The 14 Global Trends That Will Shape the Climate in 2026
The world is now moving into the latter half of a critical decade to fight climate change. Scientists have warned that nations need to cut carbon emissions nearly 50% by 2030 to stave off 1.5C temperature rise.
The world is woefully off track to meet those targets and risks further backsliding, even as there are some surprising sources of progress.
In the U.S., those tensions are on full display. The future of the energy transition is being shaped by President Donald Trump’s climate policy rollbacks that favor fossil fuels — but also the life support for renewables and batteries paradoxically coming from data center power demand.
China’s role as the world’s biggest emitter and hub for green tech are also affecting efforts to curb carbon pollution. This year, the country will set a new plan laying out how climate fits with its economic ambitions, while its booming clean tech sector is expected to help more developing countries adopt renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Here are 14 themes Bloomberg News writers are keeping tabs on in 2026.
Climate Clues in China’s New Economic Blueprint
When Chinese officials gather in March for annual legislative meetings, they will approve the country’s next five-year plan. Climate watchers will be looking to see if the plan does anything to speed up the pace of decarbonization after Beijing set what’s widely seen as a conservative 2035 climate target last year.
The key stat to watch for is China’s target for carbon intensity — that is, a measure of how much it emits per unit of GDP. It’s currently off track of its last five-year plan created in 2020. How much policymakers push to close the gap will be a critical litmus test for China’s climate leadership amid global backpedaling. —Lili Pike
Can Diplomats Make Headway At COP31?
International negotiators will spend much of this year trying to create a bare-bones road map to phase out fossil fuels and another to eliminate deforestation. The two issues were left unresolved at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil last year. But with the nation in control of the COP presidency this year, it has a chance to make progress.
The first key milestone will be a conference in Colombia in April focused on phasing out fossil fuels. Negotiators will continue to hash out their differences at the Bonn Climate Change Conference in June, as well as at London and New York’s climate weeks held in June and September, respectively. The world’s efforts will culminate at COP31, which will take place in Antalya, Turkey, in November. —Laura Millan
Look To Developing Countries For Climate Progress
In recent years, there have been breakout climate success stories in developing countries, largely enabled by cheap Chinese clean tech exports. Bangladesh off-grid home solar installations set a record globally, enabling rapid rural electrification. Pakistan’s huge purchase of solar panels and batteries have led the country to abandon natural gas as a strategic fuel. And Ethiopia’s de facto ban on fossil-fuel car imports has led to a surge in electric vehicle sales.
These transitions were largely driven by access to Chinese technology. With the country’s green exports increasing, expect more such stories to emerge in 2026. —Akshat Rathi
The Clean Tech Revival Continues
Global climate tech investment made a comeback in 2025, largely driven by growing data center energy demand. The surge is likely to continue this year, with both nascent nuclear technologies and proven renewable solutions set to draw investor interest. Upgrading the power grid is likely to see continued investments as well, giving a boost to everything from battery energy storage to power management software. But questions remain about whether the artificial intelligence boom can continue to sustain the climate tech sector, and how to bring growth to companies beyond the energy ecosystem. —Coco Liu
Nuclear Energy’s Boom Is Just Over The Horizon
Data centers are sucking up electricity as fast as new power plants can get built, and Big Tech is willing to throw big money at nuclear. Dozens of companies are working on the next generation of small reactors, and the Trump administration is pushing to streamline the regulatory process and lining up billions in financing for big ones. More than 60 reactors were under construction worldwide at the end of 2025, though the world’s nuclear capacity contracted a bit.
Yet even friendly regulations and fat checks can only do so much to accelerate the notoriously slow-moving industry. That means that while the nuclear sector will start to see momentum in 2026, it’s still a few years away from bringing a wave of new plants online. —Will Wade
Will The AI Bubble Burst?
Last year began with a crash in AI-related stocks after news of Chinese company DeepSeek’s more efficient models threw a wrench in power demand growth projections. Will there be another “DeepSeek moment” in 2026? That’s a question that’s on investors’ minds, even as money keeps pouring into AI and the energy sector.
Even if models don’t become more efficient, the bubble could burst in other ways. Already, clean energy and real estate developers are sounding the alarm that electric grids, permitting and regulations aren’t keeping up with the pace of interconnection. Some regions are seeing years-long queues to hook up power projects to the grid, and there are backlogs for the crucial electric infrastructure. If the friction continues, AI investors could find their ambitions thwarted or that they’ll have to rely more on developing power onsite and behind the meter. —Michelle Ma
Everyone Wants A Piece of The Arctic
“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic” is a truism that’s become irrefutable. This past year was the hottest in 125 years of records at the top of the planet, and the spill-over effect of that is beginning to be felt everywhere else, from rising seas to an uptick in atmospheric carbon.
Rising temperatures also have the world increasingly looking at how to exploit the region. In 2026, expect previously local or regional Arctic issues — from ports to critical mineral development — to become international priorities. They include how China’s push to transport cargo through the Northern Sea Route will impact fragile ecosystems, and whether Trump’s push for the US to take over Greenland becomes more aggressive. —Danielle Bochove
The EV Market Splits
The global transition to electric vehicles will fracture in 2026, as EV sales slow in the U.S. and scoot ahead in the rest of the world.
