The United States and climate change

Climate change events that present the most urgent and severe challenges for the United States (US) are heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes and floods. These extreme events have long been associated with climate change due to the widespread use of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels use results in the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which is subsequently transformed into greenhouse gas that traps heat and warms the atmosphere, which then triggers extraordinary global climate conditions. The United States is considered to be the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China.

Globally, 2024 is the hottest year on record and the Union of Concerned Scientists publication in November of that year stated that, “Heat waves, floods, storms, and wildfires are breaking records and impacted nearly everyone in the United States,” and that “by mid-August [2022] everyone in the US lived in a county that had experienced at least one of these events.” The publication goes on to argue that the May 2024 heat waves began in Texas, where it lasted for many days, it claims “the border cities of Brownsville and McAllen set daily records at 100°F and 102°F, respectively, while Del Río broke its own monthly record of 109°F, then a few days later it broke that record when temperatures hit 112°F.” Next, heat wave erupted in far away eastern states, “June 19 marked the first-ever excessive heat wave on record for northeast Maine in a nearly nine-day heat wave that stretched from Ohio to the mid-Atlantic.”

As 2024 progressed so did the heat waves. The above publication contends that the ‘Third Avenue Bridge’ in New York that links Manhattan to Bronx, failed to operate because its steel structure got swollen due to the excessive heat, and that for periods of June and July the heat waves continued in parts of Western United States, “in Death Valley National Park [California], temperatures of 128°F grounded rescue helicopters that could not safely fly to rescue motor cyclists affected by heat. And in Washington state, triple-digit temperatures expanded the asphalt along a county highway.” Heatwaves create dry vegetation which then creates an ideal situation for wildfires, Union of Concerned Scientists states that “404 wildfires—threatening 1.6 million acres—were active in the US as of October 21, 2024 according to American Forests.” As an example, it wrote, “The Park Fire, affecting Tehama and Butte counties in northern California, started on July 24 (allegedly caused by an arsonist) and burned nearly half a million acres.”

The 2024 hot and dry conditions in the US continued into 2025 and on January 7, 2025 massive wildfires broke out in Los Angeles. As Earth.org tells it in an article on February 4, 2025, “When the fires started on January 7, LA County was tinder dry after experiencing its hottest summer in at least 130 years and receiving only 0.16 inches (4.1mm) of rain since last May.” Citing the World Weather Attribution (WWA), the article says “while wildfires in Southern California are not uncommon, they are more likely to occur because of climate change,” and that the WWA “found that the hot, dry, and windy conditions that fuelled the recent fires were made about 35% more likely due to human-made warming, which is primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas.” The WWA is made up of Scholars from leading Universities, including Imperial College, London, University of Oxford, Princeton University, and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Dehli. The Organization’s mandate is to assess how and to what extent climate change helps to foster and or intensify extreme global climate events. The January 2025 Los Angeles Fires devastated many homes and businesses and according to Earth.org, the fires extended to over 57,000 acres of land and took 29 lives.

Hurricanes are regular experiences for southern and eastern US states, and usually they cause massive floods, property and infrastructure destruction and deaths. The geographic location and physical structure of the US mainland make it naturally susceptible to hurricanes. More precisely, the Gulf of Mexico is somewhat like a circular basin, surrounded to a large extent by southern Mexico, and by the southern US gulf coast, including the Florida southern peninsula. This pulls in moving circular currents and wind from the warm Atlantic ocean and Caribbean sea, thus creating a natural mix for hurricane formation. Five hurricanes made landfall in the US southern States, including Florida, in 2024. In June there was Hurricane Beryl, writing in October 2024, NPR claims Beryl became “the most powerful hurricane ever recorded so early in the season. It caused widespread damages across the Caribbean before making landfall in Texas as a Category 1 storm on July 8, and leaving more than two million people in Houston without power.”

The next 2024 hurricane was in August and NPR claims it was Hurricane Debby that descended on “the Big Bend area of Florida on Aug. 5 as a Category 1 storm, and inundated the region with heavy rainfall.” Then in early September came Hurricane Francine, it “made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 2 storm on Sept. 11, causing surprise flooding in New Orleans and leaving over 400,000 people without power.” Hurricane Helene came in late September 2024, it “hit the Big Bend area of Florida on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 storm, and went on to drive catastrophic flooding across the Southeast,” according to NPR. Hurricane Milton came in early October, it made landfall in Florida on October 9 as a category 3 hurricane, it caused widespread floodings and destroyed multiple residences and businesses.

According to the NPR article, climate change is directly associated with and has a direct impact on hurricanes, “To put it simply, warmer ocean temperatures fuel more powerful storms – and climate change is driving record-high sea surface temperatures.” It Claims that climate change affects the quality but not the quantity of hurricanes, “Climate change has not led to an increase in the total number of hurricanes hitting the U.S. each year. But the storms that do form are more likely to become more intense, with higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and more severe storm surge.”

