Climate and environment updates: Wind and solar generated record amount of US electricity in 2025

Energy Star, the Environmental Protection Agency’s voluntary energy-efficiency labeling program, will continue for at least another year.

The Trump administration signaled last year that it was considering ending support for the program, but Congress has maintained funding during the recent appropriations process. President Trump signed the legislation into law last month.

The budget provided $8.82 billion in funding to the EPA, roughly $4.7 billion above President Trump’s request. EPA’s fiscal 2026 budget still represents a modest decrease compared with last year’s $9.14 billion, though the Energy Star program receives a roughly $1 million increase.

Energy Star was established during President George H.W. Bush’s administration more than three decades ago. In 2021, more than 300 million Energy Star-certified products were purchased, according to the EPA, saving the average household around $450 per year on energy bills.

In April 2025, more than 1,000 companies, cities and organizations sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin urging the agency to maintain the Energy Star program. The letter noted that the program’s fiscal 2025 budget of about $32 million, roughly 1 % of the EPA’s total spending, saves American households more than $40 billion annually on energy bills.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

Despite the Trump administration's goal of defunding key science agencies, departments and programs that are playing a critical role in monitoring weather, climate and space, Congress has largely pushed back on that effort and provided significant funding through the end of the fiscal year.

Budgets for NASA, the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) passed with bipartisan support as Congress largely rejected the steep cuts proposed in the Trump administration.

Despite the Congressional pushback, President Trump signed the legislation after the White House expressed support for the financial package, saying it "avoids a bloated omnibus package and adheres to a fiscally responsible topline agreement that decreases overall discretionary spending.”

Sen. Patty Murray, D‑Wash., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and ranking member of the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, said in a statement, "We rejected Trump's plan to slash the funding for scientific research and the National Science Foundation's budget by 57 percent, [cut] NASA's science budget in half, and devastate NOAA and climate research that all of us rely on for accurate weather forecasting—whether we know it or not!”

NOAA, for example, saw its funding remain nearly the same as FY 2025, at $6.17 billion, compared to just under $6.18 billion. That's about $1.67 billion above President Trump's request, which had proposed cutting the agency's budget by about 25 percent.

The funding also addresses staffing concerns at local National Weather Service (NWS) offices, providing additional funding to help them reach full staffing levels, including a $10 million increase to the NWS's primary mission of analyzing, forecasting, and supporting meteorological activities.

The Trump administration's proposed budget called for eliminating NOAA's research division, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), and for significant reductions to other key offices, including the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), the world's largest provider of weather and climate data. OAR leads NOAA's weather and climate research and develops many of the forecasting tools meteorologists rely on to produce timely and accurate forecasts.

The cuts would have shut down NOAA's nationwide network of research labs and cooperative institutes, including the Global Systems Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model, a critical tool in modern weather forecasting, was first developed more than a decade ago. The HRRR model helps meteorologists track everything from severe thunderstorms and extreme rainfall to wildfire smoke.

The Global Monitoring Laboratory, also based in Boulder, is another NOAA research lab that would have been affected. It oversees operations at Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii's Big Island, which has maintained the world's longest continuous observation of atmospheric carbon dioxide and has been crucial to understanding how human-caused greenhouse gas emissions fuel global warming.

While Congress rejected eliminating NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, it approved the administration's recommendation to move three major weather research programs, including the U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP), from OAR to the National Weather Service. The USWRP is an interagency federal initiative aimed at advancing research to improve forecasts for severe weather and other high‑impact events.

- ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

The Arctic, often seen as a remote landscape of ice and snow, plays a central role in regulating the planet's climate. But it's now experiencing significant changes with cascading impacts felt across the globe.

According to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Arctic recently experienced its warmest year on record, fueling melting glaciers, shrinking sea ice and shifts in local ecosystems. The region is warming much faster than the global average, meaning these impacts are expected to escalate rapidly in the coming decades, with consequences that reach far beyond the region itself.

NOAA's annual Arctic Report Card highlights that the region's warmest years on record have occurred within the past decade, with 2025 reaching a new all-time high. Annual air temperatures in the Arctic are measured using the water year, October through September, which accounts for the hydrologic cycle and avoids splitting the cold season.

Over the past two decades, Arctic air temperatures during autumn and winter have risen more than twice as fast as the global average. Globally, 2025 is on track to rank as the second or third warmest year on record, according to the latest data analyzed by NOAA.

