Climate Change in 2025: A Year in Review — Progress, Pitfalls, and What Comes Next

By: Harriet Willars

Editor: Elijah Eaton 

Editor-in-Chief: Grace Samuel 

The views expressed are the author's own and do not reflect the views of the International Relations Society.

 February 24, 2013. REUTERS/Stringer

With just five years remaining to meet the Paris Agreement targets, 2025 has been quite the year for extreme weather, climate goals and pending answers to the questions of what future climate policy will, and must, look like.

Extreme Weather

Early 2025 saw record-breaking wildfires in Southern California. Fuelled by powerful winds and dry conditions, the first signs of the blaze were reported on the morning of the 7^th of January. From Sacramento to San Diego, several ‘SoCal’ counties went up in flames, the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighbourhoods in Los Angeles County shouldering the hardest blow. Over 180,000 people were forced to evacuate from the greater Los Angeles area alone. The tragedy plagued the headlines, with many losing their homes. Among them were several Hollywood A-listers, including Paris Hilton and Eugene Levy.

As 2025 comes to a close, Sri Lanka is experiencing severe flooding after the powerful cyclone Ditwash struck the capital, resulting in heavy rains and mudslides across the island. As the death toll rises to 366, many still missing, monsoons exacerbated by tropical storms have caused some of the worst flooding in years across Southeast Asia.

Not unlike the European trend of considerably wet autumns, the ‘ber’ months in the United Kingdom have seen atypical weather conditions this year. The season saw above-average rainfall across the UK, following an agonisingly warm and dry summer. Rainfall in September was classed as “above normal” in England for the time of year. Regardless, the Met Office has only assured us that increasing rainfall will only be the new normal for the UK.

2025’s catastrophic collection of weather events naturally prompts reflection on how we define our evolving climate. Climate change results in more frequent and more extreme weather events; a notion all too familiar at this point, yet many of us still seemingly unbothered by it. This year provides us with a glimpse into what future years unfortunately have in store as the walls of the climate crisis’ close in. Perhaps we need to begin by redefining what comes to mind when we think ‘climate change’. Per the Oxford Reference definition, it is considered the long-term shift in world weather patterns, including temperature and rainfall. What this definition fails to account for is arguably its most significant feature: its variability, and how prone our climate is to rapid and unexpected change. Our current perception of climate change, a steady increase in the earth’s temperature, does not holistically capture the major threat the climate crisis poses to the livelihood of current and future generations.

Climate goals

Amidst the severity of weather, 2025 has also been a critical year for climate policy and action. Some pledges have been met, others fallen short, so what are the key takeaways?

Arguably the most notable climate policy closest to home was the UK government’s Carbon Budget Delay and Growth Delivery Plan, published in October this year, which outlined strategies to meet emissions targets for carbon budgets. The plan focuses on leveraging clean energy to grow the economy while simultaneously improving energy security. Sceptics have been vocal about this ambitious scheme, with Friends of the Earth being particularly critical of its “overall optimistic expectations for new technology”. Chief Executive Asad Rehman admitted it’s too soon to say how truly effective this plan may be: “There are some encouraging signs that, at long last, we have a government ready to step up and get the UK’s climate targets back on track. But we won’t know for sure until we have studied the full detail of the plan.”

COP30, the second-largest COP in history, was held from 10th to 21st November in Belém, Brazil. Ironically, the conference saw torrential thunderstorms outside the “windowless” venue, providing a suitable backdrop and sense of pressure to the talks. While international pledges were agreed upon, including more than $9 billion of funding towards the conservation of rainforests in Brazil, the glaring absence of the US from the talks paints the future of international climate cooperation as uncertain. US President Trump’s apathetic stance on the climate agenda has been overt. From “drill, baby, drill”, a common slogan indicating his desire to boost oil and gas drilling, to his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the 45th and now 47th US president is not backing down from his objectively anti-climate stance. While the USA continues to play a large role in accelerating global warming, the landscape of inconsistency in US climate policy is undeniably detrimental to the rest of the world, especially in the Global south where countries are most vulnerable to evolving climate conditions.

What comes next

2025 has been nothing short of a watershed year for the climate. Defined by record-shattering heat, cascading environmental disasters, and a mounting sense of global fragility, this current year reminds us how much remains unresolved. The pieces of the climate puzzle are still very much in motion. Yet even amid uncertainty, the imperative to push forward has never been clearer. As climate advocate Harjeet Singh put it, “we can’t discard [COP] entirely… but it requires retrofitting.” His point underscores a deeper truth: conversations and international platforms to discuss the climate crisis matter. They may be imperfect, often frustrating, but essential for accountability and steady, collective progress.

Looking ahead to 2026, the conversation cannot cease. Major gatherings such as the 2nd International Conference on Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability in Tokyo, and the Climate and Energy Summit in London this coming March, will carry the climate debate into the next chapter. Whether they deliver policy breakthroughs or enhance ever-mounting public pressure, they represent the continuing work of a world that has no choice but to confront its climatic future.