The US experiences a fair amount of flash floods as well. for example in the early morning hours of July 4, 2025, when most people were asleep, a massive flash flood hit Kerr and surrounding Counties in rural Texas. Kerr County is about a 60 to 70 miles north west of San Antonio. The Guadalupe river which runs through the counties rose to almost unprecedented levels and swept away homes and other forms of property including a girls’ summer camp called Camp mystic. It was occupied with sleeping young girls at the time, and situated too near to the banks of the rising river. As the Texas Tribune puts it on July 9, 2025, “Heavy rains over the weekend that pushed the Guadalupe River in Texas’ Hill Country to its second-highest height on record had by Tuesday resulted in more than 100 reported deaths, including 27 children and counselors from Camp Mystic.”

With regard to climate change and its role in this event, the Tribune says “Climate scientists said the torrential downpours on July 4 exemplify the devastating outcomes of weather intensified by a warming atmosphere. These disasters, they said, will become more frequent as people around the world continue to burn fossil fuels and heat the planet.” The Tribune, referring to the findings of ‘Climameter’ concerning July 4, says “natural variability alone can’t explain the changes in rain associated with the exceptional weather, the report said, and [it] points to human-caused climate change as one of the main drivers of the event.” Climameter is a Paris based organization that assesses global weather impacts in the context of climate change.

In terms of the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity in the United States Ember Energy claims, “42% of US electricity was generated from low-carbon sources in 2024, just above the global average of 41%. It was the 2nd largest country by electricity demand.” Of the 42%, nuclear is 18% and wind and solar are 17%, but fossil fuels were still used, 58%, to generate the majority of its electricity in 2024, as reported by Ember. The US gets credit by Ember Energy for its steady elimination of the use of coal, a fossil fuel and a major carbon dioxide emitter, in electricity production,
“In 2024, wind and solar, [renewable energies], together generated more electricity in the US than coal for the first time, with coal’s share in the mix falling to an all-time low of under 15%.” Of the fossil fuels used in electricity generation, coal is considered to be the emitter of more carbon dioxide than any other, mainly through its prolific use in power plants across the globe.

As to what the future holds, Ember says, “Based on policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the US was expected to reach 59% renewable electricity by 2030,… however, actions taken by the Trump administration may steer the US onto a different course.” The Inflation Reduction Act is a law passed by the Biden Administration, that in part, sought to use federal financial incentives to boost the use of renewable energies and electric vehicles. The program has been paused with the intent of elimination by President Trump , loans, grants and other incentives are no longer being disbursed. Ember contends though that some states are countering President Trump with local pro-climate laws, and these together with the entrepreneurial spirit of investors, will continue to move, at least those states, away from fossil fuels use and towards renewable energies. Ember Energy is a global consulting company whose energy and data experts assess and report on countries’ progress in transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energies, in the electricity production sector. Its headquarters is in London, UK.

Addressing the demise of the Inflation Reduction Act’s support for the expansion of the use of renewable energies, Investor’s Business Daily wrote in August 2025 that, “the U.S. auto industry has leaned long and hard on federal support to make a mark in electric vehicles. But after the July 4 signing of the “Big Beautiful” budget into law by President Donald Trump, that support is about to come to an abrupt end…U.S. EV sales could explode in the coming weeks as buyers rush to make the tax-credit deadline. Then the fun will end and automakers will face hard decisions.” Assessing the practical impacts that are about to occur, it says, “the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles will expire on Sept. 30. Trump’s budget legislation also ends zero-emission vehicle credits, which funneled money to EV manufacturers from makers of gasoline vehicles. And it ditches fines for companies not meeting corporate average fuel economy standards.”

Investor’s Business Daily claims that Electric vehicle sales in the United States in 2023 was 1.2 million, which represented a 49% increase over the precious year. Citing the opinion of an automotive analyst, it contends that the Inflation Reduction Act contributed to the increase. Not surprisingly, Investor’s Business Daily states that “sales quickly slowed to 8% growth, or 1.3 million new EVs in 2024,” and that in 2025 “the slowdown has continued, U.S. EV sales dropped 6.3% in the second quarter. That left electric vehicle sales up just 1.5%, to 607,089, in the first half of 2025, according to Cox Automotive data.” Cox Automotive is a data driven vehicle marketing company based in Atlanta, USA. The elimination of the Federal Government’s financial support for electric vehicles and renewable energies in general, will enhance the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and cede the global electric vehicle market to other countries like China. Globally, road transportation, which is still largely powered by fossil fuels, creates a big portion of the carbon dioxide that is emitted into the atmosphere, which according to the Paris Agreement is a major contributor to Climate Change.