The year 2024 became the hottest in 176 years of observations: the average near-surface air temperature on Earth for the first time exceeded the pre-industrial level (the average temperature in 1850–1900) by more than 1.5°C and reached 15.1°C. The year 2025 was slightly cooler (by 0.13°C), but it continues the negative trend of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. January 2025 was the hottest January on record, and the winter of 2024/2025 ranked second by this metric. This is stated in a report by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Similar conclusions were reached by the U.S. space agency NASA and the UN World Meteorological Organization, the BBC reports.
The reports were published a week after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from 66 international organizations, conventions, and treaties that “contradict the interests of the United States.” These include the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the U.S. became the first member state to leave, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Eugene Simonov, the UWEC Work Group expert, told The Insider, scientists are also concerned about the U.S. withdrawal from regional environmental agreements, which may cease to exist altogether without U.S. participation:
“The demarche undertaken by Trump not only destabilizes the system of international institutions for cooperation on sustainable development, but above all undermines the role of the United States as an authoritative global leader. Most of the 66 organizations the U.S. has left were created and developed with significant American financial contributions, scientific input, and diplomatic influence. The greatest damage will be done to smaller regional agreements where U.S. participation was a decisive factor. For example, it is unclear whether organizations such as the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in North America, which united Canada, the United States, and Mexico, or Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU), established in 1993 by Ukraine, the U.S., Sweden, and Canada, will survive.
The U.S. withdrawal will not end the existence of most global institutions on the list, such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) or the UN International Law Commission, but it will reduce their financial stability and nullify opportunities for American influence within these organizations. The greatest harm is being done to American scientists, whose participation in the work of these 66 organizations was funded from the U.S. budget. We are already seeing extremely negative impacts of these steps on climate change monitoring by U.S. scientific institutions.
This is not Trump’s first attack on international institutions, and many have had time to prepare. For example, in July 2025, responding to the renewed U.S. decision to withdraw from UNESCO, its Director-General Audrey Azoulay stated that the organization had learned its lesson and would now lose only 8% of its funding.”
Recent posts:
- Fiber-optic web: How the use of drones on the frontlines impacts the environment
- Environmental security: a key element of Ukraine’s national policy
- Swamps vs tanks: How wetlands defend in wartime
- Ukraine scores decisive victory at World Conservation Congress
- Environmental Consequences of the War in Ukraine—October-November 2025