If it feels like you are recently doomscrolling your weather app because things feel so hectic, you are not alone. This year’s June was one of the hottest in the history of the US with over 40°C in large parts of the country, even during the evening. Southern Europe and the Mediterranean saw extreme conditions over a few days of well more than 50°C. Floods hit Indonesia and Sri Lanka worse than ever before, while wildfires spread like – well, wildfires – all over Australia.
In terms of data, 2025 was the second hottest year in history, just a notch after the worst year which was 2024. The average temperature globally over the past 3 years is now 1.5 degrees hotter than it was before the industrial era. Coal and gas are truly reshaping this planet and not in a good way, with far-reaching consequences.
Everything we have described in the first paragraph, floods, wildfires, and abnormal temperatures, are closely related to energy, and they have taken hundreds of casualties this year.
And those changes in weather do not appear out of thin air. Decades-long of rising greenhouses gasses as a result of energy combustion. Laws written, or removed from the agenda, dictating limitations on energy usage, drilling and climate strategy, are bound to shape the future of this earth.
For instance, in 2017, the USA started rolling back on some of its climate rules, reducing the harsh limits that were set previously on smokestacks and tailpipes, allowing oil drilling in places that were previously deemed “protected”, and effectively stepping away from the Paris Agreement. Then, Biden’s election in the US, has led it the opposite way, rejoining the Paris Agreement, tightening methane pollution, and setting forth new regulation on the car industry, alongside big budgets for wind and solar and tax benefits for electronic cars. At the same time, Europe, Brazil, and Australia were all pushing for new and better forest and coal controls.
And then, a year and a half ago, things took another completely opposite turn. Biden was pushing towards tougher limits on power plans and cars before his end of term, only to be completely reversed by president elected Donald J Trump whose executive orders prioritize “American energy dominance” under the “America First” agenda, and hence – he has froze a lot of the spending, while calling wind turbines “pathetic and bad”.
But what we are experiencing right now. Take Phoenix, AZ which is rated 80/100 on the warrantyindex climate stress, and has been constantly breaking its own hottest-day-in-history record every summer (multiple days over 43°C). There is a record number of related hospitalizations as a result of that. Or Houston, TX which is rated just 50/100 on the warrantyindex but over the past years has consistently seen extreme rainfall and storms leaving some neighborhoods underwater for prolonged periods of time.
Those long-term changes in climate are a result of long-term negligence and not necessarily the aftermath of current policies. Today’s pollution will have a substantial impact on our lives in a matter of decades. Today’s misfortune is a result of decades-long greenhouse gasses accumulated, in which every ton added keeps more heat trapped, leading to hotter heatwaves, longer fire seasons and heavier downpours.
That means that if we neglect pollution instead of controlling it, things will be significantly worse in decades and we are heading for a catastrophe.
