nickel, arsenic, and lead.

For all coal plants, it will lower limits for toxic metal emissions by 67 percent, reducing exposure to substances that can cause 

Exposure to these substances raises the risk of developmental delays in children, as well as heart attacks and cancer. 

Some power plants will also see their mercury limits become 70 percent more stringent. This change applies to plants that use a type of coal known as lignite, which have been operating under looser limits than other coal plants. Lignite plants are located primarily in North Dakota and Texas. Exposure to mercury is linked to heart disease and brain damage in babies. 

The wastewater rule

The third rule finalized by the EPA tightens restrictions on the number of toxic metals that can be discharged from power plants into wastewater. 

It is expected to prevent 660 million pounds of pollution per year, the administration said. People can be exposed to pollutants in coal plant discharges by consuming fish from these polluted waters, and such exposure can cause cancer and damage to the nervous system and kidneys. 

The coal ash rule

The last rule issued by the EPA on Thursday adds new requirements for ponds where coal waste has been dumped to prevent that waste from leaking out and contaminating nearby groundwater. 

Specifically, it applies standards that already exist to previously exempt “legacy” plants that closed before October 19, 2015. 

Coal ash ponds can contain dangerous substances including mercury and arsenic and, without proper closure they can leak, contaminating nearby water. 

Republicans, industry and advocates respond

The rules met significant pushback from Republicans and various industries. 

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said she would introduce legislation to repeal the greenhouse gas emission rule. 

“The administration has chosen to press ahead with its unrealistic climate agenda that threatens access to affordable, reliable energy for households and employers across the country,” said Capito, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in a written statement. 

“I will be introducing a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to overturn the EPA’s job-killing regulations announced today,” she added. 

Meanwhile, Dan Brouillette, president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute electric power lobbying, also criticized the rule. 

Brouillette, who was the Energy Secretary during the Trump administration, said that carbon capture “is not yet ready for full-scale, economy-wide deployment, nor is there sufficient time to permit, finance, and build the CCS infrastructure needed for compliance by 2032” in a written statement. 

However, the Biden administration's moves were cheered by climate and environmental advocates. 

“The Biden administration this week is really taking substantial action on the climate crisis to address power plant pollution,” Charles Harper, power sector senior policy lead at Evergreen, told The Hill, adding that they are “a real win for everyone concerned about climate change.”

The grants are being awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency, which unveiled the 60 recipients on Monday. The projects are expected to eventually reduce emissions by the equivalent of 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and save households $350 million annually, according to senior administration officials.

Biden's latest environmental announcements come as he is working to energize young voters for his reelection campaign. Young people were a key part of a broad but potentially fragile coalition that helped him defeat then-President Donald Trump in 2020. Some have joined protests around the country of the administration's handling of Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Senior administration officials said young Americans are keenly invested in the Biden climate agenda and want to actually help enact it. The Climate Corps initiative is a way for them to do that, the officials said.

Solar energy is gaining traction as a key renewable energy source that could reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels, which emit planet-warming greenhouse gases. Not only is it clean, but solar energy can also boost the reliability of the electric grid.

But solar energy can have high costs for initial installation, making it inaccessible for many Americans — and potentially meaning a mingling of environmental policy with election-year politics.

Forty-nine of the new grants are state-level awards, six serve Native American tribes and five are multi-state awards. They can be used for investments such as rooftop solar and community solar gardens.

Biden is making the announcement at northern Virginia’s Prince William Forest Park, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southwest of Washington. It was established in 1936 as a summer camp for underprivileged youth from Washington, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps to help create jobs during the Great Depression.

“Broad community-based solar is our brightest hope for protecting people and our climate from the scourge of fossil fuels," said Jean Su, director of the Energy Justice program at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These targeted investments mean low-income families get clean energy that is affordable, resilient and protects our ecosystems. It’s great to see President Biden jumpstart this landmark program.”

Biden, a Democrat, used executive action last year to create the American Climate Corps modeled on Roosevelt's New Deal. He is announcing Monday that nearly 2,000 corps positions are being offered across 36 states, including jobs offered in partnership with the North American Building Trades Unions.

The president has often used Earth Day as a backdrop to further his administration's climate initiatives. Last year, he signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Environmental Justice, meant to help ensure that poverty, race and ethnic status do not lead to worse exposure to pollution and environmental harm.

