It’s been a tough 12 months if you happen to care about local weather change coverage in the USA.
In Washington, the second Trump administration has moved rapidly to dismantle the scaffolding of federal local weather motion: pulling the US out of the Paris Settlement (once more), freezing or clawing again clear power funding, fast-tracking fossil gasoline tasks, and even threatening the authorized basis of federal local weather regulation itself.
With the assistance of Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, complete local weather, science, and conservation applications have been gutted, public servants fired, and local weather language scrubbed from federal web sites. And simply final week, the administration moved to dismantle the Nationwide Middle for Atmospheric Analysis — arguably the world’s most important climate-science analysis establishment that touches almost each nook of US climate and local weather forecasting, from wildfire modeling to the computational spine universities depend on.
So after we printed Escape Velocity again in April — a mission arguing that the clear power transition had gathered sufficient financial and technological momentum to turn into successfully unstoppable — it was truthful to wonder if that thesis may survive this onslaught.
The previous eight months counsel it may well.
Wanting again on the interval since we printed the mission, what’s shocked me most isn’t how a lot went mistaken — it’s how a lot progress saved taking place anyway. Listed below are seven developments from 2025 which have me feeling longing for our future.
• Even with the Trump-era rollbacks, clear power continued to develop as a result of it’s now cheaper, quicker, and structurally troublesome to cease.
• All over the world, photo voltaic, wind, batteries, and EVs are profitable on price — which suggests adoption not is determined by local weather advantage or pleasant governments.
• The world isn’t ready for the US. China, Europe, and rising markets are driving the transition ahead, whether or not Washington participates or not.
• However even within the US, crimson and blue states alike have saved increasing clear energy — typically for purely financial causes.
• This shift is sticky. Initiatives breaking floor now will form the grid for many years, locking in progress that future administrations can’t simply undo.
1) Renewables formally eclipsed fossil fuels globally
In 2025, the clear power transition crossed a line that might be laborious to uncross. For the primary time, renewables overtook coal because the world’s main supply of electrical energy. Within the first half of the 12 months, photo voltaic, wind, and hydropower generated 34.3 % of world electrical energy, edging previous coal’s 33.1 % — a quiet however historic turning level. Simply as hanging, photo voltaic and wind didn’t merely develop alongside rising demand — they met it totally. As international electrical energy use rose about 3 %, photo voltaic and wind enlargement lined 100% of that improve, with photo voltaic alone supplying greater than 80 %.
The tempo of change has been startling. The world added 380 gigawatts of latest photo voltaic capability in simply six months — a 64 % bounce from the identical interval in 2024 — placing 2025 on observe to shatter data but once more. What as soon as felt like “various power” is now the most affordable, quickest energy humanity has ever constructed.
Invoice McKibben captures this inflection level in his 2025 guide Right here Comes the Solar, arguing that the actual breakthrough isn’t a brand new know-how, however the realization that the power transition is lastly operating on economics, not idealism. The solar, it seems, is doing precisely what it at all times has — and finally, we’re prepared to make use of it.
If Purpose 1 is that the transition crossed a threshold, Purpose 2 is who pushed it there: China has turned clear power into the default international possibility.
China is now the single most necessary pressure within the international clear power transition. It’s putting in huge quantities of photo voltaic, wind, and battery storage at residence — however simply as importantly, it has pushed manufacturing prices so low that clear power is reasonably priced virtually in all places else. (Let’s even be clear that that is all taking place as China continues to take extra of an all-of-the-above method — boosting coal and pure fuel capability, too.)
That’s why rooftop photo voltaic is spreading quickly throughout Europe, South Asia, and the International South. It’s why batteries are getting cheaper. And it’s why many nations not face a stark alternative between local weather motion and power entry.
3) Coal is shedding — even the place it as soon as appeared untouchable
A world transition solely issues if it exhibits up within the hardest locations. In 2025, it did.
Poland, certainly one of Europe’s most coal-dependent nations, generated extra electrical energy from renewables than from coal for the primary time in June. Coal additionally fell beneath 50 % of Poland’s electrical energy combine for a whole quarter — a symbolic and materials break from the previous.
In the meantime, within the UK, coal has all however disappeared from the grid, whereas wind has turn into the nation’s single largest energy supply. Sadly, within the US, nonetheless, the Trump administration is attempting something it may well to avoid wasting coal, which is starting to modestly decelerate its charge of decline right here.
Coal demand nonetheless reached a document excessive in 2025, but it surely’s clear that we’re at or nearing the height. The longer term prognosis is terminal: Coal is dying just because it’s shedding the mathematics.
4) With out Trump actually noticing, the states grew to become the spine of US local weather motion
Regardless of aggressive rhetorical and coverage assaults on renewables, photo voltaic continues to dominate new electrical energy technology in the USA. And photo voltaic power is the star of 2025: By early December, photo voltaic accounted for roughly 75 % of all new technology put in this 12 months, far outpacing wind, fuel, and nuclear.
We are able to thank the states for that.
In 2025, states handed clear power affordability legal guidelines, modernized grids, invested in transit, expanded photo voltaic entry, repealed coal bailouts, launched heat-pump rebates, and defended tasks underneath federal assault.
From Illinois and Maine to Nebraska, Ohio, and Oregon, progress got here not from sweeping nationwide laws however from dozens of smaller — and arguably extra sturdy wins.
