REPORT: State Of The Climate Crisis 2025
Last Updated: 12/5/25
This past year, the United States witnessed devastating extreme weather events, including severe storms, flooding, wildfires, and extreme heat. As the country experienced its third-hottest summer on record, all but two states were impacted by record drought. The Southern California wildfires represented the most expensive wildfires in history, while the July 4th Texas floods were the deadliest domestic flash floods in the last 50 years. As of December 5, 2025, the United States had endured 14 extreme weather events that cost at least $1 billion each in 2025. While climate change impacts everyone, unsurprisingly, these extreme weather events disproportionately impact the health, livelihoods, and overall well-being of Latino communities across the country.
2025 Climate Crisis Summary
Year-To-Date Key Stats
Number Of Deaths From Billion-Dollar Weather And Climate Disasters: 174
Estimated Damage Costs From Billion-Dollar Weather And Climate Disasters Through December: $101.4 billion
Number Of Deaths From Billion-Dollar Severe Storms: 144
Number Of Billion-Dollar Severe Storms: 13
Number Of Atlantic Storms: 13 named storms (including 5 hurricanes, 4 of which were considered major)
Number Of Category 5 Hurricanes: 3 (Erin, Humberto, and Melissa)
Number Of Deaths From Billion-Dollar Wildfires: 30
Number Of Wildfires As Of 12/5/2025: 62,580
Wildfire Acres Burned As Of 12/5/2025: 4,969,735
Top Climate Impacts Of 2025
- 2025 Was The Third-Hottest Summer On Record: The summer of 2025 (June-August) was the third-hottest on record, only behind the summers of 2023 and 2024. Summer 2025 was 0.47 degrees Celsius (0.85 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1991–2000 average. More than 100 million people across 726 counties experienced record heat from June 22nd through the 25th. Between June 1 and August 31, 5384 highest daily maximum temperature records were broken, and 2,320 were tied in the U.S. alone.
- 2025 Is On Track To Be The Second Or Third Hottest Year On Record: According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2025 will be the second or third warmest year on record, and the past 11 years (2015-2025) will individually be the 11 warmest years on record. The first six months of 2025 are the second-warmest January through June period in history.
- Record Drought Impacted All But Two States: During the last week of October, almost the entire U.S. faced drought conditions. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 48 states had at least moderate drought conditions, a record in the monitor’s history. 100 weather stations across 26 states reported their driest October on record. Drought especially impacts Latino communities. According to an August 2024 study, drought increased nitrate concentrations in majority-Latino communities, with the effect doubling for community water systems with more than 75% Latino populations served.
- Climate Change-Fueled Wildfires Disproportionately Impact Latino Communities: A 2025 study found 22.8% of Latino homeowners lived in high-risk areas, higher than the 16% share of total homeowners. Although Latino homeowners in low-to-moderate income neighborhoods accounted for 12% of total home values, they shouldered 16% of total property losses from climate disasters. Wildfires posed a growing threat to Latino homeowners in areas with moderate-to-high wildfire risk, especially in California and Arizona.
- California Wildfires Were The Two Most Expensive Wildfires In World History: In January, the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire ravaged southern California, causing a combined $65 billion in economic damage. The fires raged for weeks, killed dozens of people, destroyed thousands of homes, and forced more than 100,000 people to evacuate the Los Angeles area. Latino workers were disproportionately impacted by the fires: Latinos comprise 23% of the population across the three evacuation zones and count for 36% of all workers in those areas. Scientists found that the weather conditions that enabled these fires were made 35% more likely by climate change.
- Latinos Experienced Dangerous Air Quality: Nearly 5 in 10 Americans (156.1 million) still live in places with failing grades for unhealthy particle pollution or ozone levels. Although people of color make up 41.2% of the overall population of the U.S., they are 50.2% of the people living in a county with at least one failing air quality grade. Approximately 26 million people of color, including 15.2 million Hispanics, live in counties that received failing grades for unhealthy ozone levels, short-term particle pollution, and year-round particle pollution. Hispanic individuals are nearly three times as likely as white individuals to live in a community with three failing grades.
- Hurricane Melissa Had The Strongest Landfall On Record In The Atlantic: Hurricane Melissa made landfall on October 28th in Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, bringing extreme winds, torrential rainfall, and life-threatening storm surges to coastal areas before weakening to a Category 3 in Cuba, as well as impacting Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Hurricane Melissa is tied for the strongest landfalling hurricane in the Atlantic basin by wind speed. Climate change made the conditions for Hurricane Melissa’s rapid intensification up to 700 times more likely due to abnormally warm ocean waters.