He has tried to draw a contrast with GOP congressional leaders, who have called for less regulation of oil production to lower energy prices. Biden officials counter that GOP policies benefit highly profitable oil companies and could ultimately undermine U.S. efforts to compete with the Chinese in the renewable energy sector.

Biden is using his Virginia visit to discuss how "a climate crisis fully manifest to the American people in communities all across the country, is also an opportunity for us to come together,” said White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi.

He said the programs can "unlock economic opportunity to create pathways to middle-class-supporting careers, to save people money and improve their quality of life.”

The awards came from the Solar for All program, part of the $27 billion “green bank” created as part of a sweeping climate law passed in 2022. The bank is intended to reduce climate and air pollution and send money to neighborhoods most in need, especially disadvantaged and low-income communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.

EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said she was “looking forward to these funds getting out into the community, giving people skills, putting them to work in their local communities, and allowing people to save on their energy bills so that they can put those dollars to other needs.”

Among those receiving grants are state projects to provide solar-equipped roofs for homes, college residences and residential-serving community solar projects in West Virginia, a non-profit operating Mississippi solar lease program and solar workforce training initiatives in South Carolina.

The taxpayer-funded green bank has faced Republican opposition and concerns over accountability for how the money gets used. EPA previously disbursed the other $20 billion of the bank’s funds to nonprofits and community development banks for clean energy projects such as residential heat pumps, additional energy-efficient home improvements and larger-scale projects like electric vehicle charging stations and community cooling centers.

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St. John reported from Detroit.

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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union's climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.

The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36% the year before, the agencies say in their European State of the Climate report for last year. More energy in Europe was generated from renewables than from fossil fuels for the second year running.

The latest five-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius higher globally, the report says — just shy of the targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Europe saw yet another year of increasing temperatures and intensifying climate extremes — including heat stress with record temperatures, wildfires, heat waves, glacier ice loss and lack of snowfall,” said Elisabeth Hamdouch, the deputy head of unit for Copernicus at the EU’s executive commission.

The report serves up a continental complement for WMO's flagship state of the global climate report, which has been published annually for three decades, and this year came with a “red alert” warning that the world isn't doing enough to fight the consequences of global warming.

Copernicus has reported that March marked the 10th straight month of record monthly temperatures. The average sea-surface temperature for the ocean across Europe hit its highest annual level in 2023, the Europe report said.

The European report focuses this year on the impact of high temperatures on human health, noting that deaths related to heat have risen across the continent. It said more than 150 lives were lost directly last year in connection with storms, floods and wildfires.

The cost of weather- and climate-related economic losses in 2023 were estimated at more than 13.4 billion euros (about $14.3 billion).

“Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by extreme climate events in 2023, which have been responsible for large losses at continental level, estimated to be at least in the tens of billions of euros,” said Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo.

Extreme weather fanned heat waves, wildfires, droughts and flooding, the report said. High temperatures have contributed to a loss of glacier ice on the continent, including in the Alps — which have lost about 10% of their remaining glacier ice over the last two years.

Still, the report’s authors pointed to some exceptions, such as how temperatures were below average in Scandinavia and Iceland even if the mercury was higher than average across much of the continent as a whole.

The study says the world is already headed to a 19% permanent average reduction in incomes due to climate change by 2050. That’s six times larger than the cost of limited global warming by two degrees worldwide.

“Climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries around the world,” said PIK scientist Leonie Wenz who led the study.

In pure dollars, the study estimates that global annual damage from climate change will be $38 trillion. By comparison, the cost of slowing climate change until 2050 will be about $6 trillion.

“This clearly shows that protecting our climate is much cheaper than not doing so, and that is without even considering non-economic impacts such as loss of life or biodiversity,” said Wenz.

He also says the 19% worldwide income loss will increase until the world makes big changes. “We have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately – if not, economic losses will become even bigger in the second half of the century, amounting to up to 60% on global average by 2100.”

The study predicts the future with numbers from the past: temperature and rainfall levels from more than 1,600 places worldwide measured over the past 40 years.

The study pegged the worldwide average lost income at 19%, but only about 11% in Europe and North America. It says the lost income percentage could be about 22% in South Asia and Africa.

The decision — part of a yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Democratic administration prepared to approve the contentious Willow oil project.

The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated President Joe Biden's pledge to combat climate change. Friday's decision also completes an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half the reserve to oil and gas leasing.

