Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Dan Gearino as they discuss the good, the bad and the ugly in climate news from 2025.
What a year: policy fiascos, natural disasters and a steady march toward a future that is too hot.
The Trump administration’s dismantling of environmental protection rules exceeded expectations, and on the world stage, the United States largely ceded its leadership role in climate policy to China.
Each December, Inside Climate News takes a look back at the most consequential stories our team tracked across the year.
Dan walks us through this year in climate, from attacks on science to the major cuts at federal agencies and the rapid rise of data centers – with some good news thrown in at the end.
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Go behind the scenes with managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins and reporter Kiley Bense as they discuss how Pennsylvania is failing to track toxic oil and gas waste, while the amount sitting in landfills grows every year.
Pennsylvania is ground zero for the fracking boom. It’s increased natural gas production there 37-fold since 2008. That production generates a lot of waste, but the state’s ability to track it has failed to keep up.
A decade ago, regulators promised to improve reporting standards for the waste, which can include radioactive material, heavy metals and carcinogenic chemicals. But a new Inside Climate News investigation found huge discrepancies in state records, making it hard for Pennsylvania to enforce regulations around spills, leaks, transport and dumping on roads or in public waterways. “It could be dumped right next to somebody’s house and they would not even know,” a former state regulator told ICN.
Kiley, who’s been digging into this issue all through 2025, explains what happens to oil and gas waste in Pennsylvania, what it means for residents, and the consequences of having so few guardrails.
Read the story: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Georgina Gustin as they describe how a new Chinese-backed megaport in Peru could push the Amazon rainforest past its breaking point.
When a massive Chinese-backed port opened in Chancay, Peru, it was the realization, nearly two decades in the making, of a dream to revolutionize global trade by connecting South America to Asia with a straight-shot shipping route across the Pacific.
The port — Peru’s first project under the banner of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and China’s flagship infrastructure investment in South America — brings tremendous economic opportunities, but also environmental threats.
The port reawakens old ambitions of roads, railways and water routes that could connect the riches of the Amazon to the continent’s west coast and the world’s largest ocean, efforts that scientists warn could speed the destruction of the world’s most climate-critical ecosystem.
Georgina, our award-winning agriculture reporter who spent a month in Peru reporting this story, explains the enormous complexities and consequences flowing from the new port’s development and how its magnetic pull may spell disaster for communities and ecosystems in its orbit.
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Go behind the scenes with managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins and reporter Anika Jane Beamer as they explain why no one knows what happens to 110 billion pounds of manure produced in Iowa every year.
Iowa raises about 23 million hogs each year. That many animals produce a lot of manure — some 110 billion pounds of it — but no one keeps track of where it goes.
That’s a problem. Most manure from Iowa’s concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) gets spread as fertilizer across the state’s cropland, but if it isn’t handled well, the manure ends up in waterways, triggering algal blooms, polluting drinking water and endangering public health.
Anika Jane, ICN’s Iowa reporter, explains how the state’s tracking system is failing, practical steps to solve the problem, and why Iowa’s manure problem matters to residents both in and outside the state.
This story is a collaboration between Inside Climate News and Sentient Media.
Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and climate science reporter Bob Berwyn as they break down the key outcomes of COP30.
COP30 has wound down in Belém, Brazil – the U.N. climate change conference marked this year by Indigenous rights demonstrations, an actual fire, and not a lot of movement on global climate action.
Before leaving Belém, Bob explains what happened at COP30, both within the formal proceedings and adjacent to them; how American influence was woven into the process; and what to look for leading up to next year’s COP31 in Turkey.
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and climate science reporter Bob Berwyn as they explain the key issues setting the agenda at this year’s U.N. climate change conference.
COP30 is underway in Belém, Brazil, where nearly 200 countries have gathered for high-stakes global climate negotiations.
Notably absent is the United States. President Donald Trump, who called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” in a September address to the U.N. General Assembly, sent no federal delegation.
From his reporting space in Belém, Bob shares an update on the conference so far: America’s absence and China’s influence, what California Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing at COP, and what can come of this year’s discussions, from adaptation indicators to financing and a possible action plan.
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and New York City reporter Lauren Dalban as they discuss what Mamdani’s election signals for climate issues in the Big Apple.
Climate activists celebrated Tuesday night as assemblymember Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City.
Mamdani, a previously obscure politician who rose to power through an unrelenting campaign for affordability, has vowed to address climate issues while in office — enforcing the city’s building decarbonization law, enacting his green school policy and handling the climate change-related issues residents often face, like flooding and extreme heat.