"This Arctic Report Card highlights how, despite the vast distances, components of the Arctic system are both closely connected and rapidly changing," said Matthew Druckenmiller, a senior scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the National Snow and Ice Data Center and lead editor of the report.

The persistent warming trend has contributed to declining snow cover and a shortening snow season. While the past winter season brought above-average peak seasonal snowpack to both the North American and Eurasian Arctic, overall Arctic snow melt is occurring one to two weeks earlier than historical averages. June snow cover extent over the Arctic has declined by about 50 percent on average since 1967 and last winter brought the shortest snow season on record (since 1998) for portions of Arctic Canada, according to the report.

Arctic sea ice extent remained near record lows throughout the past winter season, resulting in the lowest annual maximum sea ice extent on record (since 1979) in March 2025.

Ongoing glacier loss is driving steadily rising global sea levels, putting Arctic communities' water supplies at risk, fueling destructive floods, and increasing landslide and tsunami hazards that threaten people, infrastructure, and coastlines, according to NOAA.

Loss of snow and ice cover reduces the Arctic's ability to reflect incoming sunlight, disrupting Earth's energy balance.

"The loss of reflective snow surfaces in June, when incoming solar energy reaches its annual peak, results in more heat absorbed at the surface, contributing as a feedback to Arctic warming," said Gerald (J.J.) Frost, a senior scientist with Alaska Biological Research, Inc. and veteran Arctic Report Card author.

Reduced snow cover not only promotes further warming but also increases the wildfire threat in the region. These compounding factors create a self-reinforcing cycle that amplifies global warming and makes it increasingly difficult to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

For thousands of years, the vast Arctic tundra has acted as an essential carbon sink, removing heat-trapping greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. However, NOAA's 2024 Arctic Report Card revealed a startling shift, showing that rapidly warming conditions and rising wildfire activity are turning the region into a source of carbon dioxide emissions.

This year's Report Card documents another troubling and striking change in the Arctic, rusting rivers. In Arctic Alaska, iron and other elements released by thawing permafrost have turned more than 200 pristine rivers and streams orange over the past decade, a significant increase from the previous year's findings. The report found that these rusting rivers degrade water quality, increasing acidity and toxic trace metal concentrations.

"The orange color in these streams comes specifically from oxidized iron, but in addition to iron, we're seeing elevated acidity and toxic metal concentrations like zinc, copper, and aluminum," said Abagael Pruitt, researcher at the University of California, Davis and co-author of the report. "As the Arctic continues to warm, this phenomenon is expected to continue, with significant consequences for water quality, aquatic biodiversity, and the communities that rely on these streams.”

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

Meteorological fall (September-November) was unseasonably warm and dry across much of the contiguous United States, ranking as the third-warmest fall on record, behind 2024 and 2016, according to a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Above-average temperatures were most pronounced in the Plains and western U.S., with seven states, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington each experiencing their warmest fall on record.

The Southeast recorded its driest fall since 1978 (the sixth driest on record), with Georgia receiving less than half its seasonal average rainfall. Meanwhile, much of the eastern U.S. experienced below-average precipitation, while wetter-than-average conditions prevailed in the Southwest and Plains. Furthermore, several counties in southeastern Arizona, as well as the city of Phoenix, had their wettest fall on record.

The season ended with warmer-than-average and drier-than-average conditions across much of the Lower 48, and November ranked as the fourth-warmest on record. Five states, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Utah, saw their warmest Novembers on record. Precipitation was below average across much of the eastern U.S., with South Carolina marking its lowest November rainfall since 1931 and Florida experiencing its third-driest November on record.

Widespread, persistent drier-than-average conditions in November led to the expansion and intensification of drought across parts of the country.

According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report released on Dec. 2, about 41.4% of the contiguous U.S. is experiencing drought conditions. Although this represents a 2.3% decrease since the beginning of the month, drought has developed or intensified significantly across the Southeast, southern Plains and upper Mississippi Valley in recent weeks. In contrast, much of the western U.S. saw a reduction in both drought coverage and intensity.

For the remainder of December, above-average precipitation is favored across a large swath of the eastern U.S., from the western Gulf Coast to New England, as well as parts of the northern Rockies and northern Plains, likely bringing drought improvement or removal in some areas. In contrast, below-average precipitation is favored across the central Plains and Florida Peninsula, meaning drought conditions will likely persist or worsen through the end of the month, according to the latest forecast from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

- ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck