Climate Change and You: Trump's oil grab in Venezuela, the costliest climate disasters of 2025 and more

Climate Change and You is a fortnightly newsletter written by Bibek Bhattacharya and Sayantan Bera. Subscribe to the newsletter to get it directly in your inbox.

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year! 2026 is barely a week old, and already, there is no end to all the excitement, is there? If the change from 31 December to 1 January is supposed to signify a new beginning, well, we’re still where we were in 2025, still in a world in the grips of a polycrisis supercharged by fossil fuels.

The latest in this is, of course, the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, by the US. The ostensible reason for this outrageous midnight ‘extraction’ is Maduro’s alleged involvement in drug smuggling, but as Trump has let slip time and time again, the real reason is US control of Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world.

As the American environmentalist and author Bill McKibben writes in his blog, oil is a dirty fuel not just because it makes the planet hotter, but because it is a scarce resource that encourages both repressive regimes like that of Maduro’s, as well as the illegality of US actions. We can fight wars over oil, but we can’t fight wars over sunshine.

“What if we could, simply by supporting an environmentally and economically sound transition to clean energy, remove the reason for the fighting? I don’t know how to stop the bully from beating people up for their lunch money—but what if lunch was free, and no one was carrying lunch money? Not for the first time, and not for the last, I’m going to make the observation that it’s going to be hard to figure out how to fight wars over sunshine.”

STATE OF THE CLIMATE

The climate disasters of 2025

The continued use of fossil fuels is justified worldwide by the narrative that it ensures the energy security of nations. While that is debatable in the face of the rising efficacy of inexpensive renewable energy, what is increasingly clear is that fossil fuels promote climate instability.

According to its annual report, published at the end of December by the climate think tank World Weather Attribution, 157 extreme weather events in 2025 met the criteria of having been caused by or exacerbated by the climate crisis. Of these, floods and heatwaves were the most frequent (at 49 events each), followed by storms (38 events), wildfires (11 events), droughts (7 events), and cold spells (3 events).

The year 2025 is likely to be the second-hottest on record, after 2024. However, between 2023 and 2025, the world breached the 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming (over pre-industrial levels) for the first time. The report adds that since the landmark Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, the global temperature has increased by 0.3 degrees Celsius. “Since 2015, global warming has increased 0.3 degrees Celsius, but some heatwaves have become almost ten times as likely—yet another evidence that when it comes to climate change, every fraction of a degree matters.” The summer heatwave in India and Pakistan was one of the extreme events positively connected to climate change by the report.

THE NEWS IN BRIEF

-India will be conducting a comprehensive extinction risk analysis of nearly 11,000 plant and animal species for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

-Just how much of an environmental threat is Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the data centres that power it? This excellent analysis provides some answers.

-As the Indian government pushes for better fuel efficiency in order to cut vehicular emissions, the auto industry remains deeply divided on the proposals. This excellent Mint analysis explains why.

CLIMATE CHANGE TRACKER

Counting the cost of climate losses in 2025

Extreme weather and climate disasters cost the world over $120 billion in damages in 2025, according to the Counting The Cost 2025 report published by the UK-based charity organization Christian Aid. “As we witness cities drying up, uncontrollable fires destroying homes, and tornadoes wiping out entire communities, the consequences of inaction are undeniable. With every year of delayed action, the losses continue to grow. Unfortunately, 2025 was no different,” the report states.

Based on data from the international insurance company Aon, the report lists the 10 most costly climate impacts of the year, all of which were either caused by the use of fossil fuels. Of these, the costliest were the Los Angeles wildfires in January last year, with over 400 deaths and a whopping $60+ billion in damages. One of the regions most severely affected was South and Southeast Asia. The November monsoon floods and cyclones that hit Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Malaysia caused a combined loss of about $25 billion, along with over 1,700 fatalities. The floods and landslides caused by extreme monsoon rainfall in India and Pakistan between June and September resulted in over 1,800 people losing their lives and about $5.6 billion in damages.

The report states that in 2025, no continent escaped massive losses due to some climate impact or the other. They were all avoidable, but for our addiction to fossil fuels, resulting in a dangerously hot world.

KNOW YOUR JARGON

Toxic Masculinity

How on earth can the masculinity crisis have a bearing on climate change? I was intrigued, too, until I came across this new study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. The crux of the matter is that a large number of men feel insecure about masculinity, which they feel should be earned by social displays of macho behaviour. And one of the ways this is being displayed is through climate denial.

The researcher Michael Haselhuhn finds “that expressing concern about climate change is associated with traditionally feminine characteristics of warmth, caring and compassion” and predicts that, “because of this relationship, men who are more concerned about maintaining their sense of masculinity will express less concern about climate change.” No wonder then that nearly all climate change deniers, from Donald Trump down to the neighbourhood uncle, are all men.

PRIME NUMBER

6

Even as India works with the IUCN to prepare an extinction risk list of about 11,000 plant and animal species, the international body reported that 6 species from around the world have been formally categorized as extinct on the IUCN Red List.

These include a migratory waterbird called the Slender-billed curlew, the Australian mammal known as the Christmas Island shrew, as well as three species of Australian bandicoots. Two species of plants, including a large tree native to Mauritius and another from Hawaii, were also declared officially extinct. One type of mollusc, a species of cone snail—from the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa, was also pronounced extinct.

IUCN has also sounded the alarm for a variety of species that are increasingly being pushed close to extinction, including Arctic seals due to global warming, and 61% of all bird species globally due to deforestation.

So that’s it from me this week, dear reader. Sayantan will be back in a fortnight with the next edition of Climate Change and You.