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In 2025, the U.S. experienced 23 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters costing $115 billion, ranking it the third-highest year on record. The year was dominated by a record 21 billion-dollar severe storm events and the costliest wildfire in U.S. history, the Los Angeles wildfires. Since 1980, the frequency of such disasters has surged, with the average time between events dropping from 82 days in the 1980s to just 10 days in 2025.

The document reports that Europe experienced a November 2025 temperature 1.38°C above the 1991-2020 mean, with record highs in central western Russia and record low precipitation in Turkey. For the January-March 2026 period, forecasts project warmer-than-average temperatures across Europe, particularly in the northeast, and generally weakly positive precipitation anomalies, though soil moisture is expected to be weakly negative in Spain, Italy, central Europe, and Turkey.

The IAI Directorate has advanced several strategic mandates between June 2025 and January 2026, including the expansion of its Associate network with the WMO and AGU, and the operationalization of the Indigenous Peoples Advisory Committee (IPAC). Key efforts focused on science diplomacy in preparation for UNFCCC COP30, the launch of transdisciplinary research programs on climate-health and ocean science, and the development of the IAI Science Diplomacy Center. The Directorate also expanded its educational reach through virtual courses on remote sensing and health adaptation, while pursuing new member state adhesion, specifically with El Salvador.

Despite the veto of SB 643, California can leverage SB 840 and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to scale its carbon dioxide removal industry, ensuring it meets its 2030 and 2045 targets while preventing homegrown companies from relocating.

The report examines asset ownership, lease-to-own, and energy-as-a-service models for solarizing health facilities in India and Kenya, highlighting the need to shift from philanthropic grants to blended finance and flexible service-based models to ensure long-term operational sustainability.

Pension funds, managing over USD 73 trillion globally, face systemic risks from climate change that could reduce returns by 33% by 2050. While 200 major funds have begun divesting from fossil fuels to fulfill fiduciary duties, third-party asset managers often maintain carbon-intensive investments. This misalignment has led pension funds to withdraw over USD 100 billion from managers including BlackRock and State Street.

The report finds that while December 2025 temperatures in the U.S. were evenly split between warmer-than-average and cooler-than-average cities, long-term trends show nearly all analyzed cities have warmed since 1970. The Southwest was the most unusually hot region, with Casper, Wyoming, recording the highest anomaly. Climate signal (CSI) was minimal nationwide, though San Juan, Puerto Rico, saw 10 days where temperatures were at least five times more likely due to climate change.

The policy brief advocates for a transition from traditional antibody-based and PCR diagnostics to aptamer-based technology to improve outbreak response and biosecurity. It highlights that aptamers—synthetic nucleic acid sequences—can be developed in weeks, produced without animal cells, and digitally distributed for local manufacture, thereby reducing supply chain vulnerabilities. The author argues that this capability enables 'deterrence by denial' by signaling to potential perpetrators that engineered bioweapons would be detected rapidly. The brief recommends that US agencies including ARPA-H, DARPA, ASPR, NIH, FDA, and USDA fund rapid-response platforms, establish regulatory pathways, and integrate these diagnostics into agricultural biosecurity.

The author contends that democracy and autocracy are mutually obstructive and that the EU must leverage financial tools like the Global Gateway and the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to build an alliance of democracies, particularly in the Global South, to prevent a global shift toward authoritarian dominance.

The Clean Air Task Force (CATF) criticizes a $100 million DOE funding opportunity, "Improving Efficiency, Reliability, and Flexibility of Coal-Based Power Plants," for diverting funds from carbon capture innovation to refurbish aging coal plants. CATF asserts this violates the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which mandates the development of transformational carbon capture technologies. Instead, CATF proposes that the DOE leverage the Office of Hydrocarbon and Geothermal Energy (HGEO) and the Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) to prioritize enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and the build-out of CO2 pipelines. The document highlights that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) of 2025 has increased the 45Q tax credit for EOR to $85 per ton, creating a timely opportunity for deployment, particularly in Wyoming and North Dakota. CATF recommends using Other Transaction Authority (OTA) and FAST-41 permitting to accelerate infrastructure development and hosting industry convenings in Q1 2026 to better align funding notices with industry needs.

The document examines the application of the Polluter-Pays Principle (PPP) to the PFAS pollution crisis, noting that clean-up costs in Europe could exceed €100 billion per year. It argues that the PPP must be expanded to cover legacy, present, and future pollution, regardless of whether it was legal at the time, and should target both producers and users. The authors recommend combining taxes, fees, and extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes with strict phase-out measures and criminal penalties to ensure that the financial burden of direct and indirect societal costs is shifted from citizens to polluters.

