Climate Policy Upheaval: U.S. Retreats on Protections as States Forge Ahead

In the United States, the Trump administration has aggressively rolled back climate protections throughout 2025, marking a sharp departure from prior policies. Inside Climate News reports that the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to revoke the endangerment finding, the legal basis for regulating climate-warming gases, a move environmental advocates say will embolden polluters. The administration also rolled back Biden-era fuel economy standards in December, initiating a lengthy rulemaking process that prioritizes fossil fuels. An executive order ended taxpayer support for what it called unaffordable green energy, following a congressional bill that curbed wind and solar development, with Republicans in states like Missouri, North Dakota, New Jersey, and Iowa pushing for even stronger restrictions amid a thirty-eight percent rise in such policies in Missouri alone.

Despite federal retreats, states have driven progress. Climate XChange details California's actions: Governor Gavin Newsom signed bills in October extending the cap-and-invest program through 2045, requiring large cities to create electrification plans by 2030, and expanding streamlined reviews for geothermal plants. On December seventeenth, the California Air Resources Board updated the Landfill Methane Rule to cut emissions forty percent below 2013 levels by 2030, using satellite imaging for leak detection. Newsom's executive order accelerated Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for energy projects. In Colorado, the Public Utilities Commission mandated gas utilities to slash emissions forty-one percent below 2015 levels by 2035, exceeding prior targets, while a multi-agency report projects fifty percent reductions from 2005 levels by 2031. Connecticut's emissions inventory showed a one-point-five percent rise from 2022 to 2023 due to a nuclear outage, but declines in transportation and buildings from efficient vehicles and milder winters.

Extreme weather underscored risks: Tropical Depression Chantal caused severe flooding in North Carolina, where lawmakers weakened clean energy rules amid recovery, as scientists link warming to storm intensity.

Worldwide, COP30 in Brazil ended weakly without strong US engagement, per Mother Jones, as America withdrew again from the Paris Agreement, per Geopolitique.eu, shifting leadership to China on renewables. The Invading Sea notes US isolation allowed others to advance climate action. Emerging patterns reveal federal fossil fuel favoritism clashing with state innovations, intensifying divides as storms worsen.

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