At this year’s United Nations climate conference, China is expected to set a “very ambitious” goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
India recently overtook Germany to become the world’s third largest generator of renewable power.
The European Union, where greenhouse gas emissions have been falling, is now generating 11 percent of its electricity from solar power, surpassing coal for the first time.
And the United States? Under President Trump, the world’s largest economy is rolling back emissions regulations, ramping up the production of fossil fuels and dismantling federal efforts to monitor and respond to climate change.
As I report in a new article, the United States now stands virtually alone on the world stage in its disregard for the growing threats posed by a rapidly warming world, even as global temperatures reach record highs and extreme weather causes more death and destruction.
But the Trump administration is turning a blind eye to the reality that climate change is a major threat to countries around the world, including the United States.
More than that, the White House is undermining the country’s capacity to understand the science of a warming planet, and to prepare for the consequences.
The administration is firing scientists, shuttering long-running research projects that monitor our changing atmosphere, and canceling major reports that detail how a hotter planet will impact the economy.
It is also scaling back its efforts to help when disaster strikes, closing programs that were designed to make communities more resilient to extreme weather, and denying requests for assistance after deadly storms.
Taken together, these moves are poised to leave the country less prepared and, over time, more polluted. They are also set to complicate the global climate talks that begin this November in Brazil.
The Trump administration has not indicated if it is planning to send a delegation to the gathering, known as COP30. But the White House has so far shown no appetite to engage with the rest of the world on the issue of global warming. On President Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order that would make the United States the only country to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
By David Gelles May 19, 2025