Emissions Gap Report Identifies U.S. as Outlier Among G20 Nations

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U.S. Is an Outlier Among Rich Nations in Slowing Climate Progress, U.N. Data Says

The scientific report, identifies the United States as an outlier among the nations responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions.

The United States’ “abandonment” of a crucial climate pledge has increased the odds that the world will warm more than previously estimated, according to a United Nations scientific report released Wednesday.

The U.N.’s annual Emissions Gap Report is considered a definitive assessment of global progress on climate change. It identified the United States as an outlier among the industrialized nations that are responsible for most planet-warming pollution.

Among the Group of 20 industrialized nations, the report noted, emissions overall had slowed down in 2025, “with the United States of America being the major exception.”

That came after a year of rising electricity demand from the rapid construction of data centers to serve artificial intelligence, as well as a cold North American winter that prompted more fossil fuel use for heating.

But the United States’ most consequential action, in terms of the global effect on climate change, has been to abandon its pledge to cut its emissions that was made in 2024 under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The Paris Agreement to fight climate change, which calls for holding temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial times, and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, directed nations to update and strengthen such pledges every five years. These pledges are considered the building blocks toward reaching global goals to rein in warming.