A group of Republican lawmakers, led by Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, jumped out ahead of Friday's announcement about the new limitations in the National Petroleum-Reserve Alaska before it was publicly announced. Sullivan called it an “illegal” attack on the state’s economic lifeblood, and he predicted lawsuits.

“It’s more than a one-two punch to Alaska," Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “because when you take off access to our resources, when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore, you cannot move it — this is the energy insecurity that we’re talking about.”

The decision by the Interior Department doesn’t change the terms of existing leases in the reserve or affect currently authorized operations, including Willow.

The Biden administration also Friday recommended the rejection of a state corporation's application related to a proposed 210-mile (338-kilometer) road in the northwest part of the state to allow mining of critical mineral deposits, including including copper, cobalt, zinc, silver and gold. There are no mining proposals or current mines in the area, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management determined the road-building alternatives analyzed “would significantly and irrevocably impact resources,” the agency said in a statement. A final decision on the recommendation is pending.

Brian Ridley, chief of Tanana Chiefs Conference, an Alaska Native nonprofit corporation, said the administration's “choice to reject the Ambler Road Project is a monumental step forward in the fight for Indigenous rights and environmental justice.” The tribes of the Tanana Chiefs Conference had expressed concerns a road would harm their communities, land and wildlife.

Sullivan accused the administration of undermining U.S. national security interests with both decisions. Alaska political leaders have long accused the administration of harming the state with decisions limiting the development of oil and gas, minerals and timber.

“Joe Biden is fine with our adversaries producing energy and dominating the world’s critical minerals while shutting down our own in America, as long as the far-left radicals he feels are key to his reelection are satisfied,'' Sullivan said Thursday at a Capitol news conference with 10 other GOP senators. “What a dangerous world this president has created.”

Biden defended his decision regarding the petroleum reserve.

Alaska’s “majestic and rugged lands and waters are among the most remarkable and healthy landscapes in the world,” are critical to Alaska Native communities and “demand our protection,” he said in a statement.

Nagruk Harcharek, president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a group whose members include leaders from across much of Alaska's North Slope region, in a statement said the decision “does not reflect our communities’ wishes.” The group's board of directors previously passed a resolution opposing the administration's plans for the reserve, and Harcharek expressed frustrations that local leaders were not consulted before details of the administration's proposal were released last September.

“From our perspective, essentially what you’re doing is you’re taking the economic potential and shrinking it to a point where, we don’t know,” he said in an interview regarding Friday's announcement. “There's a lot of unknowns associated with that.”

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's top lobbying group, called the rule “misguided'' and said it sharply limits future oil and natural gas development in the petroleum reserve, "a region explicitly intended by Congress to bolster America’s energy security'' and generate revenue for Alaskan communities.

"At a time when the world is looking for American energy leadership, this is yet another step in the wrong direction,” said Dustin Meyer, an API senior vice president.

The petroleum reserve, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is home to caribou and polar bears and provides habitat for millions of migrating birds. It was set aside around a century ago as an emergency oil source for the U.S. Navy, but since the 1970s it has been overseen by the Interior Department. There has been ongoing, longstanding debate over where oil and gas development should occur.

Most existing leases in the petroleum reserve are clustered in an area that’s considered to have high development potential, according to the Bureau of Land Management, which falls under the Interior Department. The development potential in other parts of the reserve is lower, the agency said.

The rules announced Friday would place restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in areas designated as special for their wildlife, subsistence or other values and call for the agency to evaluate regularly whether to designate new special areas or bolster protections in those areas. The agency cited as a rationale the rapidly changing conditions in the Arctic due to climate change, including melting permafrost and changes in plant life and wildlife corridors.

ConocoPhillips Alaska, which has leases and projects in the petroleum reserve, including Willow, is reviewing the decision “to determine its scope and effect," according to a company statement.

Environmentalists were elated by Friday's decision.

“The Biden administration’s actions for America’s Arctic shows a commitment to conservation that meets the needs of the region’s outsized vastness and ecological value," said Kristen Miller, executive director at Alaska Wilderness League. “Our nation’s public lands are an essential part of addressing the climate and biodiversity crisis, and this decision could not come at a more critical time.”