Lauren explains Mamdani’s record on climate issues to date, how climate activists played a role in his campaign and what they’ll be watching for as soon as he takes office.
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Katie Surma as they discuss how scientists are using AI to understand sperm whale communications, a discovery that could upend the way we interact with them.
What separates humans from other species? The answer to that question may no longer be language. With the help of artificial intelligence, robotics and new recording technologies, scientists are edging closer to understanding whale communications and to perhaps one day even holding a conversation.
The advances could strengthen legal protections for these animals, including the most powerful safeguard of all: rights. Katie, who covers international environmental justice and the rights of nature, explains how scientists are using AI to cross the language barrier with whales, how close they are to actually conversing, and what new research says about the “immense new legal world” that could emerge from it.
Read the story: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29...
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and renewables reporter Dan Gearino as they discuss how Virginia has become the data center capital of the world.
Virginia, especially Northern Virginia, leads the world in data center development, far outpacing other top markets like Beijing. How did this come to be?
Watch as Dan explains the history of this top data center boom town, the risk of an impending AI bubble, and what residents and regulators think of these very big buildings with very small parking lots.
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In October 2007, ICN opened its doors with a two-person team and a little bit of pilot funding. The day the website launched, it had 102 visitors: the second day, just 53.
Today, the newsroom looks different: ICN has grown from a staff of two people to 40, and from only 100 readers to reaching many millions. Once just a small office in Brooklyn, ICN has opened reporting hubs in regions across the country and established bureaus coast to coast.
In honor of ICN’s 18th anniversary, Vernon and David sit down to reflect on the newsroom’s defining moments, the pivotal moves to cover climate locally and globally, and what’s ahead for the team, the media landscape, and the climate crisis.
Read our reporting: https://insideclimatenews.org
Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and North Carolina reporter Lisa Sorg as they discuss a never-ending fight over forever chemicals in NC drinking water.
Environmentalists have been fighting for over a decade to get PFAS out of the Cape Fear River in eastern North Carolina. The insidious chemicals have eluded traditional water treatment systems and flowed through the taps of hundreds of thousands of people.
Advocates scored a brief victory last year when the EPA announced new regulations to reduce PFAS in drinking water. Now the Trump administration plans to rescind them — leaving residents who fought for the standards devastated and enraged.
Lisa explains how pervasive PFAS contamination is in North Carolina, where the chemicals come from, and what comes next for communities locked in this “forever war.”
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporter Katie Surma as they discuss the violent crackdown on environmental and human rights activists in Ecuador.
Last year, an average of three environmental defenders were killed a week around the world. Last week, Efraín Fueres became one of the slain.The Indigenous land defender was shot and killed in Ecuador amid protests against the high costs of living and government crackdowns on Indigenous and environmental activists.
The country’s government sent troops into communities, declared a state of emergency, and cut internet and phone service. Ecuador’s President, Daniel Noboa, is now seeking to rewrite the country’s constitution – putting its strong protections for the environment and for Indigenous peoples at risk.
Katie explains what precipitated this crisis in Ecuador, the prevalence of such killings around the world, and what it all means for the expanding rights of nature movement.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29...
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Did you hear the one about the space lasers starting forest fires? Fringe conspiracy theories like this still swirl in certain parts of the internet. But some climate change disinformation is harder to spot – it’s subtle, sophisticated, and circulated by trusted sources.
Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle and ICN’s chief science writer Bob Berwyn to break down the facts and fiction in climate discourse today.
They start with a report recently issued by the U.S. Department of Energy – a document commissioned to help set the stage for getting rid of federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.
Watch as Marianne and Bob explain what mainstream climate scientists think of this report, what climate change disinformation has in common with Big Tobacco, whether climate skepticism is a uniquely American phenomenon, and much more.
Some 640 million acres of the United States are owned by the federal government for the benefit of the people. These public lands, widely loved by Americans, are being pulled in multiple directions over questions of who gets access, how the land is used and managed, and what values should guide those choices.
Managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins sits down with three ICN journalists who’ve been tracking these questions closely: Wyatt Myskow, who covers the Southwest; Jake Bolster, who covers Wyoming and the West; and senior editor Michael Kodas, who has deep expertise about both public lands and wildfires, subjects that frequently intersect.
Watch as they explain what’s happening with public lands right now under the Trump administration, what role these lands play in climate change, and whose voices are being heard in the debates, from tribal nations to businesses and the American public.
