Why international law is still the world’s best defence by Fatou Bensouda, Sam Shoamanesh Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court   Mar. 2026   Should we permit the foundations of international law to erode, the world would slip once more into anarchy and chaos.   Conceived in the long shadow of global devastation, the post–World War II order was constructed -imperfect yet purposeful – to shield humanity from a similar catastrophe.   In 1943, as the tides of battle in World War II began to turn in favour of the Allied powers, United States President Franklin D Roosevelt warned: “Unless the peace that follows recognises that the whole world is one neighbourhood, and does justice to the whole human race, the germs of another world war will remain as a constant threat to mankind.”   Today, that coveted peace is increasingly fragile.   The post-war architecture conceived to avert great-power conflict, institutionalise interstate cooperation, reduce hot wars, and entrench human rights within binding international law is now under acute pressures. It faces a combustible mix of resurgent ultranationalism, hyperintensified zero-sum strategic rivalries and hegemonic power plays, the fragmentation of longstanding alliances, and the brazen repudiation of established norms.   Multilateral institutions that once underwrote stability are increasingly marginalised or instrumentalised in the service of Machiavellian politics. Foundational treaties are hollowed out or breached outright, compliance regimes weakened, and enforcement mechanisms rendered inert—leaving the post-war international system exposed to the very coercive power politics it was designed to contain.   The result is a palpable drift towards an unchecked “force-based order”, under which might displaces right, and power eclipses principle.   International orders do not suddenly unravel because of political declarations broadcast at podiums, nor because of the conduct of aberrant outliers. They collapse when those collectively entrusted with their stewardship neglect to properly defend them – when resolve gives way to timidity, principle is bartered for political expedience, and moral clarity is supplanted by double standards.   Unless the international community acts with resolve to defend and modernise the international order – fortifying rather than constraining it, including by making it more representative and meaningfully inclusive – the global system will drift toward a far more volatile and perilous disequilibrium.   The United Nations charter – one of the central instruments of the post-war legal infrastructure – is under threat. The charter enshrines the bedrock rule of the modern international order that no state may threaten or use force except in self-defence or with UN Security Council authorisation.   That peremptory norm – the foundation of the collective security architecture – is now visibly fraying. As raw power eclipses legal restraint, and the silence or equivocation of the many emboldens the few, the prohibition on the illegal use of force risks sliding from binding law into empty rhetoric.   Almost overnight, the threat of force – and even unilateral military action undertaken without legal authorisation or meaningful deliberation – has begun to crystallise into a disturbing new normal. This accelerating erosion of established norms is not a passing anomaly; it is a structural shift with profound implications for international peace and security.   Institutions of international law, which have played a decisive role in preventing conflict and advancing accountability are also threatened.   The International Court of Justice – the UN’s highest judicial body – has successfully adjudicated numerous interstate disputes, demonstrating the power of legal mechanisms over hard power and military confrontation.   Efforts to hold perpetrators of atrocities to account – from Nuremberg to the creation of UN ad hoc tribunals – paved the way for the International Criminal Court (ICC). Its creation in 2002 sent a powerful message that mass atrocities as merely politics by other means must no longer receive a pass, that perpetrators must be held accountable, and that impunity can no longer be tolerated.   The historic cultivation of these norms may be considered a crowning achievement as this normative transformation has not only awakened humanity’s consciousness regarding atrocities, but has also reshaped expectations of accountability for such grave crimes, and recast the very narrative and language with which we confront these vital questions.   And yet, those very powers that once shaped, and at least on the surface, nurtured these norms and institutions of international justice, now blatantly erode their integrity—whether by defiance, selective invocation, or politicisation. Thus, the edifice of collective restraint trembles, vulnerable to the machinations of those who prize unbridled power above principle.   To be sure, such regression diminishes the security and prosperity of all participants in the international system, irrespective of their size or influence.   Yet another grave assault on the very foundation of human rights advocacy lies in the entrenched “culture” of convenient indignation and performative empathy by states and self-serving and ideologically inclined actors alike.   Such expedient outrage and hollow sympathy erode the credibility of the pursuit of justice, undermining the universality of dignity for which we strive.   International law cannot be invoked à la carte, nor enforced with expedient selectivity.   Perhaps the greatest threat to international justice is not just outright opposition from ill-wishers but indifference and arbitrary application. The contrasting global reactions to different theatres of conflict in the past decade alone lay bare the hypocrisy that undermines faith in the universality and effectiveness of international law.   When our compassion is contingent upon political expedience, convenience or dictated by the fleeting spotlight of media attention or social media clickbait, we betray the fundamental, universal principle at the heart of human dignity.   