- The July Texas Floods Were The Deadliest Flash Floods In The U.S. In 50 Years: The catastrophic July 4th flash floods in Texas reached a death toll of 138 people, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, when the nearby Guadalupe River surged 26 feet in just 45 minutes. These flash floods had the highest death toll in 49 years, and the 10th highest death toll on record. Scientists say the flash flooding from heavy and intense rainfall was likely influenced by climate change.
Trump Gutted Disaster Preparedness And Response, And Environmental Protections
Trump Cut Funding For Lifesaving Climate Disaster Forecasting And Response
Trump Gutted NOAA And The National Weather Service (NWS)
- Trump fired and planned to cut about 2,300 workers at NOAA, including hurricane hunters and researchers at the National Severe Storm Laboratory, in addition to terminating some of the agency’s building leases.
- Trump’s cuts to the agency undermined critical hurricane forecasts, according to NOAA scientists.
- NOAA stopped tracking the number of climate disasters that cost over $1 billion, leaving insurance companies, researchers, and policymakers without key information to help understand major disaster weather patterns.
- The National Weather Service lost nearly 600 employees due to cuts from the Trump administration.
- Because of the Trump administration’s massive layoffs, NWS eliminated or reduced vital weather balloon launches, degrading storm forecasting and endangering lives.
Trump Gutted FEMA
- Trump warned states to expect “less money” from FEMA for disaster recovery.
- As of May 2025, FEMA lost roughly 30% of its full-time staff to layoffs and DOGE buyouts, including some of its most experienced and knowledgeable staff.
- Trump canceled FEMA’s $1 billion Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which helped communities prepare for disasters to keep them safe, and called for an immediate return of awarded funds, threatening hundreds of resiliency projects in communities nationwide.
- Trump stopped approving new allocations from FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation and Grant Program meant to protect homes, hospitals and other structures from floods, hurricanes and earthquakes, becoming the first president in at least three decades to deny governors’ requests for funding that’s meant to protect people and property.
- The Trump administration canceled FEMA’s door-to-door program nationwide, a program that was meant to help disaster victims apply for federal aid.
Trump’s Cuts To Clean Energy, Clean Air And Water Protections Put Latino Communities At Risk
- Trump gutted water protections and moved to expand drilling on public lands, which disproportionately impacts Latino communities, who are already at risk of dirtier water.
- Water systems in counties that are at least 25% or more Latino violate drinking water contamination rules at double the rate of those in the rest of the U.S.
- Latinos are at a greater risk of drinking water contamination due to living near industrial farms in the West and across the Southwest, where arsenic violations are common.
- The Trump administration’s move to expand drilling on our public lands jeopardizes clean drinking water for over 13 million Americans, including more than 5 million Los Agenelenos that rely on drinking water from the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. The population of Los Angeles County is 48.3% Latino.
- Trump withdrew a rule that would have limited industrial discharges of PFAS and extended the timeline for utilities to reduce two of the most common PFAS chemicals in drinking water. The agency also began rescinding and reconsidering limits for four other types of PFAS targeted by the initial protections.
- Latino communities in the U.S. are already disproportionately exposed to PFAS pollution in drinking water, and Trump’s rollbacks will further pollute the drinking water relied on by millions of Latinos.
- Trump’s EPA is set to approve a fifth PFAS pesticide ingredient for agricultural use – further contaminating our food and water sources and exposing Latino communities to additional toxic pollution.
- Farmworkers, who are predominantly Latino, already face widespread exposure to wildfire smoke and pesticides and a lack of access to clean drinking water.
- Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is a Big Oil bailout that will deliver $18 billion in new and expanded tax breaks for the industry while gutting measures aimed at reducing fossil fuel pollution that impacts Latino communities in every corner of the U.S.
- Air pollution is significantly worse in Latino neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods, with 1.78 million Latinos living in areas where toxic air due to oil and gas facilities is above EPA recommendations.
- According to the American Lung Association, Latinos are 165% more likely to live in counties with unhealthy particle pollution.
- Trump has taken a sledgehammer to climate and clean energy-related programs and initiatives that benefit Latino communities. In total, at least 32 federal contracts or program grants have been canceled in or for Latino communities, representing over $1.3 billion in lost investments.
- Trump also eliminated a tax credit for school districts to electrify their buses, which reduces children’s exposure to toxic air pollution linked to chronic illnesses such as asthma.
- School buses are a major source of air pollution that disproportionately impacts Black, Latino, and low-income children, often with devastating health impacts, including respiratory and neurological illnesses.
- Majority-Latino school districts in Texas and Arizona electrified their bus fleets using Clean School Bus Program funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, now undone by Trump.
Climate Action Is Necessary To Avert Catastrophe
If We Continue To Hinder Climate Progress, We’ll Miss Our Narrow Window To Avert The Worst Impacts Of The Climate Crisis
- 2025 is set to be the second or third warmest year on record, and the past 11 years (2015-2025) will individually be the 11 warmest years on record.