Most of the meat we eat in the United States isn’t raised on small farms or fenced fields, as it was decades ago. Today, it comes from large concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as CAFOs.
These industrial facilities house thousands of animals in close quarters – generating tremendous amounts of manure, climate-polluting methane, and a host of issues for neighbors.
Managing editor Jamie Smith Hopkins sits down with four ICN journalists who have reported on CAFOs: Georgina Gustin, who covers agriculture and the many ways that farming, food systems and the environment intersect; Lisa Sorg, who covers North Carolina, one of the nation’s top hog producers; Phil McKenna, who reports on climate superpollutants like methane; and Anika Jane Beamer, who covers Iowa, where manure from CAFOs contributes to a long-running and far-reaching water contamination problem.
Watch as they explain what we know – and don’t know – about CAFOs, the scale of the pollution they cause, what it’s like to live near one of these facilities, and whether elected officials and policymakers are doing anything about them.
China has invested more than $1 trillion in overseas infrastructure projects through its massive Belt and Road Initiative.
Chinese corporations are building roads and railways, dams and ports, in developing countries around the world – an initiative marked by both its enormity and opacity.
Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with reporters Katie Surma, Nicholas Kusnetz, and Georgina Gustin, who are investigating the Belt and Road Initiative for ICN’s “Planet China” series, and have been reporting on projects in Zambia, Indonesia, Peru and Argentina.
Watch as they assess China’s claims to be “greening” the Belt and Road Initiative, discuss why China’s overseas investments may be more important than any other country’s, and explore what Chinese-led development means for the environment and for people living near projects around the world.
Spoiler alert: Yes, AI is bad for the climate. AI’s computing power relies on massive data centers that use enormous amounts of electricity and water.
The Trump administration wants that energy to come from burning fossil fuels, rather than renewable sources. Where does that leave the climate and communities caught in the crosshairs?
Executive editor Vernon Loeb sits down with Dan Gearino, ICN’s clean energy reporter; Arcelia Martin, who covers renewable energy in Texas; and Alabama reporter Lee Hedgepeth, who has been writing about a controversial data center planned in his state.
Watch as they discuss the prospects for big tech and clean energy under the Trump administration, how Texas has become a leading renewables state, what communities think when data centers move in next door, and how the commitments of tech giants could change what’s ahead.
Go behind the scenes with Inside Climate News' executive editor Vernon Loeb and Washington bureau chief Marianne Lavelle as they discuss the future of the environmental justice movement amid Trump cutbacks.
The environmental justice movement suffered a striking blow this year when the Trump administration rescinded $3 billion in grants to support EJ initiatives. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin terminated the grant programs and eliminated the EPA’s environmental justice office after the president tried to rebrand EJ as a “radical and wasteful” form of reverse discrimination and racial preferencing, lumping it together with DEI.
The announcement hit Charles Lee particularly hard. Lee spent 26 years advancing EJ initiatives at the EPA, fighting to help communities that bear a disproportionate burden of pollution and climate risks. He put in his notice to retire, rather than stay through a second Trump administration.
Marianne—who wrote a poignant profile on Lee’s life and work—explains what’s happened to environmental justice programs since the rescissions, the real distinction between DEI and special preferences, and what comes next for the environmental justice movement.
Read the story: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21072025/trump-administration-dismantles-epa-office-of-research-and-development/
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and reporters Martha Pskowski and Liza Gross as they discuss new reporting on the climate super-pollutant methane.
The Trump administration says that drilling in the U.S. is cleaner than in other countries due to tighter environmental oversight. But Texas, the heart of America’s oil and gas industry, tells a different story. The state’s regulator grants nearly every request to burn or vent gas into the atmosphere. When this happens, the release also sends out toxic air contaminants that have escaped notice, until now.
A new tool from an independent science research institute is revealing the harms these emissions may cause to human health.
Martha and Liza share more of their findings, explaining how the Trump administration is putting the brakes on efforts to reduce methane emissions, what’s included in the “chemical soup” that makes up natural gas, and whether there’s any truth to the president’s claim of “clean” oil and gas production.
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Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and clean energy reporter Dan Gearino as they discuss the mounting demand for electricity to power AI.
The data centers that power artificial intelligence require huge amounts of electricity. Some experts estimate we’ll need as much as 25% more electricity by 2030, and 78% by 2050, to meet this demand alone. Whether that electricity comes from renewable energy or fossil fuels has big implications for climate change.
Dan explains why we should care about all this data center growth, what the current trajectory looks like, and ideas for a better path forward — for consumers and the climate.
Read the story:https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28...
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