Just as questionable are those who conveniently brandish the language of human rights not as “the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”, but as a tactical instrument of lawfare deployed against political adversaries. Such deceptive tactics not only trivialise the suffering of victims but can also fuel and perpetuate the very conditions that enable even graver human rights abuses.   Indeed, ancient wisdom bears counsel: “beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves”. In this environment, smaller states and middle powers, in particular, cannot afford passivity.   They must coordinate with strategic clarity and act with resolve to defend and reinforce a rules-based global system anchored in real and principled commitment to international law and the peaceful settlement of disputes.   Perspective is important. The Western world, even when considered as a whole, comprises about 11 to 15 percent of the global population; the remaining 85 to 89 percent of humanity resides beyond it.   In a century increasingly defined by multipolarity, the convergent interests of the so-called Global North and Global South in safeguarding peace and stability within – and one hopes beyond – their respective spheres of influence must rise above the complacencies and double standards that have long underwritten the status quo.   True advocacy demands courage – to uphold and apply the law equally and impartially, even when doing so is uncomfortable, unpopular, or personally costly.   It is the discipline to defend rights not only when they align with powerful interests, or “tribal” and prevailing sentiments but wherever justice demands it.   The legitimacy and potency of international justice are also fundamentally anchored in ethical leadership and an unwavering fidelity to principle. It is incumbent upon the stewards of international institutions, courts and tribunals to embody integrity, impartiality, and steadfast dedication to their mandates.   When these ethical foundations are shaken or compromised, the repercussions are deep and lasting: public confidence disintegrates, victims suffer renewed injustice, adversaries are emboldened, and the quest for justice is dealt a blow.   The character and courage of those at the helm are not mere virtues, but the cornerstone upon which the entire edifice of international justice stands.   This is our clarion call: should we permit the foundations of international law to erode—whether through selective justice, passive indifference, or the cynical calculus of unprincipled politics—the world would slip once more into the shadows of anarchy and chaos.   We cannot yield to a world order defined by unchecked aggression, the erosion of sovereign borders under predation, and the unravelling of hard-won international norms. To acquiesce to such decline is to legitimise disorder as a governing principle, invite instability, normalise coercion, and accelerate a descent into systematic violence.   The cost would be borne by societies worldwide, in shattered security, fractured institutions, and immeasurable human suffering. It is our shared responsibility to avert this regression.   By steadfastly upholding international law, nations around the world do more than safeguard their own futures; they erect barriers against the reckless impulses of would-be aggressors, protecting all – including the aggressors themselves – from the dire consequences of unfettered conflict.   Indifference is not an option. Wilful blindness is complicity. In standing in firm defence of international law, we are not only enforcing norms – we are shaping the trajectory of our civilisation and honouring the enduring promise of humanity itself.   The rule of law is one of humanity’s quiet triumph – a beacon guiding our gradual rise from unbridled brute force towards greater order, justice, and civilisation. We must never allow the law to fall silent, for it stands as humanity’s foremost defender.   * Fatou Bensouda is the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (2012-2021). Sam Sasan Shoamanesh served as Chef de Cabinet to Fatou Bensouda during her mandate as ICC Prosecutor.
	Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endanger public health and welfare by Union of Concerned Scientists, agencies USA   3 Mar. 2026   Politicians with no scientific expertise target science that doesn’t align with their agendas.   Scientists, engineers, lawyers, statisticians and other experts sounded the alarm Monday about the recent decision to remove a chapter on climate science from an influential reference manual designed to help judges understand complex scientific evidence.   For more than 30 years, US federal judges have turned to the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence for guidance on interpreting complex scientific issues in their courtrooms.   The reference, originally published by the Federal Judicial Center, which was established by Congress in 1994 as a research and education agency for the judicial branch, is now co-published with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.   On Jan. 29, a coalition of 27 Republican attorneys general wrote to the Federal Judicial Center, urging the center to “immediately withdraw” the chapter on climate science from the manual’s fourth edition, claiming it was biased and “rife with methodology issues.”   Accuracy and impartiality of the manual is vital, West Virginia Attorney General John B. McCuskey, who led the effort, posted that same day. “However, the newly added ‘Reference Manual on Climate Science’ chapter was written by authors who are connected to university climate studies programs that promote legal warfare against States and energy producers to push their left leaning political agendas.   Eight days later, the center informed the Republican attorneys general that it “omitted the climate science chapter” from the reference manual’s latest edition. The climate science chapter remains on the National Academies’ website.   