On the campaign trail, Donald Trump’s focus was on the economy — and alternative energy are increasingly cheaper than fossil fuels.

The Brazilian city of Belém will host this year’s UN climate summit, Cop30, in November. It will be the tenth summit since the Paris agreement was signed in 2014 (the pandemic meant we missed a year) and it’s expected to be a particularly important meeting, as countries lock in their next set of pledges to reduce emissions.

There is nothing political about the wildfires that have annihilated thousands of buildings around Los Angeles this week, with two exceptions. The first is that California and Los Angeles are run by leaders from the Democratic Party, meaning that anything bad that happens in those places happened on their watch.

Incoming Attorney General Dave Sunday didn’t mention climate change on the campaign trail, but fossil fuel donations tell a different story.

Canada’s climate policy stands at a crossroads. The carbon tax, a key policy achievement for the Liberals which was once heralded as a cornerstone of the country’s strategy to tackle climate change, now faces intense political opposition.

In a year of record-setting heat, intensifying extreme weather and a bitterly partisan presidential election in which climate change was almost never mentioned, the transition away from fossil fuels made significant progress that was still not nearly enough. It was that kind of year.

This has been a significant year for sustainability globally, with COP29 negotiations at times on a knife-edge, a new Labour government elected in the UK and the U.S. election sending shock waves. The year brought positive developments in the UK - from the extension of North Sea oil and gas windfall tax to the regulation of ESG rating providers,

“If the consumer facing carbon tax is eliminated, it will leave holes in both the province’s budget and climate plan, and potentially be regressive for low-income households depending on what happens to the climate action tax credit,” stated the Nov. 26 2024, letter to Minister Adrian Dix.

The pall that descended on the latest U.N. climate confab in the wake of Donald Trump’s election was justified. It’s a foretaste of things under an administration determined to part company with global environmentalists.

“Fact-checkers have just been too politically biased, and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S.,” Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said in a video message announcing the company's move away from fact-checking. David Zalubowski/AP

“President Carter was four decades ahead of his time,” said Manish Bapna, who leads the Natural Resources Defense Council. Carter called for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions well before “climate change” was part of the American lexicon, he said.