Activist Bill McKibben called the decision a “massive win,″ adding: “We lost the fight over Willow, but the huge outcry meant that some real good came of that debacle.″

Jeremy Lieb, an attorney with Earthjustice, called the decision an important step but urged "even bolder action to keep the fossil fuel industry out of the Arctic, for the sake of the climate and future generations.” Earthjustice is involved in litigation currently before a federal appeals court that seeks to overturn Willow’s approval.

A decision in that case is pending.

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Daly reported from Washington.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Department of the Interior at https://apnews.com/hub/us-department-of-the-interior.

Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest for international travel, allowed global carriers on Thursday morning to again fly into Terminal 1 at the airfield. And long-haul carrier Emirates, crucial to East-West travel, began allowing local passengers to arrive at Terminal 3, their base of operations.

However, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said in an interview with The Associated Press that the airfield needed at least another 24 hours to resume operations close to its usual schedule. Meanwhile, one desert community in Dubai saw floodwaters continue to rise Thursday to as much as 1 meter (3 feet) as civil defense officials struggled to pump out the water.

“We were looking at the radar thinking, 'Goodness, if this hits, then it’s going to be cataclysmic,'" Griffiths said of the storm. "And indeed it was.”

The airport ended up needing 22 tankers with vacuum pumps to get water off its grounds. Griffiths acknowledged that taxiways flooded during the rains, though the airport's runways remained free of water to safely operate. Online videos of a FlyDubai flight landing with its reverse thrust spraying out water caught the world's attention.

“It looks dramatic, but it actually isn’t that dramatic,” Griffiths said.

Emirates, whose operations had been struggling since the storm Tuesday, had stopped travelers flying out of the UAE from checking into their flights as they tried to move out connecting passengers. Pilots and flight crews also had a hard time reaching the airport given the water on roadways.

But on Thursday, Emirates lifted that order to allow customers into the airport. That saw some 2,000 people come into Terminal 3, again sparking long lines, Griffiths said.

Others who arrived at the airport described hourslong waits to get their baggage, with some just giving up to head home or to whatever hotel would have them.

The UAE, a hereditarily ruled, autocratic nation on the Arabian Peninsula, typically sees little rainfall in its arid desert climate. However, a massive storm forecasters had been warning about for days blew through the country's seven sheikhdoms.

By the end of Tuesday, more than 142 millimeters (5.59 inches) of rainfall had soaked Dubai over 24 hours. An average year sees 94.7 millimeters (3.73 inches) of rain at Dubai International Airport. Other areas of the country saw even more precipitation.

Meanwhile, intense floods also have struck neighboring Oman in recent days. Authorities on Thursday raised the death toll from those storms to at least 21 killed.

The UAE's drainage systems quickly became overwhelmed Tuesday, flooding out neighborhoods, business districts and even portions of the 12-lane Sheikh Zayed Road highway running through Dubai.

The state-run WAM news agency called the rain “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949.”

In a message to the nation late Wednesday, Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, said authorities would “quickly work on studying the condition of infrastructure throughout the UAE and to limit the damage caused.”

On Thursday, people waded through oil-slicked floodwater to reach cars earlier abandoned, checking to see if their engines still ran. Tanker trucks with vacuums began reaching some areas outside of Dubai's downtown core for the first time as well. Schools remain closed until next week.

Authorities have offered no overall damage or injury information from the floods, which killed at least one person.

However, at least one community saw the effects of the rainfall only get worse Thursday. Mudon, a development by the state-owned Dubai Properties, saw flooding in one neighborhood reach as much as 1 meter. Civil defense workers tried to pump the water out, but it was a struggle as people waded through the floodwater.

Residents of Mudon, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity given the UAE's strict laws governing speech, described putting together the equivalent of nearly $2,000 to get a tanker to the community Wednesday. They alleged the developers did nothing to help prior to that, even as they called and emailed. They also said a nearby sewage processing facility failed, bringing more water into their homes.

“A lot of people were in denial of how bad it was,” one homeowner said as civil defense officials waded through the water, bringing bottled water on a raft.

Dubai Holding, a state-owned company that has Dubai Properties as an arm, did not respond to questions. It's part of a wider nexus that U.S. diplomats have called “Dubai Inc.” — all properties overseen by the city-state's ruling family.

The flooding sparked speculation that the UAE's aggressive campaign of cloud seeding — flying small planes through clouds dispersing chemicals aimed at getting rain to fall — may have contributed to the deluge. But experts said the storm systems that produced the rain were forecast well in advance and that cloud seeding alone would not have caused such flooding.

