BBC environment journalists analyse the key events coming up in 2025 with game-changing potential for climate and nature.

There is nothing political about the wildfires that have annihilated thousands of buildings around Los Angeles this week, with two exceptions. The first is that California and Los Angeles are run by leaders from the Democratic Party, meaning that anything bad that happens in those places happened on their watch.

The Brazilian city of Belém will host this year’s UN climate summit, Cop30, in November. It will be the tenth summit since the Paris agreement was signed in 2014 (the pandemic meant we missed a year) and it’s expected to be a particularly important meeting, as countries lock in their next set of pledges to reduce emissions.

Incoming Attorney General Dave Sunday didn’t mention climate change on the campaign trail, but fossil fuel donations tell a different story.

“President Carter was four decades ahead of his time,” said Manish Bapna, who leads the Natural Resources Defense Council. Carter called for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions well before “climate change” was part of the American lexicon, he said.

The carbon tax, once seen as a policy achievement for the Liberals, may be a liability in this year’s election. Here is how the Liberals can counter the “axe the tax” narrative.

As some of the world’s wealthiest enclaves are destroyed, the PM says Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plan will delay action to address climate change.

This has been a significant year for sustainability globally, with COP29 negotiations at times on a knife-edge, a new Labour government elected in the UK and the U.S. election sending shock waves. The year brought positive developments in the UK - from the extension of North Sea oil and gas windfall tax to the regulation of ESG rating providers,

“If the consumer facing carbon tax is eliminated, it will leave holes in both the province’s budget and climate plan, and potentially be regressive for low-income households depending on what happens to the climate action tax credit,” stated the Nov. 26 2024, letter to Minister Adrian Dix.

Canada’s climate policy stands at a crossroads. The carbon tax, a key policy achievement for the Liberals which was once heralded as a cornerstone of the country’s strategy to tackle climate change, now faces intense political opposition.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump’s focus was on the economy — and alternative energy are increasingly cheaper than fossil fuels.

BlackRock has become the latest financial firm to bail out of a big climate change industry group in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as US president and heightened regulatory scrutiny. The world’s largest money manager told institutional clients in a letter on Thursday it had quit Net Zero Asset Managers,