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Cleveland-Cliffs appears poised to lock its Middletown Works steel mill into using fossil fuels for at least the next two decades.
The steel manufacturer had already abandoned its plan to replace a coal-based blast furnace at the southwest Ohio plant with cleaner, hydrogen-ready technology and electric furnaces. That project, which won a $500 million federal grant during the Biden administration, was meant to mark America’s entry into the global race to make greener steel.
Now, Cliffs seems ready to refurbish its old Middletown blast furnace so that it can keep running on coal, and to add a cogeneration plant that makes electricity and steam from waste gas. The company has not ruled out the possibility that it might pay for part or all of the work using money from the grant — which Congress required the Department of Energy to spend for the purpose of accelerating industrial decarbonization.
Cliffs described the project in an air-permit application submitted in late February to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, though the steelmaker hasn’t yet publicly announced the initiatives.
The filings represent the latest twist for the Middletown steel mill, the longtime economic engine of Vice President JD Vance’s hometown.
Cliffs’ plans have been murky ever since the company ditched its hydrogen ambitions last year. In a July earnings call, CEO Lourenco Goncalves said only that Cliffs was working with the DOE to develop a new scope for the federally funded project, in a way that will “preserve and enhance” Middletown’s use of coal and fossil gas. Goncalves later confirmed that Cliffs’ grant remained intact, having been spared from the Trump administration’s sweeping cancellation of other DOE-backed efforts to decarbonize U.S. industrial facilities.
It is unclear whether the company and energy agency will come to any agreement on revamping the project, and if they do, how much of the federal funding the company might use for the work now planned at Middletown. The DOE has not responded to Canary Media’s repeated requests for comment.
Cliffs received its award in 2024 through the $6.3 billion Industrial Demonstrations Program, which was primarily funded by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. In appropriating those dollars, Congress stipulated that the DOE should help companies deploy “advanced industrial technology” that is “designed to accelerate greenhouse gas emission reduction progress to net zero” at U.S. manufacturing facilities.
The steelmaker’s plan to adopt hydrogen-ready technology could have eliminated roughly 1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year from Middletown Works. It was also expected to create 170 new permanent jobs, in addition to safeguarding 2,500 positions at the facility. Cliffs’ latest proposal, which focuses on energy-efficiency improvements, is unlikely to deliver anywhere near the potential emissions reductions that would have resulted from the original project.
For green-steel proponents, Cliffs’ effort to squeeze more life out of its existing coal-based capacity is a missed opportunity to invest in cleaner and modern alternatives.
Relining blast furnaces is typically done about every 20 years, while building cogeneration plants is a fairly standard way for heavy industry to boost energy efficiency and improve the performance of older factories. Neither step represents the sort of transformative solutions that the federal awards were meant to support, according to former energy staffers who worked on the industrial-decarbonization initiative.
The DOE program’s goal “was to invest in early-stage, commercial-scale deployments of next-generation industrial technologies that can help plants be more efficient — and also to reduce emissions and make air and water cleaner for the people who live around these facilities, and the workers who work in them,” said Ian Wells, a senior advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Wells said he was concerned about the possibility of federal grants “being used to double down on more legacy technologies, instead of using public funding to take the risk on new approaches that could be better in the long term.”
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency will have until mid-August, or 180 days from the filing of the application, to either approve or deny a permit to Cliffs. The company has not received funding from the Ohio EPA for any part of the project, said Anthony Chenault, a public information officer for the agency.
Cliffs intends to start construction on its so-called Energy Recovery and Advanced Efficient Ironmaking Project on Sept. 29, according to its application. As for its federal grant, any DOE money provided through the Inflation Reduction Act must be obligated by the end of this fiscal year, on Sept. 30, and spent within five years.
Cliffs’ pivot away from hydrogen in Middletown is a major about-face for a company that previously won recognition from the DOE for cutting its U.S. operations’ greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a third.
In March 2024, the energy agency chose the steel mill as the place to unveil its broader effort to decarbonize and modernize key U.S. manufacturing sectors for steel, cement, chemicals, and even food processing. “What you do here in Middletown, we’ll be looking at how we can replicate that in places all across the country,” then–Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at the 2,800-acre site.
At the time, Cliffs planned to replace Middletown’s old blast furnace — a hulking facility that melts iron ore with purified coal, or “coke,” and limestone to make molten iron. About 70% to 80% of the planet-warming emissions that result from conventional steelmaking are associated with using coke and coal in blast furnaces.
In its stead, Cliffs intended to build a “direct reduced iron” facility that could be fueled by fossil gas, which would reduce the carbon-intensity from ironmaking by more than half. The plant would also be able to use a mix of gas and hydrogen, or hydrogen alone. If the hydrogen was made using renewable electricity, then it could have reduced the facility’s carbon-intensity by over 90%.
The steelmaker also planned to install two electricity-powered melting furnaces that would feed iron from the new DRI facility into an existing basic oxygen furnace — a heated vessel that blows oxygen over iron to produce steel. Cliffs said it expected to invest $1.3 billion, on top of the $500 million federal grant, and complete the project by 2029.
That was all before President Donald Trump took office in January 2025 and began gutting federal investments in clean domestic manufacturing.
To be sure, shifting to hydrogen-based production was always going to be challenging for Cliffs and other steelmakers, in large part because green hydrogen is expensive and in scarce supply. The Swedish firm SSAB backed out of its own $500 million DOE grant during Biden’s term after the company’s green-steel project in Mississippi ran into hydrogen supply troubles.
Still, the Trump administration canceled several of the hydrogen hubs meant to boost domestic production of the fuel and bring down its cost. The Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub, which would have supplied Middletown Works, remains approved but in limbo. Nonetheless, Cliffs decided to call it quits.
“It’s clear by now that we will not have availability of hydrogen,” Goncalves said during that July earnings call. “So, there is no point in pursuing something that we know for sure that’s not going to happen.”
Cliffs’ application with the Ohio EPA proposes replacing and repairing major equipment at the 73-year-old No. 3 blast furnace. Cliffs said the fixes could lower energy consumption and reduce the amount of coke that’s used for every ton of hot metal the furnace produces. The steelmaker is separately preparing to reline a blast furnace at its Burns Harbor facility in Indiana in 2027, which will likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Cliffs’ new plan for Middletown also include installing a cogeneration plant with four industrial boilers that would primarily burn blast furnace gas — a by-product of ironmaking that is otherwise flared — to supply high-pressure steam and drive turbines that can generate about 70 megawatts of net electricity for use at the steel mill. The company already produces power this way at its Burns Harbor and Indiana Harbor sites, which get 75% and 100% of their electricity from by-product gases, respectively.
Cliffs isn’t the first to contemplate cogeneration for the Middletown mill. AK Steel, which owned the site before Cliffs acquired the company in 2020, considered installing such a system in 2010, which would have also harnessed blast furnace gas to produce electricity and steam. But AK Steel and its partner, Air Products, later determined their $315 million project wasn’t economically viable and canceled it in 2012.