Scientists also say climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme storms, droughts, floods and wildfires around the world. Dubai hosted the United Nations’ COP28 climate talks just last year.

Abu Dhabi’s state-linked newspaper The National in an editorial Thursday described the heavy rains as a warning to countries in the wider Persian Gulf region to “climate-proof their futures.”

“The scale of this task is more daunting than it appears even at first glance, because such changes involve changing the urban environment of a region that for as long as it has been inhabited, has experienced little but heat and sand,” the newspaper said.

With governments of the world facing a 2025 deadline for new and stronger plans to curb carbon pollution, nearly half of the world's populations voting in elections this year, and crucial global finance meetings later this month in Washington, United Nations executive climate secretary Simon Stiell said Wednesday he knows his warning may sound melodramatic. But he said action over the next two years is “essential.”

“We still have a chance to make greenhouse gas emissions tumble, with a new generation of national climate plans. But we need these stronger plans, now,” Stiell said in a speech at the Chatham House think tank in London. He suggested that climate action is not just for powerful people to address — in a not-so-veiled reference to the electoral calendar this year.

“Who exactly has two years to save the world? The answer is every person on this planet,” Stiell said. “More and more people want climate action right across societies and political spectrums, in large part because they are feeling the impacts of the climate crisis in their everyday lives and their household budgets.”

Crop-destroying droughts have increased the need for bolder action to curb emissions and help farmers adapt which could boost food security and lessen hunger, he said. “Cutting fossil fuel pollution will mean better health and huge savings for governments and households alike,” Stiell said.

Not everyone is convinced such warnings will be helpful.

"‘Two years to save the world’ is meaningless rhetoric — at best, it’s likely to be ignored, at worst, it will be counterproductive,” said Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who is also a professor of international affairs.

Levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the air last year hit all-time highs, according to United States government calculations, while scientists calculate that the world's carbon dioxide emissions jumped 1.1%. Last year was the hottest year on record by far, global temperature monitoring groups concluded.

If emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from burning of coal, oil and natural gas continue to rise or don't start a sharp decline, Stiell said it “will further entrench the gross inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest countries and communities" that are being worsened by climate change.

And behind it all is money.

Stiell's speech comes just ahead of meetings of The World Bank and other big multinational development institutions, where poorer nations, led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Kenyan President William Ruto, are pushing for major reforms in the systems that loan money to poor nations, especially those hit by climate-related disasters.

In conjunction with that push, Stiell called for “a quantum leap this year in climate finance.” He called for debt relief for the countries that need it the most, saying they are spending $400 billion on debt financing instead of preparing for and preventing future climate change.

He called for more financial aid, not just loans, and more money from different groups like banks, the International Maritime Organization, and the G20, the world's 20 most powerful economies. Those countries are responsible for 80% of the world's heat-trapping emissions, he said.

“G20 leadership must be at the core of the solution, as it was during the great financial crisis,” Stiell said.

"Every day, finance ministers, CEOs, investors, and development bankers direct trillions of dollars. It’s time to shift those dollars from the energy and infrastructure of the past, towards that of a cleaner, more resilient future," Stiell said. “And to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries benefit.”

Officials said the climate finance problem needs to be fixed by the end of the year with November's climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, a crucial point.

Stiell is “absolutely right” that timing and finance are the heart of the matter, said longtime climate analyst Alden Meyer of European think tank E3G. The carbon action plans submitted by next year will “determine whether we can get on the trajectory of sharp emissions reductions needed to avoid much worse climate impacts than those we are already suffering today,” he said.

With so many elections and places where democracies on the brink, “climate finance related to carbon policy is on the line,” said Nancy Lindborg, president of the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, at the Skoll World Forum, an ideas conference in Oxford, England.

Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare said Stiell was “listening to the science” — namely that global emissions must be halved by the end of the decade to meet the Paris climate accord's ambition of capping global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

“Governments are nowhere near that, and disastrously many are still supporting new fossil fuel development,” Hare said. “We need to see a massive strengthening of action now - faster ramping up of renewables, electric vehicles and batteries - if we’re to get serious reductions by 2030. The longer we wait, the more it will cost.”

About 7 percent of Americans, up from 4% a year ago, report that they own an electric vehicle. But 35% of Americans say they might consider buying an EV in the future. Last year, that number was 43%.  