Experts who contributed other chapters to the more than 1,600-page scientific reference manual, now in its fourth edition, were outraged to see politicians with no scientific expertise target science that didn’t align with their agendas.   “In January and February this year, that project took a troubling turn, in which partisan politics interfered with the latest edition of that handbook,” 28 authors from that volume wrote in an open letter published on Monday in Science Politics, founded last year by Georgetown University’s Science, Technology, and International Affairs Program.   The reference manual has been a valuable independent and educational resource for federal and state court judges, who have cited it more than 1,300 times, the authors wrote in the letter. “The political attack by the attorneys general on a carefully and rigorously prepared scientific publication should concern us all.”   The climate science chapter was the target this time, but it doesn’t matter which chapter it is, said Brenda Eskenazi, an environmental health expert at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, who co-authored the manual’s chapter on epidemiology.   “If I tell you how much peer review we went through, how much anonymous review, how much vetting we went through for each of the chapters, and then for some 27 politicians to come in and say, ‘No, we don’t accept this science,’ is just appalling,” Eskenazi said.   “It’s appalling that this could become something political when it’s really about science, unbiased science. If it was biased, that would have been called out in all of the reviews.”   Removing the climate science chapter “is absurd,” said Hank Greely, a bioethicist and director of Stanford University’s Program in Neuroscience and Society, who co-authored the chapter on neuroscience. “It’s part of the partisan denial that anything about climate change could be at all real.”   Greely called it “deeply annoying” to see political interference affect a reference manual that has been a useful resource not just for federal and state court judges but also for the attorneys who practice before them.   “I am pleased the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has not taken the chapter out,” said Greely, who has used the neuroscience chapter from the manual in his classes.   The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, which says it “speaks for free markets,” was not pleased. On Monday, the journal’s editorial board objected to the academies’ decision to retain the chapter as allowing the center’s “biased crusade” to live on, echoing the Republican attorneys general’s defense of domestic energy producers.   Last week, Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to the Federal Judicial Center, calling its “decision to capitulate to right-wing pressure and remove this chapter … unconscionable,” and demanding that it be reinstated.   The chapter’s co-authors, Jessica Wentz and Radley Horton, posted a response to the Republican attorneys general on Feb. 25. The attorneys general claimed that the climate science chapter would undermine judicial “impartiality” by offering “conclusive opinions on matters of serious dispute,” wrote Wentz, a legal expert at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, and Horton, a Columbia University climate scientist.   Among the findings the attorneys general objected to are that human activities “unequivocally warmed the climate” and that it is “extremely likely” human influence drives ocean warming. Yet both are direct references to findings issued by authoritative science bodies, including the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Change Research Program, Wentz and Horton wrote.   “Both concluded that there is ‘unequivocal’ evidence that human activities have warmed the climate, resulting in widespread changes to the atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, and cryosphere,” Wentz and Horton said in their response.   “Omitting the climate science chapter from the Reference Manual deprives judges of a carefully reviewed baseline explanation of the relevant science,” the experts who signed the open letter argued. “It leaves judges without a tool to evaluate the parties’ framing, sometimes cherry-picked literature and adversarially hired and paid witnesses.”   Ultimately, they concluded, “If political actors can determine which fields of established science are disfavored and off-limits to judicial education, every scientific discipline relevant to complex litigation becomes vulnerable to the same tactic.”   The fact that the National Academies’ version of the reference manual is still on its websites mitigates the harmful effects of the Federal Judicial Center’s decision, said Greely. “But as another example of inappropriate politicization of science and the desire to have science say exactly what you want it to say, nothing more, nothing less, it’s offensive.”   Eskenazi hopes people understand the extensive vetting that goes into publishing a scientific resource like the judges’ reference guide.   The chapters have gone through extensive internal and external peer review, Eskenazi said. “It’s not the place of politicians to swoop in and decide that science is not to their liking.”   http://insideclimatenews.org/news/03032026/scientific-reference-manual-for-judges-erased/ http://www.nationalacademies.org/publications/26919   19 Feb. 2026   The US Trump regime threatens International Energy Agency funding unless it stops publishing its annual road map for how countries can eliminate their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions by 2050, known as its “net zero scenario.”   Many IEA member nations have urged the agency to pay more attention to rapidly growing energy technologies such as solar panels and electric vehicles, as well highlighting the ongoing risks of increasing global warming.   The Trump regime has been pressuring countries and international organizations to scale back efforts to address climate change and instead to continue to rely on fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal, the main drivers of rising global temperatures.   