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The Climate Scene at the End of 2025 in Europe and the United States

  • Writer: Louise Deltheil
    Louise Deltheil
  • 1 minute ago
  • 8 min read
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Written by: Louise Deltheil

Edited by: Iris Bisson



For decades, people around the world have been committed to fighting climate change. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol, which aimed to reduce the hole in the ozone layer caused by greenhouse gas emissions, was passed and later ratified by 197 countries. It succeeded in its mission and is now used to regulate hydrofluorocarbons in an effort to slow down global warming (Government of Canada, 2017). Adopted in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol is an agreement between countries to reduce their carbon emissions by a certain date. It was made up of two phases; the first ended in 2012 and the second in 2020. In 2012, the Doha Amendment was added to set new goals for the second phase (Earth.org, 2020). In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed. Its main goal was to limit the rise of global temperature to 1.5°C. It also aims to achieve net zero, meaning that countries agreed to remove as much greenhouse gas from the atmosphere as the amount they produced (European Council, 2015). Like the Kyoto Protocol, it also had a clause encouraging nations to help each other achieve the set goals, since the slowing of global warming is a common goal for all nations.


The European Union

The European Union is one of the world’s leaders in combating climate change. But how far are they from their goals? To keep track of their progress, the EU has set up target plans for 2030 and 2050, and most recently, 2040.


For 2030, the overall goal is to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55%. Unfortunately, according to the European Union, a 45% reduction is a more realistic estimate, unless new measures are implemented. To reach this overall goal, the EU sets emission goals for each of its sectors. The energy sector is responsible for 75% of emissions, while the building sector generates 36% of emissions. If these two sectors can be improved, by replacing fossil fuel with clean energy, and implementing more energy-efficient construction techniques, the EU will have a better chance at achieving their original goal of 55% emissions reduction.

Two other sectors the EU aims to improve are the transport and land use sectors. As of now, the transport sector uses little renewable energy. For the land use sector, it is estimated that the EU’s carbon sink needs to reach 300 million tons of CO2eq by 2030 to achieve net zero by 2050 (EU Climate Target Plan 2030 Key Contributors and Policy Tools, 2020). As a reminder, a carbon sink describes any system that absorbs more CO2 than it releases (Konyn, 2020). It is important to keep in mind, however, that a net zero goal requires every sector to achieve that balance. This means that sectors which had previously been balanced out will need to contribute more heavily. For example, although the energy sector has cut its emissions by 47%, the aviation sector emissions have actually increased because of greater use (European Council, 2022).


To further cement their goals, the EU launched the European Green Deal in 2019, which incorporates all of the goals from the Paris Agreement, but which is non-negotiable for every EU state that has signed it. In response to worsening climate conditions, the EU has been setting more ambitious emission reduction goals. In 2008, the EU declared a goal of a 20% reduction by 2020 compared to 1990 (the year used for all percentage goals). By 2019, the EU had surpassed this goal, having reduced its emissions by 24%, and by 2020, that number rose to 30%, most likely due to the coronavirus pandemic. In 2014, a goal of a 40% emission reduction was set for 2030, which was then increased to 50%, and finally to 55% in 2023 (European Council, 2022). Although these goals seem daunting, the EU continues to push climate regulations further as they recognize the increasing urgency of the climate situation worldwide.


Only a few months ago, the EU announced an additional clause to the European climate law: a 2040 goal of a 90% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, in order to meet the net zero goal scheduled for 2050 (Vohra, 2025). By announcing an intermediary goal, the EU is ensuring that investors continue to work towards the 2050 goal. However, as could unfortunately be expected, the EU created its own loophole to respond to far-right movements: if nations are not able to meet the 2040 goal, they can buy carbon credits to ‘achieve’ the last 5% of the goal, meaning that they would only be required to cut down to 85% instead of 90% (Vohra, 2025). This loophole highlights the difficulty of navigating politics when trying to fight climate change.


Another example of the challenge presented by politics is the current relationship between the U.S. and the European Union. As the EU turns away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, U.S. energy officials are pushing for Europe to turn back because they want to expand the U.S.’ influence on the European fossil fuel market (Cruz, 2025). During President Trump’s tariff threats, the U.S. and EU reached a new trade deal regarding the importation of fossil fuels from the U.S., to replace Russian oil and gas. The EU promised to spend €216 billion on liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States (Osborne, 2025). Although the EU is setting stricter environmental goals on one side, they are also ensuring consumption of non-renewables, planting more doubts in climate experts regarding the EU’s commitment to fighting climate change.


The United States

Former U.S. President Biden set a goal of spending $1.6 trillion on climate and energy initiatives in order to reduce climate pollution by about 65% in 10 years. Unfortunately, because his initiatives took a long time to pass through Congress, he only allocated around 15% of his proposed funding by the time U.S. President Trump came to office. As he has repeatedly stated, the new president does not believe in the “meaningless Green New Scam ideas” (Tamborrino et al., 2024).


