Last year had plenty of harmful actions against the environment, mostly by the Trump administration, but there were bright spots:

• Pew reports that the annual U.N. climate conference in Brazil set the stage to protect wetlands. So-called “blue carbon” sinks such as salt marshes, mangroves and seagrasses are recognized for their value in capturing carbon dioxide, shielding communities from the full impacts of storms, and sustaining fisheries — making them key to mitigation and adaptation strategies.
• In a sign that U.S. energy markets are becoming more diverse and competitive, last March was the first month the United States recorded generating more than half its electricity from non-carbon-based sources.
• China’s carbon emissions seemed to plateau last year. If that trend holds, it means the world’s largest contributor to global greenhouse gases might have plateaued, the Washington Post said.
• Targeted conservation efforts logged some wins for wildlife. Green sea turtles are no longer endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
• After the removal of four dams in Oregon and California’s Klamath River, salmon returned after having disappeared for more than a century.
• Support for nuclear energy reached a new high in 2025, with 59% of Americans backing it.

Cuts threaten Illinois, U.S.

Illinois is one of 14 states with the biggest cuts to its state environmental agency, according to a report by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. As a result, there could be fewer protections from pollution and fewer inspections.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has had big budget cuts and a 21% reduction in staff since 2010, EIP said.

What’s worse, as the Trump administration seeks a 55% cut to the federal EPA for Fiscal Year 2026, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) — the non-profit group of more than 130 colleges and universities that runs the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) — was notified by the National Science Foundation that it was dismantling NCAR, its president, Antonio Busalacchi, told Nature magazine.

A world-leading Earth-science center based in Boulder, Colo., NCAR observes and creates models that reinforce a wide range of U.S. and global research, especially on climate.

“It’s just another unbelievably reckless blow to American science,” said Dawn Wright, an oceanographer and geographer at Esri, a geographic-information-system company in Redlands, Calif. “If the NSF does follow through with these plans to break up NCAR, that’s just going to decimate a huge chunk of the U.S. climate research that we all depend on.”

NSFs notification requested information regarding divesting, transferring or restructuring various components of NCAR. It mentioned NCAR’s research aircraft fleet and its supercomputing center in Cheyenne, Wyo., as components that might be relocated.

The administration criticized NCAR’s perspective.

“This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” wrote Russell Vought, Trump’s budget director, and the White House issued a statement calling NCAR “the premier research stronghold for left-wing climate lunacy.”