It’s hard to say how the latest plan will affect the significant amounts of carbon dioxide and air pollution that stem from the Middletown facility. Among more than 600 major emitters in Ohio, the steel mill ranked ninth for its output of ozone-causing and lung-irritating nitrogen oxides (NOx) and health-harming particulate matter (PM2.5), according to a 2024 analysis by the decarbonization advocacy group Industrious Labs.
The new cogeneration plant will improve the mill’s energy efficiency, according to Cliffs. It should also offset greenhouse gas emissions that otherwise would have been released by buying electricity from the grid.
Still, in its filings, Cliffs indicated that Middletown could possibly see elevated emissions of NOx, PM2.5 and other pollutants, owing largely to the increased use of its renovated blast furnace.
The overall plan might ultimately be more financially feasible for the steelmaker than a dramatic overhaul in its operations. But the newer projects fall far short of what might have been achieved under Cliffs’ initial DOE grant proposal, said Ariana Criste, the deputy communications director for Industrious Labs.
“This was supposed to be a blueprint for how the industry can move beyond coal and transition an existing facility, without leaving its workers behind,” she said.
The world is in a state of climate emergency, the head of the United Nations declared Sunday, following the release of the latest State of the Global Climate report from the World Meteorological Organization.
“Earth is being pushed beyond its limits while every key climate indicator is flashing red,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “Earth’s energy imbalance, the gap between heat absorbed and heat released, is the highest on record. Our planet is trapping heat faster than it can shed it.”
The consequences, he added, “are written into the daily lives of families struggling as droughts and storms drive up food prices, in workers pushed to the brink by extreme heat, in farmers watching crops wither, and in communities and homes swept away by floods.”
The report highlights the significance of record-high concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and notes that the effects are visible everywhere, from the 11-year series of hottest-ever years to the way heat is accumulating deep in the oceans. For the first time, it includes a metric called Earth’s energy imbalance as a key climate indicator, measuring the rate at which energy from the sun enters and leaves the planet.
In a stable climate, incoming energy and outgoing energy are about the same. But activities such as burning fossil fuels, growing food and making steel, cement and plastic have upset that balance by pushing levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere to the highest level in at least 800,000 years. That’s trapping more of the sun’s energy in the Earth’s climate system than ever previously recorded.
“Improved scientific understanding of Earth’s energy imbalance shows the disruption is real and the reality facing our planet and climate right now,” said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, adding that, “We will live with these consequences for hundreds and thousands of years.”
The new metric shows a more complete picture of how the climate system is responding to human emissions by integrating all the heat accumulating in the oceans and atmosphere, on land and melting ice, said oceanographer Karina von Schuckmann, a senior science adviser with Mercator Ocean International and member of the WMO’s ocean observations panel.
U.S. climate scientist Ko Barrett, deputy secretary-general of the WMO, said Earth’s energy imbalance also helps show how different parts of the climate system are connected and identifies the central role of the oceans in absorbing most of the trapped heat.
The energy balance indicator highlighted by the WMO focuses on the fundamentals of climate change, said independent climate analyst Leon Simons, who co-authored several recent papers on the topic.
“Energy coming in, energy going out,” he said. “Greenhouse gases change how much energy escapes, and the system responds. That’s really what’s driving everything.”
That basic energy measurement is a better starting point than trying to establish temperature change relative to 1850 in international forums, which then quickly start quibbling over what a tenth of a degree means, Simons said. The measurement is also more significant now because there are 20 to 25 years of data from satellite sensors designed to study Earth’s energy balance.
Science basics also help explain one of the report’s most memorable conclusions. The air temperature people experience is only about 1 to 2 percent of all the energy trapped in the Earth’s systems by greenhouse gases. About 90 to 93 percent heats the oceans while about 5 to 6 percent melts ice and heats land.
The WMO report is compiled with input from national weather agencies, international research programs and U.N. partners, drawing on data from satellites, ocean monitoring systems and weather stations worldwide. It reflects contributions from scientists and institutions across nearly 190 countries.
The information reflects the best available global science, despite concerns during the past year about cuts to U.S. climate programs, said Barrett, the WMO deputy and formerly a veteran leader of U.S. federal climate programs across several presidential administrations.
Critical data flows and climate observations have not been disrupted by any of the major contributors to the report, and she noted that Congress has restored “a lot of the funding” previously reported as having been cut. There also has been no decline in demand for accurate climate information, she added.
Guterres said that climate stress is exposing the fact that “our addiction to fossil fuels is destabilizing both the climate and global security.” Accelerating a global transition to renewable energy would “ deliver climate security, energy security and national security,” he said.
“Today’s report should come with a warning label,” he said. “Climate chaos is accelerating and delay is deadly. The way ahead must be grounded in science, common sense and the courage to act.”
06.03.2026 - Global warming has accelerated since 2015, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). After accounting for known natural influences on global temperature, the research team detected a statistically significant acceleration of the warming trend for the first time. Over the past ten years, the estimated warming rate has been around 0.35°C per decade, depending on the dataset, compared with just under 0.2°C per decade on average from 1970 to 2015. This recent rate is higher than in any previous decade since the beginning of instrumental records in 1880.
“We can now demonstrate a strong and statistically significant acceleration of global warming since around 2015,” says Grant Foster, a US statistics expert and co-author of the study, which was published today in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“We filter out known natural influences in the observational data, so that the ‘noise’ is reduced, making the underlying long-term warming signal more clearly visible,” Foster added.
Short-term natural fluctuations in global temperature caused by El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles can mask changes in the long-term rate of warming. In their data analysis, which is based on measurement data, the two researchers work with five large, established global temperature data sets (NASA, NOAA, HadCRUT, Berkeley Earth, ERA5).
“The adjusted data show an acceleration of global warming since 2015 with a statistical certainty of over 98 percent, consistent across all data sets examined and independent of the analysis method chosen,” explains Stefan Rahmstorf, PIK researcher and lead author of the study.
After correcting for the effects of El Niño and the solar maximum, 2023 and 2024, which were exceptionally warm years, become somewhat cooler, but remain the two warmest years since the beginning of instrumental records. In all datasets, the acceleration begins to become apparent in 2013 or 2014. To test whether the warming rate has changed since the 1970s, the research team applied two statistical approaches: a quadratic trend analysis and a piecewise linear model that objectively determines the timing of any change in the warming rate.
The study does not investigate the specific causes of the observed acceleration. However, climate models show that an increasing rate of warming is fundamentally within the scope of current climate modelling, according to the authors.
“If the warming rate of the past 10 years continues, it would lead to a long-term exceedance of the 1.5° limit of the Paris Agreement before 2030,” says Stefan Rahmstorf. “How quickly the Earth continues to warm ultimately depends on how rapidly we reduce global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels to zero."
Winter winds lofted clouds of dust from the Sahara Desert, carrying it north toward the Mediterranean and dispersing it widely across Europe in March 2026. When the dust combined with moisture-laden weather systems, a dirty rain fell in parts of Spain, France, and the United Kingdom.