Mr. Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris climate agreement, and in October 2025, successfully pressured countries to halt a global agreement to reduce emissions from cargo ships. Mr Trump has dismissed global warming as a “hoax.”   In contrasting remarks President Emmanuel Macron of France said Europe would keep working to move away from fossil fuels and to expand low-emissions energy sources like wind, solar. “Scientists alert us every day about the dramatic risks of climate change,” Mr. Macron said, adding that an “orderly, progressive transition away from fossil fuels is key.”   Global fossil fuel use is still rising year after year, with the IEA projecting that global oil and gas demand could continue rising for decades. In a craven response to US fossil fuels lobbying the IEA said it has not decided whether it would continue to offer its recommended net zero scenario.   The net zero scenario underlines the changes needed for countries to phase out fossil fuels rapidly to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by 2050. Scientists say that doing so is necessary to keep average global warming to around 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with pre-industrial levels, to limit the risks of ever increasing extreme weather events - heat waves, droughts, floods, sea-level rise, species extinctions, compounding food and water insecurity and other disasters.   http://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/19/climate/us-tells-international-energy-agency-to-drop-its-focus-on-climate-change.html http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/02/global-governments-must-use-new-un-general-assembly-resolution-to-turn-icjs-advisory-opinion-on-climate-change-into-robust-action http://insideclimatenews.org/news/11022026/earth-unprecedented-shift-from-warm-to-hot/   Feb. 2026   USA: Donald Trump's regime has repealed the bedrock scientific determination that gives the US government the ability to regulate fossil fuel pollution.   The endangerment finding, which states that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare, has since 2009 allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit fossil fuel pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources.   Former US President Barack Obama said the repeal will leave Americans “less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change – all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money”.   Former US secretary of state John Kerry said: “Repealing the Endangerment Finding takes Orwellian governance to new heights and invites enormous damage to people around the world”.   The ruling removes the government’s ability to impose requirements to track, report and limit fossil fuel pollution from cars and trucks, with transportation is the largest source of climate pollution in the US.   It does not apply currently to regulations on sources of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and fossil fuel infrastructure, which are regulated under a separate section of the Clean Air Act, but it will open the door to end those standards, too.   Trump’s EPA has separately proposed to find that emissions from power plants “do not contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution” and therefore should not be regulated. Joseph Goffman, who served as EPA air chief under Joe Biden, expects the agency will apply their vehicles-focused arguments to stationary polluters in order to kill the endangerment finding for all sources of greenhouse gas emissions.   “Instead of the entire house of cards of all EPA climate regulation collapsing all at once today, it’s going to be like a row of dominoes falling,” said Goffman, who helped write and implement the Clean Air Act and worked directly on the endangerment finding.   Scientists and environmental advocates have condemned the move as illegal and have promised to take the EPA to court over the rollback, as has the state of California.   “If this reckless decision survives legal challenges, it will lead to more deadly wildfires, more extreme heat deaths, more climate-driven floods and droughts, and greater threats to communities – all while the EPA dismisses the overwhelming science,” Gavin Newsom, the California governor, said in a statement.   Former Vice President Al Gore, a longtime climate advocate, slammed the decision as an “insult” to the American public.   “The Trump Administration’s rollback of the endangerment finding is not only a direct assault on science, knowledge, and public health, it is an insult to the people across the country who are already coping with the disastrous consequences of climate-driven extreme weather events,” said Gore.   Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works said: “The Trump EPA has fully abandoned its duty to protect the American people from greenhouse gas pollution and climate change. This shameful abdication will harm Americans’ health, homes, and economic well-being. It ignores scientific fact and common-sense observations to serve big fossil fuel political donors.”   One analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund found the full repeal of the endangerment finding combined with Trump’s proposal to roll back motor vehicle standards would result in as much as 18bn more tons of planet-warming pollution by 2055 – the same as the annual emissions of China, the world’s top polluter – and would impose up to $4.7tn in additional expenses tied to harmful climate and air pollution.   In the repeal of the endangerment finding, the Trump Administration EPA is claiming that the Clean Air Act is only meant to regulate pollution “that harms health or the environment through local and regional exposure”. But there is overwhelming scientific consensus that by trapping heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gas emissions are intensifying dangerous extreme weather events, allowing diseases to spread faster, and worsening illnesses from allergies to lung disease.   