The new Gallup survey comes as major U.S. auto makers have rolled back their EV investments, and has led the Biden administration to rethink its schedule of emission-reduction targets for auto companies.

Instead of relying solely on EVs to meet tighter emission limits, the EPA last month announced a strategy that will include EVs, hybrids, plug-in hybrids and more efficient gas vehicles.

As for the Gallup snapshot of who owns an EV:

• 14% of upper-income Americans, up from 6% last year
• 3% of lower-income Americans
• 11% of people identifying as liberal
• 7% identifying as moderate
• 4% identifying as conservative

In sum, the Gallup survey confirms that the U.S. market for EVs remains limited and stable, with about one in six owning or seriously considering buying one. That’s unchanged from last year.

Gallup surveyed by phone 1,016 Americans age 18 and older from March 1 through March 20. People in all 50 states and the District of Columbia were contacted. The survey has a 4% margin of error.

A recent Wall Street Journal poll asked voters in seven swing states to rate the most important issues. Just 2% said “climate change.” That same survey found just 3% of voters ages 18 to 34 called climate change their top issue.

A Harvard Youth study found that just 39% of younger voters say they trust the president’s handling of climate change.

Meanwhile, some Democrats are pushing Biden to do more, saying his work to move the U.S. away from fossil fuels isn’t enough.

“Will (a second Biden term) be an administration that takes climate change much more seriously now than these last few years?” asks Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley. “The arc of the curve is totally insufficient to meet the challenge,” he told Politico.

Biden’s environmental record leaves plenty for both supporters and opponents to love or hate. The Inflation Reduction Act contains about $1 trillion in tax credits, grants and loans for clean energy.

He’s paused new permits for natural gas exports pending a new evaluation of whether the environmental cost of exporting natural gas has much of a positive impact on greenhouse gas reduction.

But he’s also approved a number of new fossil fuel projects, including a new pipeline in West Virginia and the massive Willow project in Alaska.

The political balance may be crucial for Biden’s reelection. While young climate-centric voters won’t shift to former President Donald Trump, they could sit out the election or back a third-party candidate.

And backing tighter environmental policies during the campaign could fuel Trump’s stand that Biden’s agenda is putting the U.S. economy in danger.

The Biden camp’s political solution may be just letting people know about specific programs the Inflation Reduction Act funds. A poll by the Yale University Program on Climate Change Communication found 60% of voters asked knew “a little” or “nothing at all” about the law.

But, after reading a brief description of it, more than 70% said they supported the act.

March 2024 averaged 14.14 degrees Celsius (57.9 degrees Fahrenheit), exceeding the previous record from 2016 by a tenth of a degree, according to Copernicus data. And it was 1.68 degrees C (3 degrees F) warmer than in the late 1800s, the base used for temperatures before the burning of fossil fuels began growing rapidly.

Since last June, the globe has broken heat records each month, with marine heat waves across large areas of the globe’s oceans contributing.

Scientists say the record-breaking heat during this time wasn't entirely surprising due to a strong El Nino, a climatic condition that warms the central Pacific and changes global weather patterns.

“But its combination with the non-natural marine heat waves made these records so breathtaking,” said Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis.

With El Nino waning, the margins by which global average temperatures are surpassed each month should go down, Francis said.

Climate scientists attribute most of the record heat to human-caused climate change from carbon dioxide and methane emissions produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

“The trajectory will not change until concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop rising,” Francis said, “which means we must stop burning fossil fuels, stop deforestation, and grow our food more sustainably as quickly as possible.”

Until then, expect more broken records, she said.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal to keep warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Copernicus’ temperature data is monthly and uses a slightly different measurement system than the Paris threshold, which is averaged over two or three decades.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said March's record-breaking temperature wasn't as exceptional as some other months in the past year that broke records by wider margins.

“We've had record-breaking months that have been even more unusual,” Burgess said, pointing to February 2024 and September 2023. But the “trajectory is not in the right direction," she added.

The globe has now experienced 12 months with average monthly temperatures 1.58 degrees Celsius (2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above the Paris threshold, according to Copernicus data.

In March, global sea surface temperature averaged 21.07 degrees Celsius (69.93 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest monthly value on record and slightly higher than what was recorded in February.

“We need more ambitious global action to ensure that we can get to net zero as soon as possible,” Burgess said.

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