This animation highlights the concentration and movement of dust throughout the region from March 1 to March 9. It depicts dust column mass density—a measure of the amount of dust contained in a column of air—produced with a version of the GEOS (Goddard Earth Observing System) model. The model integrates satellite data with mathematical equations that represent physical processes in the atmosphere.
The animation shows dust plumes originating in northwestern Africa being blown both to the west across the Atlantic Ocean and north toward the Mediterranean. As plumes spread throughout Western Europe over several days, people observed hazy skies from southern England, where sunrises and sunsets took on an eerie glow, to the Alps in Switzerland and Italy, where a dust layer encroached on the Matterhorn.
Not all of the dust remained aloft. Storms encountered some of the dust, causing particles to fall to the ground with rain and coat surfaces with a brownish residue. A low-pressure system, named Storm Regina by Portugal’s weather service, moved across the Iberian Peninsula and brought so-called blood rain to southern and eastern Spain, along with parts of France and the southern UK in early March, according to news reports.
Over the Mediterranean, areas of “dusty cirrus” clouds developed higher in the atmosphere, where dust particles can act as condensation nuclei for ice crystals, according to MeteoSwiss, Switzerland’s Federal Office for Meteorology and Climatology. Scientists are studying these clouds to better understand their formation and how they affect weather, climate, and even solar power generation.
In a new analysis, researchers used NASA’s MERRA-2 (Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2), observations from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), and other satellite products to parse the effect of airborne Saharan dust on solar power in Hungary. They found that photovoltaic performance dropped to 46 percent on high-dust days, compared with 75 percent or more on low-dust days. They determined the greatest losses occurred because dust enhanced the presence and reflectance of cirrus clouds and reduced the amount of radiation that reached solar panels.
Some research suggests more frequent and intense wintertime dust events have affected Europe in recent years. Researchers have proposed several factors contributing to these outbreaks, including drier-than-normal conditions in northwestern Africa and weather patterns more often driving winds north from the Sahara.
NASA Earth Observatory animation by Lauren Dauphin, using GEOS-FP data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC. Story by Lindsey Doermann.
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News(hyperlink to the original story), a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) launched an investigation into the discrepancy between reported and observed methane pollution from the Permian Basin—the largest-producing oil field in the United States and one of the largest in the world.
The investigation, announced Wednesday, follows a recent report by MethaneSAT, a short-lived methane-sensing satellite launched by the Environmental Defense Fund, Harvard University and others in 2024. That report, released in early February, found that methane emissions from oil and gas production facilities in the Permian Basin from May 2024 to June 2025 were four times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s official estimates.
“The inconsistency between emissions reported to EPA’s Greenhouse [Gas] Inventory and satellite data suggest that significant, previously unreported emissions may be occurring,” Whitehouse, the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a written statement. As a result, “substantial opportunities exist to reduce waste, improve operational efficiency, and mitigate climate change.”
Methane is a climate super-pollutant. Over 80 times more effective at warming the planet than carbon dioxide in the first two decades after its release, it is the second-leading driver of climate change. Its emissions also pose serious public health risks, contribute to smog formation and negatively impact agricultural production.
Whitehouse requested information by April 1 from eight leading oil and gas producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico—EOG Resources, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum, ExxonMobil, Diamondback Energy, Devon Energy, Chevron and Mewbourne Oil Company. The senator asked each company about the steps they are taking to address methane pollution in the region, how they monitor and measure their own emissions and their current estimates.
“We appreciate the Senator’s interest in this important topic and look forward to working with him to achieve our shared goal of increasing global supplies of natural gas and reducing cost for consumers and industry,” Allison Cook, a spokesperson for Chevron, said in an email.
A spokesperson for EOG Resources shared the company’s 2024 sustainability report, which noted a low rate of methane emissions, 0.04 percent of total U.S. gas production.
None of the other companies responded to a request for comment from Inside Climate News.
A spokesperson for S&P Global Energy, a research firm that focuses on energy, commodities and financial information, said the discrepancy relates to how the EPA requires emissions data to be reported. An S&P Global report published last year concluded methane emissions from the Permian Basin declined by nearly 20 percent from 2022 to 2024 as oil and gas production grew.
Sharon Wilson, executive director of the nonprofit organization Oilfield Witness, which uses optical gas imaging cameras to reveal emissions of methane and other pollutants in the Permian Basin and elsewhere, cautioned that the S&P Global report had not undergone the peer-review process customary for studies published in academic journals.
MethaneSAT’s findings hadn’t been confirmed through a peer-reviewed study published in an academic journal at the time of their release in February. However, a MethaneSAT study that includes data from the Permian is currently under review by the journal EGUsphere.
Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund and MethaneSAT project lead, said emissions from the region are “very large” and the intensity, or rate of emissions, exceeds industry targets for emission reductions.
“Bottom line emissions are far too high, and it is technically and economically feasible to reduce emissions drastically,” Hamburg said in a written statement.
Two of the companies questioned by Whitehouse, ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum, have pledged to reduce methane emissions to 0.2 percent of total gas brought to market by 2030 under the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, a voluntary industry group. MethaneSAT reported a significantly higher rate of emissions—2.4 percent of total marketed gas—for the entire Permian Basin.
A spokesperson for the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter did not respond to a request for additional information other than providing a link to the group’s 2025 annual report.
All of the companies except Mewbourne Oil are members of the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, a global emissions-reduction program for oil and gas companies overseen by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Member companies commit to an individual methane reduction target, based either on absolute emissions volume or methane intensity.
A UNEP spokesperson said they support measurement data provided by efforts such as MethaneSAT. “The transparency provided by this data is essential for industry to effectively manage emissions and for consumers, investors and others to make informed decisions,” the spokesperson said in an email.
In a press release announcing the investigation, Whitehouse stated that reducing methane emissions “can largely be done at no net cost.” Methane is the primary component of natural gas, a valuable commodity whose price has spiked due to the ongoing U.S.-Israel war in Iran.
Wilson challenged the notion of reducing emissions at little to no cost, noting that methane is considered a byproduct in the Permian Basin and that a significant buildout of additional infrastructure, along with increased equipment maintenance, would be needed. Oil is the primary commodity in the region. Pipelines needed to bring gas to market are often insufficient, resulting in a large volume of gas being flared rather than sold.
Wilson emphasized that producing oil and gas inevitably releases pollution, and permitting new sites will lead to elevated levels.
Whitehouse said stronger federal oversight is needed.
“Fossil fuel companies can’t be trusted to control their dangerous methane leakage,” he said. “There’s a significant discrepancy between reported and tracked methane emissions in the Permian Basin that demands further investigation.”
The article was originally published by Earthobservatory.nasa.gov
August 21, 2025
September 6, 2025
Ice covers about 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles) of Greenland, forming the largest ice sheet on Earth outside of Antarctica. Each summer, its surface begins to melt under the warmth of the Sun, intensified by the season’s long daylight hours and sometimes further enhanced by clouds and rain.