The EPA rollback comes one month after the Trump administration announced it will withdraw the US from the foundational UN Paris Climate agreement, as well as the world’s leading body of climate scientists - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).   Over the past year, current EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has launched an all-out assault on climate, air, water and chemical protections. The EPA has also removed crucial climate-focused science and data from its webpages.   “This is all part of the Trump administration’s authoritarian playbook to replace facts with propaganda, to enrich fossil fue intrests while harming the rest of us,” said Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director for the climate and energy program at the science advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Administrator Zeldin has fully abdicated EPA’s responsibility to protect our health and the environment.”   Statement by Dr. Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).   “Today, EPA Administrator Zeldin took a chainsaw to the Endangerment Finding, undoing this long-standing, science-based finding on bogus grounds at the expense of our health. Ramming through this unlawful, destructive action at the behest of polluters is an obvious example of what happens when a corrupt administration and fossil fuel interests are allowed to run amok.   “The science establishing harm to human health and the environment from heat-trapping emissions was clear in 2009. More than fifteen years later, the evidence has only mounted as have human suffering and economic damages.   Meanwhile, the continued burning of fossil fuels is causing global warming emissions to rise. The science, the facts and the law are unassailable: EPA has the obligation and the authority to regulate this pollution under the Clean Air Act, an act of Congress it’s now blatantly violating.   “The transportation sector is the single largest source of U.S. global heat-trapping emissions. By scrapping vehicle global warming pollution standards today, the Trump administration has co-signed the release of more than 7 billion tons of planet-warming emissions nationally in the decades ahead.   “Communities across the country are routinely enduring the consequences and costs of climate change, including deadly heat waves, accelerating sea level rise, worsening wildfires and floods, increased heavy rainfall, and more intense and damaging storms. EPA’s attempts to delay climate action come at a time when scientists warn that the world is on the cusp of breaching 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming—a crucial guardrail to help limit some of the worst climate harms.   “Instead of rising to the challenge with necessary policies to protect people’s wellbeing, the Trump administration has shamefully abandoned EPA’s mission and caved to the whims of deep-pocketed special interests. Sacrificing people’s health, safety and futures for polluters’ profits is unconscionable.   We all deserve better and this attack against the public interest and the best available science will be challenged. UCS stands ready to defend the Endangerment Finding in court and beyond.”   UCS filed comments on behalf of its half a million supporters and its network of more than 22,000 scientists to voice strong opposition to repeal of the endangerment finding and vehicle standards. It also submitted a letter to EPA Administrator Zeldin that was signed by more than 1,000 scientists opposing the repeal of the endangerment finding and urging Administrator Zeldin to stop dismantling critical climate regulations and fulfill the mission of the agency to protect public health.   A federal judge recently declared the Trump administration violated federal law when it secretly formed a “Climate Working Group” and tasked it with writing a dangerously slanted report that the administration then used as a basis for its proposal to overturn the Endangerment Finding last year.   http://www.ucs.org/about/news/trump-administration-takes-chainsaw-science-based-endangerment-finding-endangering-us http://www.nrdc.org/press-releases/epa-unravels-climate-protections http://earthjustice.org/press/2026/earthjustice-endangerment-finding-statement http://www.hrw.org/news/2026/03/06/new-report-warns-trump-epa-undermining-health http://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00455-6 http://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s192 http://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/press-releases http://www.nrdc.org/press-releases/epa-dismantles-protections-mercury-and-air-toxics-power-plants http://www.ucs.org/about/news/epa-attacks-health-protections-against-mercury-air-toxics http://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/20260220_mats-repeal-release/   http://insideclimatenews.org/news/11022026/as-the-trump-epa-prepares-to-revoke-key-legal-finding-on-climate-change-what-happens-next/ http://blog.ucs.org/science-blogger/internal-doe-documents-confirm-climate-report-was-created-to-justify-administration-policy/ http://www.nrdc.org/media/year-betrayal-epa-under-lee-zeldin#climate http://insideclimatenews.org/news/19122025/trumps-epa-focus-delay-rescind-dismantle/ http://www.edf.org/media/edf-and-partners-vigorously-oppose-trump-administration-attacks-endangerment-finding-and http://blog.ucs.org/kate-cell/disinformation-undermines-our-right-to-science/   Sep. 2025   A new National Academies report reviews evidence gathered by the scientific community since 2009 on greenhouse gas emissions and their effects on U.S. climate, health, and welfare.   A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute.   The report focuses on evidence gathered by the scientific community since 2009, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health and welfare. The EPA recently gave notice of proposed rulemaking indicating its intention to rescind this finding.   The report says EPA’s 2009 finding was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence. Much of the understanding of climate change that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 has now been resolved by scientific research, the report says.   “This study was undertaken with the ultimate aim of informing the EPA, following its call for public comments, as it considers the status of the endangerment finding,” said Shirley Tilghman, professor of molecular biology and public affairs, emeritus, and former president, Princeton University, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “We are hopeful that the evidence summarized here shows the strong base of scientific evidence available to inform sound decision-making.”   To prepare its report, the committee considered widely available datasets that provide information about greenhouse gas emissions, the climate system, and human health and public welfare; a broad range of peer-reviewed literature and scientific assessments.   The report concludes:   Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activities are increasing the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere. Human activities, such as the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, cement and chemical production, deforestation, and agricultural activities, emit greenhouse gases, which include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases, into the atmosphere. Total global GHG emissions continue to increase. Multiple lines of evidence show that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the primary driver of the observed long-term warming trend.   Improved observations confirm unequivocally that greenhouse gas emissions are warming Earth’s surface and changing Earth’s climate. Trends observed include increases in hot extremes and extreme single-day precipitation events, declines in cold extremes, regional shifts in annual precipitation, warming of the Earth’s oceans, a decrease in ocean pH, rising sea levels, and an increase in wildfire severity.   Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change harm the health of people in the United States. Climate change intensifies risks to humans from exposures to extreme heat, ground-level ozone, airborne particulate matter, extreme weather events, and airborne allergens, affecting incidence of cardiovascular, respiratory, and other diseases. Climate change has increased exposure to pollutants from wildfire smoke and dust, which has been linked to adverse health effects.   The increasing severity of some extreme events has contributed to injury, illness, and death in affected communities. Health impacts related to climate-sensitive infectious diseases — such as those carried by insects and contaminated water — have increased. New evidence is developing about additional health impacts of climate change, including on mental health, nutrition, immune health, antimicrobial resistance, kidney disease, and negative pregnancy-related outcomes.   Changes in climate resulting from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases harm the welfare of people in the United States. Climate-driven changes in temperature and precipitation extremes and variability are leading to negative impacts on agricultural crops and livestock, even as technological and other changes have increased agricultural production. Climate change, including increases in climate variability and wildfires, is changing the composition and function of forest and grassland ecosystems.   Climate-related changes in water availability and quality vary across regions in the United States with some regions showing a decline. Climate-related changes in the chemistry and the heat content of the ocean are having negative effects on calcifying organisms and contributing to increases in harmful algal blooms. U.S. energy systems, infrastructure, and many communities are experiencing increasing stress and costs owing to the effects of climate change.   Continued emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities will lead to more climate changes in the United States, with the severity of expected change increasing with every ton of greenhouse gases emitted. Total global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase, and additional warming is certain. All climate models — regardless of assumptions about future emissions scenarios or estimates of climate sensitivity — consistently project continued warming in response to future atmospheric GHG increases. Applying fundamental physics of the Earth system leads to the same conclusion. Continued changes in the climate increase the likelihood of passing thresholds in Earth systems that can trigger tipping points or other high-impact climate impacts.   http://www.nationalacademies.org/news/national-academies-publish-new-report-reviewing-evidence-for-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-u-s-climate-health-and-welfare http://climateandhealthalliance.org/press-releases/cross-cutting-report-reveals-devastating-global-health-impacts-of-fossil-fuels-thru-production-life-cycle-across-human-lifespan http://lancetcountdown.org/2025-report/ http://www.un.org/en/climatechange/information-integrity http://www.unfccc.int/news/step-back-from-climate-cooperation-will-hurt-us-economy-statement-from-un-climate-chief-on-us http://www.ciel.org/news/trump-executive-order-withdraws-un-climate-pacts http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2026/01/trump-impact-on-global-climate-action/ http://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/over-3000-climate-litigation-cases-are-reshaping-global-climate   http://wmo.int/news/media-centre/wmo-confirms-2025-was-one-of-warmest-years-record http://climate.copernicus.eu/global-climate-highlights-2025 http://climate.copernicus.eu/rapid-approach-15degc-global-warming-threshold-paris-agreement http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/turk-hails-landmark-icj-ruling-affirming-states-human-rights-obligations http://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/institute-responds-to-international-court-of-justice-advisory-opinion/ http://insideclimatenews.org/news/11022026/earth-unprecedented-shift-from-warm-to-hot/ http://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(25)00391-4
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