- The first six months of 2025 are the second-warmest January-June period in history.
- 100% of people living in the U.S. were under an extreme weather alert from May through November 2025.
- According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, the U.S. now experiences, on average, a billion-dollar weather or climate disaster every three weeks.
- Extreme events cost the U.S. close to $150 billion each year — an estimate that does not account for loss of life, healthcare-related costs, or damages to ecosystem services.
- Through June 2025, the U.S. has experienced 14 separate billion-dollar disasters this year with a total cost of $101.4 billion. With 14 events in the first half of this year, 2025 is well above the long-term annual average of nine events per year.
- According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, present-day greenhouse gas levels are higher than at any time in the past 800,000 years, with the most emissions occurring since 1970.
- Global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities continue to increase, resulting in rapid warming, rising sea levels, melting ice, ocean warming and acidification, changing rainfall patterns, and shifts in the timing of seasonal events.
- Atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases reached record observed levels in 2024 and continue to rise in 2025.
Historical Comparisons
Severe Storms & Flooding
In 2025, severe storms that caused over $1 billion in damage resulted in the deaths of 144 people, the highest number over the past 10 years. The July 4th flash flooding in Texas claimed the highest death toll in 49 years and the 10th highest death toll on record. The Guadalupe River surged 26 feet in just 45 minutes, killing 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic. In total, the flooding claimed 138 lives. This year also saw Hurricane Melissa tie for the strongest landfalling hurricane in the Atlantic basin by wind speed.
| Year | Number of Billion-Dollar Severe Storms | Deaths | Costs (in billions) |
| 2015 | 6 | 60 | $11.2 |
| 2016 | 8 | 19 | $19.7 |
| 2017 | 11 | 34 | $25.5 |
| 2018 | 10 | 8 | $17.4 |
| 2019 | 8 | 14 | $17.5 |
| 2020 | 13 | 85 | $41.8 |
| 2021 | 11 | 114 | $23.8 |
| 2022 | 11 | 10 | $23.6 |
| 2023 | 19 | 100 | $56.9 |
| 2024 | 36 | 51 | $47.9 |
| 2025 | 13 | 144 | $40.2 |
Source: Climate Central U.S Billion-Dollar Weather And Climate Disasters
Wildfires
As of December 5, 2025, 62,580 wildfires across the U.S. had burned almost 5 million acres. The Los Angeles wildfires in early 2025 caused a combined $65 billion in economic damage. The fires raged for weeks, killed dozens of people, destroyed thousands of homes, and forced more than 100,000 people to evacuate the Los Angeles area. Scientists found that the weather conditions that enabled these fires were made 35% more likely by climate change.
As the threat of wildfires continues to grow in the West, Latinos are especially vulnerable and face the greatest danger. Latinos are twice as likely to live in areas most threatened by wildfires relative to the overall U.S. population. The combination of the shortage of affordable housing and Latino population growth has pushed people deeper into remote locations that are more susceptible to fires. Exposure to wildfire smoke poses a growing threat to the nation’s farmworkers, many of whom are forced to toil through fires that are more frequent, more severe, and more toxic than ever.
| Year | Year-To-Date # of Fires by December 5th | Year-To-Date Acres Burned by December 5th |
| 2015 | 56,202 | 9,799,521 |
| 2016 | 60,601 | 5,281,813 |
| 2017 | 57,859 | 9,269,711 |
| 2018 | 52,700 | 8,493,137 |
| 2019 | 47,777 | 4,683,606 |
| 2020 | 53,119 | 9,598,023 |
| 2021 | 54,730 | 6,808,138 |
| 2022 | 64,188 | 7,358,142 |
| 2023 | 53,411 | 2,608,290 |
| 2024 | 48,507 | 8,463,112 |
| 2025 | 62,580 | 4,969,735 |
Source: National Interagency Fire Center
Extreme Heat & Drought Records
Extreme heat records were broken across the United States in 2025. Here are just a few examples:
- According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 48 states had at least moderate drought conditions, a record in the monitor’s history.
- 100 weather stations across 26 states reported their driest October on record.
- According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2025 will be the second or third warmest year on record, and the past 11 years (2015-2025) will individually be the 11 warmest years on record.
- The summer of 2025 (June-August) was the third-hottest on record, only behind the summers of 2023 and 2024.
- Summer 2025 was 0.47 degrees Celsius (0.85 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1991–2000 average.
- More than 100 million people across 726 counties experienced record heat from June 22nd through the 25th.
- Between June 1 and August 31, 5384 highest daily maximum temperature records were broken, and 2,320 were tied in the U.S. alone.