Greenland’s melting season usually runs from May to early September. The 2025 season was considered “moderately intense,” ranking 19th in the 47-year satellite record for cumulative daily melt area as of late August, according to an analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). This year’s season featured an extended period of melting in part of July and a sharp increase in warmth and melting in mid-August.
The mid-August spike, which was preceded by significant rainfall in some areas, peaked on August 21, when melting was observed across nearly 35 percent of the ice sheet—a record for that date, according to the NSIDC. These satellite images show the ice sheet on that day (left) and nearly two weeks later (right), along part of its southwestern edge about 150 kilometers (90 miles) northeast of the capital city of Nuuk (not shown). Both images were captured by the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9.
In the August image, a vast expanse of gray, “dirty” ice is visible. The darker appearance is due to particles like black carbon and dust that have accumulated on the ice sheet. As the snow and ice melt, these impurities are left behind, making the ice appear even darker. This darkening reduces the ice’s albedo—its ability to reflect sunlight—causing it to absorb more solar energy and melt even faster during the summer months. Several ponds of light- and deep-blue meltwater dot the ice, and scattered clouds cover part of the ice sheet in the middle and bottom-right of the scene.
By the date of the September image, a fresh layer of snow appears to cover much of the dirty ice as well as some of the land. While major melt events have occurred as late as September in previous years, they become less likely this time of year as temperatures typically drop with the Arctic’s diminishing daylight.
Scientists track seasonal melting each year because it is one of the ways the massive Greenland Ice Sheet loses ice. (Iceberg calving and melting at the base of tidewater glaciers also play a role.) As air and water temperatures have risen in recent decades, ice losses have outpaced ice gains, contributing to sea level rise.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Kathryn Hansen.
By measuring the gravitational pull of water for more than two decades, NASA satellites have peered beneath the surface and measured changes in the groundwater supplies of the Colorado River Basin. In a recent analysis of the satellite data, Arizona State University researchers reported rapid and accelerating losses of groundwater in the basin’s underground aquifers between 2002 and 2024. Some 40 million people rely on water from the aquifers, which include parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
The basin lost about 27.8 million acre-feet of groundwater during the study period. “That’s an amount roughly equal to the storage capacity of Lake Mead,” said Karem Abdelmohsen, an associate research scientist at Arizona State University who authored the study.
About 68 percent of the losses occurred in the lower part of the basin, which lies mostly in Arizona. The research is based on data collected by the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) and GRACE-FO (GRACE Follow-On) missions. The data were integrated with output from land surface models, such as NASA’s North American Land Data Assimilation System, and in-situ precipitation data to calculate groundwater losses.
The conclusions were similar to those arrived at by Arizona State University Global Futures Professor Jay Famiglietti in an analysis of the Colorado River Basin published in 2014, when his team was at the University of California, Irvine. "If left unmanaged for another decade, groundwater levels will continue to drop, putting Arizona’s water security and food production at far greater risk than is being acknowledged,” said Famiglietti, previously a senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the principal investigator of both studies.
The maps above underscore the accelerating rate of groundwater loss detected by the GRACE missions. In the first decade of the analysis, between 2002 and 2014, parts of the basin in western Arizona in La Paz and Mohave counties and in southeastern Arizona in Cochise County lost groundwater at a rate of about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) per year. Between 2015 and 2024, the rate of groundwater loss more than doubled to 12 millimeters (0.5 inches) per year.
Two key factors likely explain the acceleration, the researchers said. First, there was a global transition from one of the strongest El Niños on record in 2014-2016 to a period when La Niña reasserted control, including the arrival of a “triple-dip” La Niña between 2020 and 2023. La Niña typically shifts winter precipitation patterns in a way that reduces rainfall over the Southwest and slows the replenishment of aquifers.
Second, there was an increase in the amount of groundwater being used for agriculture. “2014 was about the time that industrial agriculture took off in Arizona,” Famiglietti said, noting that large alfalfa farms arrived in La Paz and other parts of southern Arizona around that time. Dairies and orchards in southeastern Arizona likely impacted groundwater supplies as well, he added. Other “thirsty” crops grown widely in the state include cotton, corn, and pecans. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cropland Data Layer (CDL) shows that these crops are common in several parts of southern Arizona, including Maricopa, Pinal, and Cochise counties.
Irrigated agriculture consumes about 72 percent of Arizona’s available water supply; cities and industry account for 22 percent and 6 percent, respectively, according to Arizona Department of Water Resources data. Many farms use what Famiglietti described as “vast” amounts of groundwater in part because they use a water-intensive type of irrigation known as flood irrigation (or sometimes furrow irrigation), a technique where water is released into trenches that run through crop fields. The long-standing practice is typically the cheapest option and is widely used for alfalfa and cotton, but it can lead to more water loss and evaporation than other irrigation techniques, such as overhead sprinklers or dripping water from plastic tubing.
The satellite image above, captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, shows desert agriculture in La Paz and Maricopa counties on July 12, 2025. CDL data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicates that most of the rectangular fields around Vicksburg and Wenden are used to grow alfalfa, while the fields around Aguila are typically used for fruits and vegetables, such as melons, broccoli, and leafy greens. Some of the alfalfa fields in Butler Valley (upper part of the image) have gone fallow in recent years following the termination of leases due to concerns from the Arizona State Land Department about groundwater pumping.
The new analysis found some evidence that managing groundwater can help keep Arizona aquifers healthier. For instance, the active management areas and irrigation non-expansion areas established as part of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980 lessened water losses in some areas. The designation of a new active management area in the Willcox Basin in 2025 will likely further slow groundwater losses. “Still, the bottom line is that the losses to groundwater were huge,” Abdelmohsen said. “Lots of attention has gone to low water levels in reservoirs over the years, but the depletion of groundwater far outpaces the surface water losses. This is a big warning flag.”
NASA supports several missions, tools, and datasets relevant to water resource management. Among them is OpenET, a web-based platform that uses satellite data to measure how much water plants and soils release into the atmosphere. The tool can help farmers tailor irrigation schedules to actual water use by plants, optimizing “crop per drop” and reducing waste.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Wanmei Liang, using data from Abdelmohsen, K., et al. (2025), boundary data from Colorado River Basin GIS Open Data Portal, and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Oceanic Niño Index chart based on data from the Climate Prediction Center at NOAA. Story by Adam Voiland.