Trump has been able to divert this funding, designed for climate action, by taking advantage of loopholes in the legislation. As per the Inflation Reduction Act, the details of the funding’s implementation were left to the Treasury Department. As such, Trump’s new appointments to the Department can easily manipulate the law to redirect the money away from its initial purpose. Furthermore, Trump can essentially stop all new spending under the guise of inspecting where it is going (Tamborrino et al., 2024). These loopholes give the Trump administration the capacity to stop Biden’s initiatives abruptly.

Immediately after taking office, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, dismissing the required one-year notice (Schonhardt et al., 2025). Because the U.S. is the second largest greenhouse gas emitter, after China, the departure significantly jeopardizes the realization of the agreement’s goals. Even before Trump’s decision back out, the U.S. was far from achieving its goal of a 50% reduction by 2030, with an estimated range of just a 32 to 43% reduction (Bush, 2024).

Although it is deplorable that the United States has left the Paris Agreement, it is important to recognize that many countries and some U.S. states remain committed to the stated goals and will continue to work together to achieve them. Twenty-four U.S. governors joined to create the U.S. Climate Alliance, which features the same goals as the Paris Agreement (Segal, 2025). The governors have confirmed that they will continue to work towards a net-zero future for 2050 and limit the temperature increase to a maximum of 1.5°C by the same time. In addition, they assure that no federal administration can change their objective as they are protected under the U.S. Constitution. So, although Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, 50% of the country still remain effective members of the agreement. Not all hope is lost.


Conclusion

Although many countries are implementing stronger regulations to mitigate climate change, progress will remain slow if large and impactful countries such as the United States continue to advance backwards. It is imperative to continue advocating for clean energy and for governments that support the health of global citizens. The Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Simon Stiell, in an effort to maintain morale, stated that “a country may step back, but others are already stepping into their place to seize the opportunity, and to reap the massive rewards: stronger economic growth, more jobs, less pollution and far lower health costs, more secure and affordable energy” (Countries Remain Committed to Paris Agreement despite US Exit, and Other Nature and Climate Stories You Need to Read This Week, 2025).


Yet, the battle against climate change is more difficult than ever. In February, some countries taking part in the Paris Agreement missed an important UN deadline to declare how, as well as by how much, they will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. The European Union, China, and India are amongst the countries that have not announced their decision. Stiell believes that this is only a sign that countries are taking their plans very seriously and will likely submit them by the end of 2025. However, rightfully so, climate activists remain worried that this is instead a sign that climate decisions have fallen lower on the list of priorities (Abnett, 2025).


Lastly, this November, countries attended COP30, the United Nations annual climate summit, in Brazil (Borunda, 2025). Although the United States was not in attendance this year, the U.S. Climate Alliance members reassured their citizens by participating in this year’s summit to continue to implement their climate goals (Segal, 2025).


Overall, the current political environment regarding climate change is dark, but many countries are continuing to implement protocols to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and help restrain the temperature increase to 1.5°C. New goals and agreements will continue developing as researchers uncover more angles for climate action. In recapping the most recent state of climate developments in 2025, this article aims to serve as a reminder that climate change is a constant danger embroiled in much political conflict, and that, regardless of how nations respond, we have the agency to make change at the individual level, from recycling to advocating for stricter climate regulations.



References

‌Abnett, K. (2025, February 10). Most countries miss UN deadline for new climate 


‌Borunda, A. (2025, November 10). Countries are gathering for climate negotiations. Here’s


‌Bush, E. (2024, July 23). Despite sizable cuts to emissions, U.S. still far off track to hit its goals, 


‌Cruz, G. (2025, November 10). US Pushes Europe to Prioritize Oil and Gas Over Renewables, 


Countries remain committed to Paris Agreement despite US exit, and other nature and climate 

stories you need to read this week. (2025, February 11). World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/02/paris-agreement-us-exit-nature-climate-stories/


‌Earth.org. (2020, May 19). What is the Kyoto Protocol? Earth.org - Past | Present | Future. 


EU Climate Target Plan 2030 Key contributors and policy tools. (2020). 


‌European Council. (2015). Paris Agreement on climate change. Consilium. 


‌European Council. (2022, December 20). Tackling climate change in the EU - Consilium. 


Government of Canada. (2017, September 15). Montreal Protocol. Www.canada.ca. 


Guillot, L. (2025, November 13). EU lawmakers vote through weaker 2040 climate target. 


‌Konyn, C. (2020, August 28). What Are Carbon Sinks? Earth.org - Past | Present | Future. 


Osborne, Louise. (2025, July 30). US trade deal could lock the EU into fossil fuel dependency. 


‌Poynting, M. (2015, December 12). What is the Paris climate agreement and why does 1.5C 


‌Schonhardt, S., Colman, Z., & Mathiesen, K. (2025, January). What Trump’s exit from the 

climate deal really means - POLITICO. POLITICO; Politico. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/20/trumps-exit-climate-deal-means-00199406.


‌Segal, M. (2025, January 23). 24 U.S. States Commit to Paris Agreement Goals After Trump 


‌Tamborrino, K., Cama, T., & Blaeser, J. (2024, July 29). Trump vs. Biden’s historic climate 


‌Vohra, A. (2025, July 2). Amid severe heat wave, EU pitches flexible 2040 climate goal. Dw.com; 


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