2026 climate actions deserving a watchful eye
With the new calendar year less than a month old and the second Trump administration now in its second year in office, we review some climate and climate-related developments deserving a careful watch in 2026, a follow-up to our post looking back at major developments in 2025.
Given the scope and depth of the upheaval of U.S. environmental, economic, and international policy in 2025 and the first few weeks of 2026, it is reasonable to expect more of the same this year. We categorize these developments in a few broad categories: climate change science and policy, climate-related energy developments, and developments involving major American institutions, such as the judiciary and the news media.
As with our 2025 “look back,” we don’t suggest that this list is in any way complete, as new and unforeseen developments and initiatives brought about by the Trump administration or by other forces are inevitable. Take this as a work-in-progress, a list of potential climate developments deserving a watchful eye.
University and federal agency climate science research
Major academic and key federal agency climate research activities will face continued funding and programmatic anxieties and uncertainties involving traditional federal funders, likely including profound cutbacks blocking ongoing and new research. The impacts likely will extend well beyond threatened zeroing-out of federal funds in many cases, regardless of what the U.S. Congress may do as part of ongoing legislative and budgetary reviews. Researchers and research managers, roiling in uncertainty and concern, are likely also to face increased “brain drain” from American universities involving both faculty and undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate programs.
How will the jitters over climate research influence the charitable and program climate work of nongovernmental organizations and independent foundations? And how might the continuing tussle between the federal government and Harvard have impacts in academia far beyond Harvard?
Administration plans for shutting down the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), and numerous other government-supported research groups, would create major gaps in science understanding. It’s unclear at this point how and whether the House and the Senate will reverse some of the proposed cutbacks and eliminations. How the administration will move forward on restricting climate science research is even more uncertain.
A too-frequently overlooked but critical issue involves the fate of the Facilities and Administration or “overhead” rates on federal grants and contracts. The administration’s proposed maximum rate of 15% likely will devastate some major university research efforts and force other institutions to deep-six those efforts entirely.
Look for signs that top foreign research universities are recruiting or “raiding” U.S. universities’ top researchers. Also important to monitor are the declining numbers of top students seeking U.S. university educations and post-doc experiences, as they too look to overseas schools. The likely “brain drain” will have dire implications for future climate research, analysis, and public understanding of climate science and impacts.
Rulemaking and regulatory initiatives
The Trump administration is likely to continue and expand efforts to “bullet proof” its actions, to limit a future administration’s ability to reverse some of its greenhouse gas and energy initiatives. Where it can achieve final legislation rather than relying on executive orders, it likely will do so. In what cases for instance, might the administration get a Supreme Court affirmation of its efforts to water-down or reverse the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, which is the basis of federal action on greenhouse gases? What other EPA rulemakings, proposed or under consideration in 2025, can be adopted as “final” regulations in 2026? And how will inevitable legal challenges to those rules weather judicial reviews, including some sooner or later reaching the Supreme Court?
How, if at all, might the administration’s 2025 initiatives be challenged or overturned by the House and Senate in 2026? For example, will Capitol Hill interest in restoring some research budget cuts succeed? And, if so, will potential presidential vetoes succeed or fail?
If Congress reverses administration budget cuts, another uncertainty could bear watching. Will the administration seek to withhold funds already appropriated, as the Office of Management and Budget director has suggested in some cases?
News media face continuing challenges, uncertainties
Major national print, broadcast, and cable news outlets face daunting, and in some cases existential, competitive challenges – including substantial declines in readers and viewers lost to an expanding web of “new” and “social” media.
Federal support for NPR and PBS has been eliminated, and CNN faces a change in ownership. Will these outlets experience pressure to reduce or alter their climate change news programming?
The expanding application of artificial intelligence (AI) will have both positive and negative impacts on journalism, affecting the full range of routine practices such as story selection, sourcing, reporting and editing, and distribution to diverse audiences. In addition, the field will be increasingly vulnerable to rising unemployment and increased “ageing out” of veteran and specialized (ergo science) reporters. Will AI be used improperly – either by the media themselves or by their audiences – and lead to further erosion of public confidence in erstwhile trusted news sources?
Litigation by and in some cases against the Trump administration could have a pervasive influence well beyond the immediate subject(s) of the court cases themselves. For instance, The New York Times is suing and is being sued by the Trump administration, and court decisions in either of those two cases likely would echo across journalism generally.
Renewable energy sources vs. fossil fuels
In addition to opposing clean-energy technologies and initiatives, the Trump administration is moving to support fossil fuel production and use, in numerous cases giving preference to coal, oil, and gas in permitting, taxation, and export efforts. Federal lands are being made more available to fossil fuels development and extraction. How far will these efforts go, and how will the courts respond to legal challenges?
The new year will bring continued, though slowed, development and use of electric vehicles and renewable power sources. How might international competitors – in particular China – capitalize on the U.S. focus on fossil energy in an effort to further position itself to lead in these emerging future technologies?
The administration has been especially aggressive in blocking offshore wind development, but an initial court ruling poses roadblocks to those efforts. How will that litigation develop throughout the new year?
Administration rulings face judicial challenges
Rulings by individual district court judges up through full appeals courts and ultimately the Supreme Court will have profound precedential implications for Executive Branch actions. In some cases, individual decisions in unrelated categories – for instance involving tariffs and Executive branch influence over independent federal agencies – may rebound on climate actions. Will such impacts be few and narrow, or may they in some cases have more widespread effects?
Under its major questions doctrine the Supreme Court has rejected action by Executive agencies in cases involving issues of “vast economic and political significance” and where Congress has not clearly empowered the relevant agency. Will it come into play in a decision regarding EPA’s Endangerment Finding or in the administration’s challenges to other climate actions by previous federal agencies?
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Bud Ward spent five decades as an environmental and climate change journalist and educator.
Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.
Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.
Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.
Kristie Ebi is a principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.