Figure 1. Heat Content in the Top 700 Meters of the World's Oceans, 1955–2023
This figure shows changes in heat content of the top 700 meters of the world’s oceans between 1955 and 2023. Ocean heat content is measured in joules, a unit of energy, and compared against the 1971–2000 average, which is set at zero for reference. Choosing a different baseline period would not change the shape of the data over time. The lines were independently calculated using different methods by government organizations in four countries: the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), China’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), and the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute (MRI/JMA). For reference, an increase of 1 unit on this graph (1 × 1022 joules) is equal to approximately 17 times the total amount of energy used by all the people on Earth in a year (based on a total global energy supply of 606 exajoules in the year 2019, which equates to 6.06 × 1020 joules).4
Data sources: CSIRO, 2024;5 IAP, 2024;6 MRI/JMA, 2024;7 NOAA, 2024
Web update: June 2024
Figure 2. Heat Content in the Top 2,000 Meters of the World’s Oceans, 1955–2023
This figure shows changes in heat content of the top 2,000 meters of the world’s oceans between 1955 and 2023. Ocean heat content is measured in joules, a unit of energy, and compared against the 1971–2000 average, which is set at zero for reference. Choosing a different baseline period would not change the shape of the data over time. The lines were independently calculated using different methods by government organizations in three countries: the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), China’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), and the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute (MRI/JMA). For reference, an increase of 1 unit on this graph (1 × 1022 joules) is equal to approximately 17 times the total amount of energy used by all the people on Earth in a year (based on a total global energy supply of 606 exajoules in the year 2019, which equates to 6.06 × 1020 joules).4
Data sources: IAP, 2024;6 MRI/JMA, 2024;7 NOAA, 20248
Web update: June 2024
When sunlight and energy trapped by greenhouse gases reach the Earth’s surface, the world’s oceans absorb some of this energy and store it as heat. This heat is initially absorbed at the surface, but some of it eventually spreads to deeper waters. Currents also move this heat around the world. Water has a much higher heat capacity than air, meaning the oceans can absorb larger amounts of heat energy with only a slight increase in temperature.
The total amount of heat stored by the oceans is called “ocean heat content,” and measurements of water temperature reflect the amount of heat in the water at a particular time and location. Ocean temperature plays an important role in the Earth’s climate system—particularly sea surface temperature (see the Sea Surface Temperature indicator)—because heat from ocean surface waters provides energy for storms and thereby influences weather patterns.
Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations are trapping more energy from the sun. Because changes in ocean systems occur over centuries, the oceans have not yet warmed as much as the atmosphere, even though they have absorbed more than 90 percent of the Earth’s extra heat over the last half-century,1 and even as the rate of ocean heat uptake has doubled since 1993.2 If not for the large heat-storage capacity provided by the oceans, the atmosphere would warm more rapidly.3 Increased heat absorption also changes ocean currents because many currents are driven by differences in temperature, which cause differences in density. These currents influence climate patterns and sustain ecosystems that depend on certain temperature ranges.
Because water expands slightly as it gets warmer, an increase in ocean heat content will also increase the volume of water in the ocean, which is one of the major causes of the observed increases in sea level (see the Sea Level indicator). For all these reasons, ocean heat content is one of the most important indicators tracking the causes and responses of a changing climate.
This indicator shows trends in global ocean heat content from 1955 to 2023. Measurement data are available for the top 2,000 meters (nearly 6,600 feet) of the ocean, which accounts for nearly half of the total volume of water in the world’s oceans. This indicator also shows changes representative of the top 700 meters (nearly 2,300 feet) of the world’s oceans, where much of the observed warming has taken place. The indicator measures ocean heat content in joules, which are units of energy.
Organizations around the world have calculated changes in ocean heat content based on measurements of ocean temperatures at different depths. These measurements come from a variety of instruments deployed from ships and airplanes and, more recently, underwater robots. Thus, the data must be carefully adjusted to account for differences among measurement techniques and data collection programs. Figure 1 shows four independent interpretations of essentially the same underlying data for the top 700 meters of the ocean, and Figure 2 shows three independent interpretations for the top 2,000 meters of the ocean.
Data must be carefully reconstructed and filtered for biases because of different data collection techniques and uneven sampling over time and space. Various methods of correcting the data have led to slightly different versions of the ocean heat trend line. Scientists continue to compare their results and improve their estimates over time. They also test their ocean heat estimates by looking at corresponding changes in other properties of the ocean. For example, they can check to see whether observed changes in sea level match the amount of sea level rise that would be expected based on the estimated change in ocean heat.
Data for this indicator were collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other organizations around the world. The data were analyzed independently by researchers at NOAA, Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, China’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics, and the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute.
1 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). (2021). Climate change 2021—The physical science basis: Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J. B. R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, & B. Zhou, Eds.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896
2 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). (2019). Summary for policymakers. In The ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate: Special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157964.001
3 Levitus, S., Antonov, J. I., Boyer, T. P., Baranova, O. K., Garcia, H. E., Locarnini, R. A., Mishonov, A. V., Reagan, J. R., Seidov, D., Yarosh, E. S., & Zweng, M. M. (2012). World ocean heat content and thermosteric sea level change (0–2000 m), 1955–2010. Geophysical Research Letters, 39(10), 2012GL051106. https://doi.org/10.1029/2012GL051106
4 IEA (International Energy Agency). (2021). Key world energy statistics 2021. www.iea.org/reports/key-world-energy-statistics-2021
5 CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) (2024). Update to data originally published in Domingues, C. M., Church, J. A., White, N. J., Gleckler, P. J., Wijffels, S. E., Barker, P. M., & Dunn, J. R. (2008). Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise. Nature, 453(7198), 1090–1093. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07080
6 IAP (Institute of Atmospheric Physics). (2024). Update to data originally published in Cheng, L., Trenberth, K. E., Fasullo, J., Boyer, T., Abraham, J., & Zhu, J. (2017). Improved estimates of ocean heat content from 1960 to 2015. Science Advances, 3(3), e1601545. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1601545
7 MRI/JMA (Meteorological Research Institute/Japan Meteorological Agency). (2024). Global ocean heat content. www.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/kaiyou/english/ohc/ohc_global_en.html
8 NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). (2024). Global ocean heat and salt content: Seasonal, yearly, and pentadal fields. www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT
Utility customers will pay the price — literally — if the Trump administration continues to unnecessarily force fossil-fueled power plants to stay open in the name of grid reliability, energy experts and regulators warn.
An April executive order from President Donald Trump tasks the Department of Energy with taking unilateral authority to obligate power plants to keep operating, even after utilities, states, and regional grid operators have spent years making sure they’re safe to close.
Last week, in response to the order, the DOE released a report that claims current power plant retirements and additions put the country at massive risk of blackouts by 2030. It calls for “decisive intervention” to prevent that outcome. The agency has already used emergency powers to halt the closure of the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan and the Eddystone oil- and gas-burning plant in Pennsylvania.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated in an opinion piece published by The Economist this week that the administration’s goal is “expanding our supply of reliable energy” and “delivering more secure energy to Americans more cheaply.”
But energy analysts say the report uses worst-case scenarios to reach its conclusions, mainly by ignoring the hundreds of gigawatts of new generation — almost all of it solar, batteries, and wind power — slated to come online in the near future. Meanwhile, state regulators and environmental and consumer groups have challenged the DOE’s stay-open orders, arguing it overstepped sound grid-planning policy and precedent to solve a grid “emergency” that it has manufactured.
Ordering aging fossil-fueled power plants to stay open would force utility customers to pay billions of dollars for some of the least efficient and least reliable power plants on the grid — not to mention those worst for the climate and the health of nearby communities.