And the place it will get actually fascinating is in Trump nation. This 12 months, 80 % of US photo voltaic manufacturing funding went to Republican-held districts, and a lot of the prime solar-installing states now vote crimson. Texas leads as photo voltaic enlargement within the state is on observe to produce extra electrical energy on the state’s energy grid than coal for the primary time. Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, and others are shut behind. Of the 20 states that put in probably the most photo voltaic capability since 2024, 14 of them voted for President Donald Trump final 12 months, and there may be now extra photo voltaic capability put in in Trump states than in states that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris.
All of which means, mockingly, we’re really within the midst of a growth dash.
States throughout the nation are racing to fast-track wind and photo voltaic tasks earlier than Trump’s rollback of federal clear power tax credit takes full impact. The credit, created underneath the Inflation Discount Act, reduce mission prices by 30 to 50 %, making them “the monetary spine of almost each renewable power mission at the moment within the pipeline,” mentioned Patty O’Keefe of Vote Photo voltaic.
Since Trump ended the credit in July, states together with Colorado, Maine, California, New York, Oregon, and Minnesota have accelerated allowing, procurement, and grid connections to assist builders break floor earlier than the July 4, 2026, building deadline.
These tasks will preserve producing energy for many years, that means at present’s scramble will completely tilt the power system barely extra towards renewables, no matter what occurs in Washington subsequent.
5) Electrical automobiles are gaining traction. Sure, actually.
This 12 months, multiple in 4 new vehicles bought globally was at the least partially powered by an electrical motor.
That surge wasn’t led by the USA and even Europe, however by rising markets — particularly in Southeast Asia — the place EVs have gotten the plain alternative for brand spanking new patrons. Globally, greater than 25 % of latest vehicles bought thus far this 12 months have been both an EV or plug-in hybrid.
Based on a brand new report printed this week by international power assume tank Ember, which analysed accessible month-to-month knowledge for 60 nations, new markets are making a speedy change to plug-in automobiles, placing to mattress the idea that EV adoption would stall exterior of Europe and China.
Within the US, the story is messier, with coverage uncertainty slowing adoption of extra environment friendly vehicles. However globally, the route is obvious: automakers are designing for an electrical future as a result of that’s the place the shoppers are.
For years, critics dismissed wind and photo voltaic as unreliable. In 2025, battery storage lastly made that argument really feel outdated.
The US hit record-breaking storage installations this 12 months, with utility-scale batteries strengthening grids and absorbing low-cost renewable energy when it’s considerable — then delivering it when it’s wanted. Creating applied sciences are already extending lifespans and reducing prices; photo voltaic mixed with battery storage and wind with battery storage as a combo deal are even on observe to undercut fossil fuels in price worldwide earlier than the tip of the last decade.
That is what makes renewables infrastructure, not simply power sources.
7) The Information Middle elephant within the room
Okay, okay — by this level within the story, I do know what you’re considering: What about knowledge facilities???? Isn’t the insatiable buildout of AI going to derail any constructive developments?
It’s true that knowledge facilities are sprouting up throughout the American panorama like weeds. As of November 2025, the US had constructed 5,427 knowledge facilities — with capability up by greater than 40 % because the begin of 2025 — making it the world’s largest knowledge middle market by a major margin. As knowledge middle demand explodes, firms more and more depend on renewables like photo voltaic and wind by means of energy buy agreements — however as a result of these sources are intermittent, builders are pairing them with battery storage and, extra typically, pure fuel crops to offer round the clock reliability. In follow, meaning knowledge facilities are pulling closely on clear power the place accessible, whereas leaning on fossil fuels, particularly fuel, to ensure fixed energy as grids and storage wrestle to maintain up.
However there’s even a silver lining right here: Because the grid wants an increasing number of power, grid operators are more and more trying to construct out general capability with renewable power sources as a result of they’re so low-cost.
After which there’s additionally one thing fascinating taking place that makes me really feel hopeful about local weather activism: As AI-driven knowledge facilities unfold throughout the U.S., neighborhood backlash is rising — and quick. This appears like a goal that the environmental motion, which has appeared unmoored for fairly a while now, may glom onto. In locations like suburban Philadelphia, Michigan, Georgia, and Virginia, residents are organizing towards large knowledge facilities over considerations about rising electrical energy payments, air pollution, and noise.
Energy costs are already spiking for American shoppers, and neighborhood opposition has delayed or canceled almost $100 billion in tasks thus far. What’s hanging is how bipartisan and native the resistance is — and the way politically potent it’s turning into. Information facilities are turning summary local weather and power points into tangible, neighborhood-level fights, providing local weather activism a brand new, concrete goal with broad public attraction.
And simply final week, Bernie Sanders, the unbiased senator from Vermont, proposed a moratorium on new knowledge facilities as a result of he says synthetic intelligence is coming alongside too rapidly and we’d like time for “democracy to catch up.”
The larger story is hopeful — but it surely’s not over but
None of this implies the local weather battle is received. Clear power is rising quick, however not but quick sufficient to keep away from critical hurt. Infrastructure bottlenecks stay. Inequities persist. And US political sabotage carries actual prices.
However the clear power transition not is determined by a single election, a single nation, or a single president. It’s being pushed by economics, know-how, and international demand — forces which might be far more durable to reverse than a regulation.
America could also be selecting to surrender its head begin. The remainder of the world isn’t ready.
And each megawatt we construct anyway nonetheless issues — as a result of each fraction of a level we keep away from is lives saved, futures preserved, and disasters that by no means occur.
