2025 is here, and there’s a lot coming. The impacts of climate change will continue to seep into our everyday lives, and all that’s happening against the backdrop of an incoming administration that has little to say about solving that problem and promises policies that will likely make it worse. Here are four big stories we’ve got our eyes on in the coming months.
Can the IRA survive?
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden’s stacked 2022 climate bill, provides funding for the gamut of clean energy and low-carbon initiatives, from helping families make their homes efficient and boosting renewable energy production to electric school buses. According to a recent report from American Clean Power, the IRA stands to grow the economy by $1.9 trillion over the next year. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to eliminate the IRA, but there’s a whole cohort of people across the political spectrum hoping to leave the policy and its benefits alone. It’ll be interesting to see if fossil fuel interests or climate-smart economic policies come out on top.
The changing landscape of climate fault
The concept that the polluter must pay for damage wrought on the environment isn’t new—it’s the driving principle behind how the U.S. government cleans up Superfund sites. But that approach is now gaining traction when it comes to who’s responsible for heating up the planet. Last year, the International Court of Justice heard arguments from more than 100 at-risk nations asking for greater legal repercussions for the wealthy nations most responsible for the climate crisis, and Vermont and New York passed laws that would require parties responsible for fossil fuel extraction to pay for climate adaptation projects. This tension is sure to find its way into the courts, and we’ve got our eyes peeled.
A new cycle of strange weather
2024 was officially the hottest year on record, and the global average temperature now sits at 1.3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures—even if it doesn’t feel like it, as millions across the U.S. are blasted by some of the heaviest snowfall and coldest temperatures of the decade. According to a recent report from World Weather Attribution, the connection between a hotter planet and extreme weather events like massive flooding, heat waves in the Amazon rainforest, and superstorms is unmistakable. While La Niña patterns might make 2025 slightly cooler, this trip around the sun will hardly be “safe” or “normal,” Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London, tells Reuters.
Local climate action
State and local leaders aren’t backing away from their climate goals, and their power isn’t something to scoff at. An analysis from the University of Maryland has found that nonfederal leaders could slim emissions by 54% to 62% even if the federal government rolls back policy or does nothing at all. “[Mayors] are going to double down on our commitment, passion, and vigor to continue to address these issues, especially at the local level,” Justin Bib, the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, and chair of Climate Mayors, told Smart Cities Dive. At the same time, the young activists who organized during President Trump’s first term are entering adulthood and training their attention toward local and state-level battles and policies.