Coal has shrunk from nearly half the country’s electricity generation in 2008 to only about 15% at the start of this year, a trend driven primarily by competition from cheaper fossil gas and renewables. A June report from think tank Energy Innovation found that coal power was 28% more expensive in 2024 than in 2021, meaning consumers spent about $6.2 billion more last year than they would have for the same amount of electricity three years prior.
It’s difficult to predict how much more expensive power could get if the DOE forces additional fossil-fueled plants to stay open. But Gabriella Tosado, a senior associate on RMI’s carbon-free electricity team, offered an estimate using the think tank’s modeling for states where data is available.
RMI ran a “100% self-commitment” analysis to calculate the increase in customer costs that would come from running all coal plants at “maximum availability” throughout the year, using 2024 data. “Nationally, running coal plants more often last year would have increased customer costs by $15 billion,” or a roughly 3% increase in total annual U.S. power-sector costs, she said.
“If operators of coal plants could make more money by running coal plants more often, they would,” she said. “Running them more will only distort market prices and drive up costs for families and small businesses.”
Alison Silverstein, an energy analyst and former adviser to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, agreed. “If even an investor-owned utility wants to retire an old fossil plant, that’s telling you it’s extraordinarily expensive and highly unreliable, and they don’t think their regulators are going to give them enough money to keep the plant open,” she said.
Indeed, many U.S. utilities are operating coal plants that can’t compete on cost with gas-fueled facilities and renewables. This practice, known as “uneconomic dispatch,” allows utilities to continue to collect the costs of fuel and operations from customers to pay off their investment in the power plant, but increases the amount that customers pay for power, according to multiple studies over the past decade.
All told, think tank RMI estimates that this kind of “uneconomic dispatch” of coal plants has already put U.S. electricity consumers on the hook for $24 billion in excess expenditures from 2015 to 2024. For utility customers nationwide, including those served by utilities with little or no coal-fired power, that averages out to $9 per year. But for customers of utilities that own the most expensive-to-run coal plants, the added charge is as high as $200 a year.
Making more aging fossil-fueled power plants stay open would only further inflate these costs borne by utility customers, at a time when energy prices are already slated to soar due to Trump administration policies.
It’s especially costly to utility customers when long-running plans to close down a power plant are abruptly reversed. That’s exactly what’s happened with the J.H. Campbell plant, one of the two facilities the Trump administration has ordered to stay open in recent months.
In its case, the additional expenses associated with the sudden reversal may range from tens of millions of dollars to “close to $100 million,” said Dan Scripps, chair of the Michigan Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities in the state. That’s in addition to whatever costs come from operating the plant down the line.
The DOE’s order to keep the plant running through August came eight days before its scheduled May 31 retirement under a plan that has been in the works since 2021, Scripps explained. The utility that owns J.H. Campbell, Consumers Energy, had “exhausted their supplies of coal and other things required to run a coal plant,” he said, meaning it had to pay more expensive spot-market prices to secure them at such short notice. The utility also had to “scramble to make sure the plant was staffed,” since many employees had already been assigned to other jobs or planned to retire.
Consumers Energy might have to go through this disruptive process all over again when the initial stay-open order expires next month. Under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, the DOE can only force plants to keep running under emergency circumstances for 90 days at a time, but it’s allowed to issue more such orders with no advance warning.
“I think the sense was we could get through the summer, but if we were going to do this on 90-day cycles, at some point you have to do the repairs necessary to keep this plant — or any plant — in good working condition,” Scripps said. “With a known retirement date for the past three years, a lot of that work hasn’t happened.”
Continuing to run J.H. Campbell also undermines plans to build the new generation that makes it safe to close old power plants. To enable the shutdown of J.H. Campbell, Consumers Energy bought a 1.2-gigawatt gas-fired power plant and continued to build and contract for utility-scale solar power and battery storage.
All of these decisions were made under the longstanding regulatory compact that puts grid-reliability planning and utility regulation in the hands of states and regional operators. Those processes are “driven by data, driven by best practices, and subjected to robust scrutiny from states and other market participants,” Scripps said. For the DOE to overrule all of that work “is what’s most concerning to states.”
Cost anxieties aside, critics of the DOE’s actions insist its interventions are unnecessary because current grid-planning methods already ensure power plants won’t close if doing so will unduly increase the risk of outages. Regional grid operators have in recent years used their existing authority to delay power plant closures to maintain reliability. Utilities have also punted on or withdrawn plans to retire coal plants in the face of booming electricity demand from data centers, factories, and electric vehicles.
The DOE’s report last week doesn’t specify what actions the agency plans to take to deal with grid reliability. But Trump’s April executive order, titled “Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid,” calls on the agency to create a “protocol to identify which generation resources within a region are critical to system reliability,” and to use “all mechanisms available under applicable law,” including its Section 202(c) authority, to prevent any“critical” generator from closing.
“The question on everyone’s mind is, ‘Is this a one-off? Or is there something more sweeping that will come out of that review?’” Scripps said. “I think we’re still waiting on that.”
In the meantime, 108 power plants remain set to close by the end of Trump’s term, including 25 coal plants, according to a June analysis by The New York Times. It’s unclear if the DOE intends to permit those closures to move ahead.
“I’ve heard that from some of my colleagues from across the region, that when looking at plant retirements, if there’s a sense that DOE would force you to run it anyway, maybe you hold off,” Scripps said. “That’s the wrong way to do grid planning. But you don’t want your customers paying more than they should.”
2025 is a pivotal moment for climate action. Countries are submitting new climate commitments, otherwise known as "Nationally Determined Contributions" or "NDCs," that will shape the trajectory of global climate progress through 2035.
These new commitments will show how boldly countries plan to cut their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, transform their economies, and strengthen resilience to growing threats like extreme weather, wildfires and floods. Collectively, they will determine how far the world goes toward limiting global temperature rise and avoiding the worst climate impacts.
A few countries, such as the U.S., U.K. and Brazil, have already put forward new climate plans — and their ambition is a mixed bag. But it's still early: Many more countries, including major emitters like the EU and China, have yet to reveal their NDCs and are expected to do so in the coming months.
We analyzed the initial submissions for a snapshot of how countries' climate plans are shaping up so far and what they reveal about the road ahead.
A decade ago, the world was headed toward 3.7-4.8 degrees C (6.7-8.6 degrees F) of warming by 2100, threatening catastrophic weather, devastating biodiversity loss and widespread economic disruptions. In response, the Paris Agreement set a global goal: limit temperature rise to well below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) and strive to limit it to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F), thresholds scientists say can significantly lessen climate hazards. Though some impacts are inevitable — with extreme heat, storms, fires and floods already worsening — lower levels of warming dramatically reduce their severity. Every fraction of a degree matters.
To keep the Paris Agreement's temperature goals within reach, countries agreed to submit new NDCs every five years. These national plans detail how (and how much) each country will cut emissions, how they'll adapt to climate impacts like droughts and rising seas, and what support they'll need to deliver on those efforts.
