The emissions of the United States increased by 2.4% in 2025, breaking with two consecutive years of reduction.
In this way, the increase in greenhouse gases (GHG) reversed the positive trend that the country maintained in 2023 and 2024.
This is indicated by the latest data from Rhodium Group: the study details that the emissions of the United States grew faster than the economy last year.
While the real GDP had an expansion of 1.9%, emissions rose by 2.4%. This reversed the decoupling between emissions and economic activity of the previous three years.
Despite the increase, emissions in the United States were 6% lower than pre-pandemic levels of 2019. They were also 18% lower than those of 2005.
Coal and data centers drove the increase in U.S. emissions
The increase was mainly due to the construction and energy sectors. Commercial buildings, with data centers and cryptocurrency mining operations at the forefront, drove electricity demand up by 2.4%.
This demand was concentrated in the regions of Texas, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Ohio Valley.
The increase in natural gas prices and the growing energy demand boosted electricity generation from coal, which soared by 13%.
This resulted in a 3.8% increase in emissions from the electricity sector. In this scenario, some companies delayed their plans to close coal plants.
Colder winter temperatures drove higher heating demand.
This raised direct emissions from fuel use in residential buildings by 6.8%, as the vast majority of homes use natural gas.
Meanwhile, emissions from the industrial sector increased modestly by 1.3% due to higher activity. Those from oil and gas slightly rebounded by 0.5% due to increased production.
Despite record travel activity, transportation emissions remained essentially stable at 0.1%. This was due to the growing adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles.
Trump’s anti-environmental policies, a future risk
Rhodium Group emphasized that U.S. emissions last year were not particularly affected by the policies of President Donald Trump’s Administration.
However, they projected that these could have increasing effects in the coming years.
Specifically, they forecasted that U.S. GHG emissions will decrease by 2035 between 26% and 35% below 2005 levels.
This represents a “substantial” slowdown in the reduction of emissions compared to the firm’s forecasts for 2024, when it projected a decrease of 38-56% by 2035.
This slowdown is largely due to changes in tax credits driven by Congress.
The repeal of climate regulations by the Trump Administration also influenced.
“We are not yet seeing the direct effects of these policy changes on the country’s emissions,” the source noted.
However, “this could change in the next year or two, particularly if electricity demand from data centers continues to increase.”
The growth of electric vehicles may stall in the absence of federal tax credits and regulatory policies in the United States.
This, according to the entity, would keep transportation emissions higher in the United States.
The firm also noted that the Republican government stopped collecting and reporting a “large amount of data” on GHG emissions. This data is “essential” for their reports on climate change.
“Given the government’s hostility towards collecting data related to climate change, we may not receive more inventories during this administration,” it added.
A worrying moment for the climate fight
The publication of the report took place just a few days after Trump announced the withdrawal of the USA from 66 international organizations.
Some of them are related to the fight against climate change, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the IPCC, or the IRENA.
The country also withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2025. It also made clear its exit from international action by not participating in the Climate Summit of Belém (COP30).