BloombergNEF expects drivers to snap up 16.9 million EVs globally through September. That would be an increase of 16% over the year-earlier period. The tide of affordable and well-reviewed Chinese machines from companies like BYD and SAIC Motor will help drive the uptick in sales, building on 2025’s rise in exports.
The EV outlook is far cloudier in the US, which still largely bars Chinese cars and trucks. The sunset of federal subsidies on EV purchases in September slammed the brakes on electric car adoption in the US. BNEF expects US sales to essentially stay level in the first half of the year and dip in the third quarter, in comparison to the market’s record run in August, September and October of this year. —Kyle Stock
What Will New York City Do About Blackrock?
Three of the city’s five pension funds are weighing whether to drop BlackRock’s $42 billion mandate because of the asset manager’s climate policies. Former Comptroller Brad Lander made a recommendation late last year after a formal review of all the fund managers overseeing the city’s retirement money, citing BlackRock’s failure to tackle global warming.
Lander tried to pass the resolution to cut out the money manager in December, but he was unable to convince pension board of trustee members to hold a vote before the end of the year. Now, it will be up to new comptroller Mark Levine to hold a vote this year. Mayor Zohran Mamdani will also have a significant amount of influence over the outcome of the vote. It will come as BlackRock faces other headwinds: Late last year, the firm lost a mandate with a Dutch pension fund due in part to climate-related concerns. —Olivia Raimonde
Climate Risk Modeling Gains Steam
Demand is high and growing for accurate, usable climate information, particularly information that can help assess risk. That’s driving researchers to probe every level of risk and solution, from neighborhoods exposed to more frequent flooding, to whether proposed atmospheric cooling approaches can work safely, if at all.
The clamor for actionable information comes as the Trump administration tries to dismantle much of the infrastructure in the US that underpins world-leading science. That includes hiding reports and data; cutting staff and funding; and putting out analyses that cherry-pick data downplaying climate change. The next 12 months are shaping up as a fight for more accurate climate information and an increasingly challenging environment to find it. —Eric Roston
U.S. Renewables Face A Bumpy Road
The boom days for clean energy in the US are over — for now. Trump’s efforts to halt the buildout of solar and wind have resulted in policy and financial headwinds that will continue to be a big challenge for the industry. Large-scale solar installations, while still expected to make up the bulk of all new power plant additions, are forecast to decline as lucrative federal tax incentives start to fade away by mid-year and tariffs raise costs, according to BloombergNEF.
Rooftop solar tax credits for homeowners also got wiped out, though leasing panels will still qualify. Wind developers may be even harder off. Subsidies have disappeared, and the Trump administration has thrown up additional permitting hurdles. The one bright spot? Batteries, which can still qualify for tax breaks if they satisfy new rules restricting the amount of materials that can come from China. Data centers are likely to be a strong source of power demand, which could help the industry. And clean energy developers are hopeful that artificial intelligence’s power needs will convince Trump to ease his assault on the industry. —Mark Chediak
The EPA’s Biggest Climate Attack Is Coming
A process initiated by the Environmental Protection Agency last summer to unravel the federal government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases is set to conclude this year. The EPA is expected to finalize the controversial rulemaking that would rollback the so-called endangerment finding and immediately remove greenhouse gas regulations for passenger cars and trucks. While the administration has rolled back a number of climate rules, this would be the most consequential yet. Any decision to rescind the endangerment finding will undoubtedly be swiftly challenged in the courts, kicking off an epic legal battle that could determine how much the federal government can do to respond to global warming. —Zahra Hirji
FEMA’s Fate Will Be Decided
The Trump administration spent 2025 weighing whether or not to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the president establishing a review council co-chaired by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The group was tasked with providing recommendations on what to do with the agency, which it’s expected to finalize early this year. Disaster researchers, state and local emergency managers, and FEMA staff are all waiting to see how dramatic the proposed reforms will be. Although the president doesn’t hold the exclusive power to dissolve the agency in its entirety — that power rests in the hands of Congress — there’s a lot Trump can change, or at least try to. —Zahra Hirji
Can California Meet Its Climate Goals?
This new year marks the 20th anniversary of California’s landmark climate law that has transformed the Golden State into a green powerhouse. But it’ll spend 2026 fending off the Trump administration’s campaign to dismantle its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The Trump tax bill’s elimination of federal renewable energy and electric vehicle incentives is already slowing California’s progress toward reaching net-zero emissions by 2045. With the administration trying to scuttle the state’s cap-and-trade market, expect California to continue to spend more time fighting back in the courts and developing workarounds. Beyond Trump’s reach, local and regional California agencies continue to eliminate fossil fuels. A Bay Area ban on the sale of gas water heaters and furnaces, for instance, begins to take effect in 2027 and will apply to a fifth of the state’s population. —Todd Woody
Top photo: Floating solar panels manufactured by Hanwha Solutions Corp. on the Hapcheon Dam in Hapcheon, Gyeongsangnam-do province, South Korea, on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. More than 92,000 solar panels floating on the surface of a reservoir are able to generate 41 megawatts, enough to power 20,000 homes.