The document examines the systemic failure to apply the Polluter-Pays Principle (PPP) to PFAS pollution, noting that clean-up costs in Europe could exceed €100 billion annually. It proposes a framework where the PPP covers legacy, present, and future pollution—regardless of legality—and targets both producers and users. The authors advocate for a combination of taxes, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes, and risk-pooling funds to prevent public funds from bearing the cost of remediation, while emphasizing that the PPP must be paired with a total phase-out of PFAS.

The report evaluates the total greenhouse gas emissions of the Winter Olympics, highlighting the gap in official assessments regarding 'sponsorship emissions' from heavy polluters. It further analyzes the environmental consequences of these emissions, specifically the loss of glacier ice and snow cover essential for winter sports.

The document analyzes the strategies used by agribusiness to delay climate action, focusing on the 24th World Meat Congress and COP30. It identifies key industry narratives—such as the claim that meat is sustainable, essential for health, and that the industry is simply meeting inevitable demand—as tools to distract from the need for dietary shifts and methane reductions. The report highlights the role of industry-funded media, like the film 'World Without Cows', and the influence of agribusiness on the FAO and US dietary guidelines to maintain 'meat primacy' and avoid systemic reform.

The report finds that agricultural methane is a 'systemic blind spot' for major global investors. Despite significant financial exposure to high-emitting agrifood companies, most of the 25 investors analysed have no standalone methane policies or targets, often folding methane into broader CO2-equivalent frameworks. The analysis highlights that a small number of investors, including Vanguard, BlackRock, and Fidelity Investments, account for a disproportionate share of financed methane emissions. While some companies like Danone and Marfrig have set methane targets, others, such as Nestlé, have withdrawn from collaborative initiatives like the Dairy Methane Action Alliance. The report warns of increasing regulatory, transition, and reputational risks, particularly in the EU, and calls for investors to align with the Global Methane Pledge to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030.

The report analyzes the financial needs and current tools supporting the low-carbon transition of China's coal power sector, which is estimated to require over ten trillion yuan in funding. It evaluates existing domestic transition finance catalogs and debt instruments, compares them with international standards—such as those in Singapore and ASEAN—and examines multilateral mechanisms like JETP and ETM. The document concludes with six action recommendations to improve standard systems, optimize financing mechanisms, and leverage the leadership of central enterprises to ensure a credible and just transition.

The Canadian Climate Institute argues that current federal diagnostic tests for industrial carbon pricing systems primarily measure market liquidity rather than regulatory rigor, leading to 'false positives' where systems appear compliant but fail to provide sufficient investment signals. Based on modeling of 57 scenarios for Alberta's TIER system, the Institute recommends anchoring equivalence to an Effective Marginal Credit Price (EMCP) of $130 per tonne by 2030. It identifies benchmark tightening as the primary driver of rigor, while noting that direct investment tax credits systematically dilute the price signal. The Institute calls for transparent, ongoing performance monitoring and the inclusion of non-negotiable design elements, such as evolving price floors and ceilings, to ensure provincial systems meet national climate goals.

The Canadian Climate Institute argues that current federal benchmark tests for large-emitter trading systems (LETS) create 'false positives' by verifying market liquidity without ensuring the price signals are strong enough to drive decarbonization. Through modelling of 57 scenarios for Alberta's TIER system, the Institute found that 77% of systems passing federal tests failed to meet the $130-per-tonne stringency target. The report recommends anchoring equivalency to the Effective Marginal Credit Price (EMCP) and prioritizing benchmark tightening while limiting dilution mechanisms like direct investment credits.

The report argues that flexible demand—the ability to shift or reduce electricity use during peak periods—can significantly lower system costs and defer expensive infrastructure upgrades in Canada. While some provinces like Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia are implementing demand-side management (DSM) programs, the report finds that these resources remain under-deployed due to outdated regulatory frameworks, misaligned financial incentives for utilities and consumers, and a tendency for planners to treat DSM as a passive load reduction rather than an active grid resource.

January 2026 was the fifth-warmest January on record globally, characterized by significant temperature anomalies in the U.S. West and record-low snowpacks in several states. The document highlights the transition of NOAA to the Relative Oceanic Niño Index (RONI) to better account for climate change in ENSO tracking. Attribution analysis using the Climate Shift Index (CSI) indicates that extreme warmth in the northern U.S. and specific cities like San Juan and Honolulu was strongly driven by carbon pollution.