A blistering rollback of climate policies led by the US in 2025 with knock-on effects in Europe and other western economies has heightened concerns about rising greenhouse gases, even as a clean energy boom takes hold.
Climate regulations have been under attack since the first day of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, amid the increasing power of populist parties in Europe and economic pressures across the world.
The US led the way with cuts to regulations, incentives and jobs this year, in turn putting pressure on the EU to weaken flagship climate rules and prompting Canada to put policies in place which will boost oil and gas production in the face of trade pressures from the Trump administration.
Many other countries also took their cue to put in place weak climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which were required by the UN under the landmark Paris agreement to curb global warming.
The setbacks occurred as scientists and officials warned the world was on course to overshoot the lower temperature limits of the Paris agreement of a 1.5C rise since pre-industrial times. The past three years have ranked as the hottest on record, bringing wildfires, extreme heat, floods and storms.
Nick Mabey, a founder director of green think-tank E3G, said the rollback was largely confined to Europe and North America, and developing economies were still making the shift to cleaner energy sources as they grew.
But a combination of “distracted leaders” grappling with issues from the Ukraine war to US trade tariffs had fuelled “culture wars” and meant climate action had fallen down the policy agenda, he said. This had left business leaders confused about planning for the risks of global warming.
“The politics in the Euro-Atlantic zone has felt so difficult,” said Mabey. “Corporate leaders we see are really affected by that.”
Despite the surge of investments into renewables and gains from energy efficiency in the past year, the mixed signals from governments could lead to business reluctance to invest in scaling up supply chains and other sectors crucial for the transition, said Mabey.
Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director with the climate and energy programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said US climate policy retreat had been much worse and much faster in the second Trump administration “than anyone may have expected”.
A temperature rise above 1.5C led to the big question about the “magnitude of that overshoot and how long it lasts”, she said. “That has everything to do with choices that policymakers are making right now.”
Dirk Messner, head of the German environment agency UBA, noted that while the Paris agreement itself was a legally binding treaty, greenhouse gas emissions cuts set by each country were, in theory, voluntary.
“We have a global goal and then we ask countries to do something. The current system is not supporting those who are moving forward fast.”
The timeline of climate policy setbacks over the year shows the pace set by Trump.
January: goodbye to the Paris agreement and IRA
Immediately after his inauguration on January 20, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris agreement for the second time and signed an executive order to encourage the rapid development of fossil fuels, the chief cause of climate change. Clean energy credits worth $369bn under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act began to be unwound rapidly.
February: climate science and aid funding cuts
More than 600 workers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were laid off, with more job cuts following in the months after.
Trump also gutted USAID, which had long played a role in green projects in developing countries, and rescinded a $4bn pledge to the Green Climate Fund.
The EU started an “omnibus” process that involved rolling back and streamlining parts of its environmental and sustainable finance rule book.
Most countries missed the first UN deadline for updated national climate plans, although the UK and Brazil stood out among countries to submit ambitious plans in time.
March: US pollution rules eliminated
The US Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of actions aimed at revising and eliminating Obama and Biden-era environmental and pollution standards, including those restricting emissions from vehicles and power plants.
April: US Treasury secretary pressures World Bank
At the Spring Meetings, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent called on the World Bank and IMF to reduce their focus on climate change.
May: US scales back coal use rules
Trump signed executive orders to boost nuclear power. The Department of Energy said coal used in steel production was a critical material and proposed to eliminate or scale back almost 50 rules, including regulations on buildings and energy production.
July: EPA greenhouse gas rules rescinded
The EPA proposed rescinding its 2009 “endangerment finding”, which found that six greenhouse gases endangered public health and welfare. The rule is crucial to enabling the department to set standards for emissions. Trump issued executive orders exempting several industries, including coal-fired power plants, from emissions standards for air pollutants for two years.
August: US solar and wind pushback
The US Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management announced a full review into offshore wind energy regulations, suggesting that all solar and wind leases on federal land might be inconsistent with land policy, and overhauled rules to boost fossil fuels. The DOE announced a report that questioned the scientific consensus on climate change.
September: US boosts new fossil fuel projects
Several more US federal departments announced changes to boost fossil fuels, including new financing and opening up federal land for coal leasing.
October: US presses trading partners
The US used aggressive tactics including trade and visa threats to collapse a framework for cleaner shipping at the International Maritime Organization. It also put pressure on the EU to water down its climate policies to avoid a trade war.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, a former green champion, repealed the country’s consumer carbon tax and paused the country’s electric vehicle sales mandate.
November: EU struggles to agree climate target
EU countries struggled to agree a climate target for 2040, landing finally on a 90 per cent emissions reduction goal that includes international carbon offsets.
The US was absent from the UN COP30 summit in Brazil, where the countries in attendance failed to back a plan for how to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels in the final agreement.
Canada’s Carney signed a deal to produce an extra 1mn barrels of crude oil a day.
December: EU backtracks on electric car sales
Brussels proposed that the bloc scrap its ban on new combustion engines in 2035, allowing manufacturers to continue to sell polluting cars if they use green steel or sustainable fuels. It watered down corporate sustainable regulations.
The EU also delayed for a second time the introduction of a landmark law aimed at halting deforestation and also postponed the introduction of a second emissions trading system that would cover road transport and homes.
In the US, Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the world’s premier climate and weather research bodies.
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