“Diplomats from nearly 200 countries reached a deal on Saturday to keep the Paris climate agreement alive by adopting a detailed set of rules to implement the pact,” the New York Times reports.

“The United States agreed to the deal despite President Trump’s vow to abandon the Paris Agreement. Diplomats and climate change activists said they hoped that fact would make it easier for the administration to change its mind and stay in the Paris Agreement, or for a future president to embrace the accord once again. The United States cannot formally withdraw from the agreement until late 2020.”

“The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures,” the Washington Post reports.

“The U.S. position lines up with the views of the Trump administration, which is plowing ahead with a raft of aggressive policies on coal power and oil exploration that are likely to worsen the effects of climate change — steamrolling over dire environmental warnings issued by the administration’s own team of experts in a major report just two weeks ago.”

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds 58% of American voters agree with the scientific consensus — and disagree with President Trump — that climate change is being caused by human activity.

“David Attenborough, the naturalist and broadcaster, sounded a dire warning in a speech Monday to the U.N. climate conference in Poland,” NPR reports.

Said Attennborough: “Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: Climate change. If we don’t take action the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

Washington Post: “As President Trump’s rejection of climate science isolates the United States on the world stage, illustrated by the small U.S. delegation dispatched to this week’s United Nations climate summit in Poland, he has also presided over a transformation in the Republican Party — placing climate change skepticism squarely in the GOP’s ideological mainstream.”

“Where the last Republican president, George W. Bush, acknowledged that the Earth was warming and that ‘an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem,’ the prevailing GOP view expressed on the campaign trail this year and espoused by many members of Congress is built on the false premise that climate science is an open question.”

“The small number of voices supporting the science have been largely drowned out.”

President Trump “dismissed a landmark report compiled by 13 federal agencies detailing how damage from global warming is intensifying throughout the country, saying he is not among the ‘believers’ who see climate change as a pressing problem,” the Washington Post reports.

“The comments marked the president’s most extensive yet on why he disagrees with his own government’s analysis, which found that climate change poses a severe threat to the health of Americans, as well as to the country’s infrastructure, economy and natural resources. The findings — unequivocal, urgent and alarming — are at odds with the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations and absence of any climate action policy.”

Said Trump: “One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers.”

President Trump told reporters that he has seen the latest climate report released on Black Friday by his administration, Axios reports, but said, “I don’t believe it.”

President Trump blamed “mismanagement” of California’s forests for ongoing deadly wildfires, threatening to withhold federal payments after multiple blazes killed 9 people and prompted evacuation orders for some 250,000 state residents, Politico reports.

Said Trump: “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!”

“The Supreme Court on Friday night refused to halt a novel lawsuit filed by young Americans that attempts to force the federal government to take action on climate change, turning down a request from the Trump administration to stop it before trial,” the Washington Post reports.

“The suit, filed in 2015 by 21 young people who argue that the failure of government leaders to combat climate change violates their constitutional right to a clean environment, is before a federal judge in Oregon. It had been delayed while the Supreme Court considered the emergency request from the government.”

A new Washington Post-KFF poll found that nearly one year after Hurricane Maria, many Puerto Ricans are still struggling with basic necessities.

The survey found that a full 83% of residents said they have suffered either major property damage, long-term loss of electricity, employment setbacks or worsening health problems.

Key takeaways: 93% of residents said their roads and highways remain dangerous and 50% said their households lacked an adequate supply of drinking water.

“The Trump administration, taking its third major step this year to roll back federal efforts to fight climate change, is preparing to make it significantly easier for energy companies to release methane into the atmosphere,” the New York Times reports.

“Methane, which is among the most powerful greenhouse gases, routinely leaks from oil and gas wells, and energy companies have long said that the rules requiring them to test for emissions were costly and burdensome.”

“The state allowed hundreds of residents in two Wichita-area neighborhoods to drink contaminated water for years without telling them, despite warning signs of contamination close to water wells used for drinking, washing and bathing,” the Wichita Eagle reports.

“In 2011… the state discovered dry cleaning chemicals had contaminated groundwater at 412 W. Grand in Haysville. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment didn’t act for more than six years.”