The bad news for the global climate is that US greenhouse gas emissions were up 2.4 percent in 2025 after they had declined the two previous years. The worse news is that the new figure does not yet reflect the anti-climate policies put in place by the Trump administration and the Republican Congress.

It would be one thing if the increase corresponded to a boom in industrial output, i.e., if a surging manufacturing sector used more energy, which in turn had lead to higher emissions.

However, that is not the case, according to the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm that compiles an annual report on greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Instead, even though the growth rate of the real gross domestic product slowed compared to the previous three years, emissions were still on the rise.

Instead, the primary drivers of the uptick were a colder winter, which caused Americans to consume more oil and gas to heat their homes.

Furthermore, data centers used by tech companies to power their artificial intelligence products led to a noticeable increase in the demand for electricity that will likely not slow down in 2026 and beyond.

While that alone is troubling news for those who believe that human activity causes global temperatures to go up, and that this will have calamitous results for the planet, the actions of those who think all of this is a “hoax,” i.e., President Donald Trump and his Republicans, are even more concerning.

“Our longer-term outlook for US [greenhouse gas] emissions changed sharply this past year,” the Rhodium Group stated. While it had previously projected that emissions would be down between 38-56 percent in 2035 compared to 2005, the researchers had to significantly adjust their models.

Now, they estimate that these emissions will only decline by 26-35 percent.

While that may still sound like good news, scientists believe that greenhouse gas emissions have to be slashed significantly to prevent a temperature increase that will lead to more severe natural disasters across the globe, droughts, sea-level rises, the loss of species, and human conflict sparked by a decrease in habitable spaces.

The European Union, for example, believes that its existing policies will cause greenhouse gas emissions to be cut in half by 2035 compared to 2005.

Therefore, a reduction of even 35 percent in the US would lag behind America’s peer nations.

The Rhodium Group attributes this development to changes to energy tax credits made in 2025, as well as the Trump administration’s repeal of climate regulations.

In addition, the president is on a crusade against wind power and other forms of renewable energy, which will be reflected in the coming years.

And that is the most troubling aspect of the report. We are seeing this reversal even without taking into account Trump’s policies.

“Apart from some modest contributions to increased coal generation from Department of Energy orders to keep a few plants running, we aren’t yet seeing the direct effects of these policy changes in US emissions,” the Rhodium Group stated. “That could change in the coming year or two, particularly if data center electricity demand continues to surge and the grid responds with more output from existing fossil generators instead of new, clean resources.”

So, will we see this trend continue in 2026 and beyond?

Not necessarily… and not because it isn’t happening, but rather because the Trump administration has stopped collecting the data needed to compile this kind of report.

“Given the Trump administration’s hostility to collecting and reporting data related to climate change, we may not receive any further inventories under this administration,” the Rhodium Group stated in its report.

“The loss of this data means we are heading into murkier waters when it comes to understanding the second-largest emitter of [greenhouse gases] in the world,” the report adds. “While US emissions rose, 2025 was the second- or third-hottest year on record across the globe. Because emissions and their impacts persist even when the government does not count them, we will continue to adapt to this new landscape in order to inform critical US energy and climate policy debates.”