Countries have gone through two rounds of NDCs so far, in 2015 and 2020-2021, with their commitments extending through 2030.
While the latest NDCs cut emissions more deeply than those from 2015, they still fall short of the ambition needed to hold warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees C. If fully implemented (including measures that require international support), they could bring down projected warming to 2.6-2.8 degrees C (4.7-5 degrees F). And without stronger policies to meet countries' targets, the world could be heading for a far more dangerous 3.1 degrees C (5.6 degrees F) of warming by 2100.
Now the third round is underway, with countries expected to set climate targets through 2035.
These new NDCs are expected to reflect the outcomes of the 2023 Global Stocktake, which was the first comprehensive assessment of global climate progress under the Paris Agreement. In addition to bigger emissions cuts in line with holding warming to 1.5 degrees C, the Stocktake called on countries to act swiftly in areas that matter most for addressing the climate crisis — especially fossil fuels, renewables, transport and forests — and to do more to build resilience to climate impacts.
2025 NDCs are also an opportunity to align near-term climate action with longer-term goals. Over 100 countries have already pledged to reach net-zero emissions, most by around mid-century. Their new NDCs should chart a course toward achieving this.
Under the Paris Agreement's timeline, 2025 NDCs were technically due in February. As of late May, only a small proportion of countries had submitted them, covering around a quarter of global emissions.
These early movers include a diverse mix of developed and developing nations from different regions and economic backgrounds.
Among the G20 — the world's largest GHG emitters — only five countries submitted new NDCs so far: Canada, Brazil, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. (Since submitting its NDC, the U.S. announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.)
Several smaller and highly climate-vulnerable countries have also stepped forward, including Ecuador and Uruguay in Latin America; Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe in Africa; and island states such as Singapore, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives.
That means close to 90% of countries have yet to submit their new NDCs.
There are several reasons for this. The last round of NDCs was pushed back by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, giving countries only four years to prepare new plans. Geopolitical tensions, ongoing conflicts and security concerns have further complicated progress. Many smaller developing nations are also facing capacity constraints as they work to complete biennial climate progress reports and new national adaptation plans (NAPs), also due this year.
Most countries are now expected to present their new NDCs by the UN General Assembly in September.
Compared to previous targets, the NDCs submitted so far have made a noticeable but modest dent in the 2035 "emissions gap": the difference between where emissions need to be in 2035 to align with 1.5 degrees C and where they're expected to be under countries' new climate plans.
If fully implemented, new NDCs are projected to reduce emissions by 1.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) by 2035 when compared to 2030. Looking only at unconditional NDCs (those that don't require international support), this leaves a remaining emissions gap of 29.5 GtCO2e to hold warming to 1.5 degrees C. When conditional NDCs (those that do require international support) are included, this gap shrinks to 26.1 GtCO2e.
Much of the progress in narrowing the gap comes from major emitters that have already submitted new NDCs — most notably the U.S., Japan and Brazil. Given their large emissions profiles, their new commitments account for the majority of the reductions seen so far.
While this marks progress, it's far from what's needed to keep global warming within safe limits. Getting on track to 1.5 or even 2 degrees C would require much steeper cuts than what's currently on the table.
However, this is not the full picture.
Many of the world's largest emitters have yet to submit their 2035 targets. The remaining G20 countries alone account for about two-thirds of global GHG emissions. This makes their forthcoming NDCs especially important: The scale and ambition of these commitments could meaningfully narrow the emissions gap — or, if they fall short, leave the world locked into a trajectory that puts global temperature targets out of reach.
Among the countries that have submitted new NDCs so far, the United Kingdom stands out for its ambitious climate trajectory. Following the recommendations of its Climate Change Committee, the U.K. has set a bold target to reduce emissions 81% by 2035 from 1990 levels. This rapid decline in the coming decade would put the country on track toward its net zero goal by 2050, based on realistic rates of technology deployment and ambitious but achievable shifts in consumer and business behavior.
Other countries, such as Japan and the United States, have opted for a "linear" approach toward net zero — meaning if they drew a straight line to their net-zero target (for example, 0 GtCO2e in 2050), their 2030 and 2035 targets would fall along it, reflecting a constant decline in emissions each year. Japan aims to cut emissions 60% from 2013 levels by 2035, while the United States has pledged a 61%-66% reduction from 2005 levels by 2035.
Despite the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, undermining climate policies and attempting to dismantle key government institutions, its NDC target may still provide a framework for climate action at the state, city and local levels, as well as for future administrations. Many of these entities have already rallied around the new NDC and are committed to making progress toward its targets.
However, the linear approach Japan and the U.S. are taking to emissions reductions — as opposed to a steeper decline this decade — risks using up a larger share of the world's carbon budget earlier and compromising global temperature targets.
Brazil presented a broader range of emissions targets in its NDC, committing to a 59%-67% reduction by 2035 from 2005 levels. These two poles represent a marked difference in ambition: A 67% reduction could put Brazil on track for climate neutrality by 2050, while a 59% reduction falls short of what's needed to meet that goal. It is unclear which trajectory the government intends to pursue, leaving Brazil's true ambition in question. The NDC also omits carbon budgets for specific sectors (such as energy, transport or agriculture), which would clarify how it plans to meet its overarching emissions goals. However, Brazil committed within its NDC to develop further plans outlining how each sector will contribute to its 2035 target.
Elsewhere, Canada made only a marginal increase to its target, shifting from a 40%-45% emissions reduction by 2030 to 45%-50% by 2035 from 2005 levels. This falls short of the recommendation from Canada's own Net-Zero Advisory Body, which called for a 50%-55% reduction by 2035 — and warned that anything below 50% risks derailing progress toward the country's legislated net-zero goal by 2050. While every increase in ambition counts, such incremental changes do not match the urgent pace of progress needed among developed and wealthy economies like Canada.
Several early trends are starting to emerge among the new NDCs. While these initial submissions offer valuable insights, they don't yet reflect the full picture; deeper analysis will be needed as more NDCs come in throughout the year.
Almost all of the 22 NDCs submitted thus far include 2035 mitigation measures. The exception is Zambia, which reiterated its previous 2030 pledges in a provisional NDC (although this may still be revised to include 2035 mitigation measures).
Of the other 21 submissions, 20 countries expressed their 2035 targets as emissions-reduction goals. The exception was Cuba, which instead committed to increasing renewable electricity generation to 26% and improving energy efficiency by 2035.
Seventeen of the 20 countries with emissions-reduction goals set economy-wide reduction targets for 2035, as encouraged by the Global Stocktake, covering all sectors and greenhouse gases. The remaining few — smaller developing countries such as the Maldives and Nepal — submitted targets that cover only specific sectors or gases.
Under the Paris Agreement, developed countries are required to submit economy-wide targets, while developing countries are encouraged to work toward them over time. In Nepal's case, for instance, a lack of comprehensive data limited its ability to define an economy-wide target or fully assess the impact of its policies.
