Axios

"It's a fantasy."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's (D) 11th-hour decision to slam the brakes on congestion pricing in Manhattan is a national climate story.

Why it matters: Policies that explicitly impose costs on consumers face huge political hurdles, especially as frustration mounts over inflation.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called out advertising agencies, governments and media organizations for allowing the fossil fuel industry to "shamelessly greenwash" and "delay climate action."

Why it matters: The UN leader's words, delivered in a major address on World Environment Day, were the highest-profile endorsement yet of a movement simmering among some environmental activists and people in the ad industry. They have sought to separate major advertising firms from their fossil fuel clients.

As large parts of the American Southwest bake in record heat, new data shows that May extended the record streak for global ocean temperatures as well.

Why it matters: The past 14 months have featured surprisingly large temperature anomalies across the world's oceans, with widespread and damaging marine heat waves, the Copernicus Climate Change Service found.

The hottest temperatures to hit the U.S. this year were sweeping across California and the Southwest into Thursday — and the "dangerous" heat's expected to bring record temperatures to much of the region before expanding eastwards this week.

The big picture: Excessive heat warnings and watches extended from the central valley down through southern California's deserts, southern Nevada and southern and western Arizona and into Utah, affecting over 29 million early Monday after the heat began building a day earlier.

Multiple tornadoes reported across the U.S. on Wednesday left a toddler dead in suburban Detroit, Michigan, and several people injured in a Maryland suburb just outside of Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

The big picture: The storms that unleashed the tornadoes come during one of the busiest tornado seasons on record in the U.S, per the National Weather Service.

May was the 12th consecutive month to set a monthly global average temperature record, and exceed a key Paris Agreement temperature target.

Why it matters: The new data comes amid a slew of findings from climate monitoring groups released Wednesday, timed to coincide with a speech in New York by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday paused indefinitely the implementation of congestion pricing for drivers in New York City, weeks before the controversial initiative was set to take effect.

Why it matters: The first-in-the nation policy aimed to boost public transit use and improve air quality, but Hochul said it risked "unintended consequences" for New Yorkers' wallets and visits into Manhattan.

ZURICH, Switzerland — Climeworks, a Swiss company and early mover in the quest to capture and store carbon dioxide from the air, has developed new technology that it claims cuts costs, energy use and the price of carbon removal.

Why it matters: A key task for direct air capture to scale dramatically in the next few decades is to lower the costs involved. Climeworks' goal is to get the cost of carbon removal down to between $400 to $600 per ton by 2030.