Despite clear scientific evidence and UN decisions urging stronger 2030 targets, only four countries — Saint Lucia, Nepal, Moldova and Montenegro — have strengthened their 2030 emissions pledges. For example, Montenegro revised its emissions-reduction target from 35% to 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, and set a 60% emissions-reduction target by 2035.
Notably, none of the wealthier, high-emitting and more developed countries have strengthened their 2030 targets — despite having the greatest capacity and responsibility to take the lead on slashing emissions.
In the face of worsening climate impacts, 16 of the 22 countries that have submitted new NDCs strengthened their adaptation commitments — continuing a trend seen in previous rounds. Countries are prioritizing adaptation across sectors such as food and water systems, public health and nature-based solutions.
Ecuador, which is particularly vulnerable to heavy rainfall and floods, prioritized action to build resilience of its water resources, human health and settlements, as well as its natural heritage. Some developed countries are also prioritizing adaptation action in their NDCs. Canada, which has witnessed devastating wildfires in recent years, cited its National Adaptation Strategy, which provides a framework for disaster resilience, biodiversity, public health and infrastructure.
Some countries' NDCs also recognize the critical role that subnational actors — such as cities, states and regions — play in shaping and delivering climate action.
Eleven of the newly submitted NDCs come from countries that have endorsed the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP). The CHAMP initiative — launched in 2023 by the COP28 Presidency, in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and with the support of WRI and other partners — aims to strengthen collaboration between national and subnational governments on climate planning and implementation. As part of this commitment, 75 countries pledged to consult with and integrate subnational priorities and needs into their NDCs. Of the 11 endorsing countries that have submitted new NDCs, four explicitly mentioned CHAMP.
Brazil's NDC in particular recognizes the critical role subnational governments play in delivering national climate goals. Referred to as "climate federalism," it highlights an instrument designed to support the integration of climate action into planning and decision-making across all levels of government: federal, state and municipal.
As countries submit new NDCs for the first time since the Global Stocktake in 2023, a clearer picture is emerging of how governments are embedding sector-specific action into their new climate plans. From detailed emissions-reduction targets to broader policy frameworks, most NDCs are setting out concrete steps to cut emissions across sectors that largely drive climate change, such as energy, transport and forestry.
Some countries — such as Switzerland, the UAE, Kenya and Zimbabwe — have included sector-specific emissions-reduction targets directly in their NDCs. Switzerland's targets, for instance are aligned with its Climate and Innovation Act, with plans to cut emissions by 66% in buildings, 41% in transport and 42.5% in industry by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. Kenya, on the other hand, has set an ambitious target to achieve 100% renewable electricity generation in the national grid by 2035.
Others, like the United Kingdom, Brazil, Singapore, the Marshall Islands and Canada, have focused on elaborating national policies and strategies that respond to the Global Stocktake's priority areas. The U.K.'s NDC highlighted its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan to fully decarbonize electricity by 2030; the Warm Homes Plan to boost energy efficiency in residential buildings; and reaffirmed its plans for phasing out internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030.
Countries such as Brazil and New Zealand have committed to developing detailed sectoral strategies as a next step to support NDC implementation. Brazil plans to update its national climate strategy by mid-2025, breaking it down into 16 sectoral adaptation plans and seven mitigation plans. New Zealand committed to publishing its emissions-reduction plan for 2031-2035 in 2029, which will set out sectoral mitigation strategies to help deliver on its NDC.
As more countries prepare to submit their new NDCs, attention will focus on whether they follow the trend of outlining sector-specific actions to meet their broader emissions targets. In particular, the spotlight will be on how countries plan to contribute to the transition away from fossil fuels — the single largest driver of the climate crisis.
We have yet to see new NDCs from many major emitters, including the European Union, China and India. All three have demonstrated climate leadership in various ways, and their actions will set the tone for future climate efforts. While these three are in the spotlight, attention will also be on other key countries — such as Indonesia, Mexico and Australia -— that are critical to reducing the global emissions gap.
The EU is still working to set a 2035 emissions target for its new NDC, which will hinge on its longer-term 2040 target. Last year, the European Commission recommended cutting emissions 90% by 2040 — a move that's seen as beneficial for enhancing industrial competitiveness in clean technologies, strengthening energy security and cutting energy costs. Some EU member states have suggested following a linear trajectory between the 2030 and 2040 targets, which would imply a 72.5% reduction by 2035 if the 90% target for 2040 gets adopted.
However, European member states have yet to adopt the 90% target. Ongoing discussions could see the EU's target weakened to address concerns from heavy industry and agriculture. The delay in finalizing the EU's 2040 target is also putting its NDC timeline at risk, raising the possibility of missing the expected September submission date.
As the world's largest emitter, China's NDC will be critical to keeping global temperature goals within reach. The country has already made major strides in clean energy, leading the world in solar power and electric vehicle deployment. However, a surge in coal plant approvals post-pandemic has raised concerns about its path toward net zero by 2060.
China's 2035 emission target will be the first in a post-peak emissions context. Studies aligned with 1.5 degrees C and China's net-zero pledge suggest the need for sharper cuts by 2030 and continued deep reductions through 2035. In this context, some research suggests that China could reduce CO2 emissions 30% by 2035 (compared to 2020) on the way to achieve its net zero target by 2060.
President Xi Jinping announced in April that China will submit its updated NDC ahead of the UN climate summit (COP30) this November, covering all sectors and greenhouse gases. This marks a notable shift for the country: Its previous NDCs covered only CO2, but China's non-CO2 emissions alone place it among the world's top 10 emitters.
Unlike other major economies, India has some of the lowest per capita emissions, and its national emissions are still growing as the country works to eradicate poverty and achieve development goals. This means its emissions are not expected to decline by 2035, though some studies suggest earlier declines are needed. Rapid advances in renewable energy and clean technology offer a significant opportunity for the country to accelerate its low-carbon transition while also ensuring energy security and economic competitiveness.
Strengthening renewable energy commitments in India's next NDC — building upon its domestic target of 500 GW by 2030 — could chart a pathway for sustainable growth, while also delivering co-benefits like cleaner air and enhanced energy security.
The UN climate change body (UNFCCC) will release an NDC synthesis report ahead of this year's COP30 climate summit, assessing the collective impact of the new pledges submitted to that point. While this report will solidify where we're headed in relation to the Paris Agreement's temperature goals, the storyline is already clear: New NDCs will not put the world on track to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C.
The emissions gap is likely to remain dangerously wide, and the report will reaffirm what we already know — that much greater ambition and action are needed. Still, the findings will serve as a key input for this year's climate conference, where countries will decide on next steps to narrow that gap. They must address what comes after NDCs, grappling with how to turn ambition into action and keep a safer future within reach.
Ultimately, putting forward strong plans — and fulfilling them — are essential levers: not only for limiting warming, but for safeguarding the health, prosperity and security of current and future generations.
Editor’s note: A correction was made on June 3, 2025 to reflect an update in the underlying data. New conditional NDCs are estimated to reduce emissions by 1.4 GtCO2e by 2035 rather than 1.5 GtCO2e.
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