State of the Planet

As another dangerous heat wave blankets much of the U.S., more than 160 million people are now under extreme heat warnings or advisories. Temperatures in the U.K. and France have already broken records, with Europe seen as one of the fastest warming continents on the planet. Our oceans are also feeling the heat.

In December 2025, the U.N. Environment Assembly (UNEA) passeda resolution in its seventh session, held in Nairobi, Kenya, acknowledging the impacts of a shrinking cryosphere and calling for member nations to take action. The proposed activities are meant to increase efforts to save glaciers and to incorporate the needs and voices of Indigenous peoples, local communities and other local stakeholders into cryosphere preservation efforts.

This summer, the 2026 FIFA World Cup brings 48 teams and millions of fans to 16 cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico. In New York and New Jersey alone, eight games at MetLife Stadium throughout June and July, including the World Cup final, are estimated to draw more than 1.2 million spectators, generate $3.3 billion in revenue and create 26,000 new jobs in the metropolitan area.

Flooding in Porto Alegre–Salgado Filho International Airport in May, 2024. Photo: Ricardo Stuckert / PR On June 10 and 11, Columbia Climate School and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law co-hosted their second conference on Attribution Science and Climate Law.

Aboard Columbia’s global research vessel, the R/V Marcus G. Langseth, Cody Bahlau serves as the key link between the scientific teams, crew members and operations on shore. Despite the diverse and often challenging conditions they may face on the water, Bahlau is responsible for ensuring that all research is performed safely and effectively.

In a recent viewpoint published in Nature Climate Change, six researchers from South America, Asia and Africa examine how glacier retreat in the Andes, Himalayas and other high-altitude regions is reshaping the cultural and spiritual life of different glacial communities. According to the article, local communities see melting glaciers as signs of moral imbalance, punishment or fading protection from ancestors and deities.

Each month, researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and across the Columbia Climate School publish work that sharpens our understanding of the planet. This month we wrote about new evidence from Antarctic ice cores suggesting that the Ross Ice Shelf and West Antarctic Ice Sheet were far smaller during the planet’s last major warm period; the solution to a longstanding atmospheric CO2 puzzle; and a “near-miss” tsunami in Alaska that was the second-highest ever recorded.

Mount Etna volcano in Sicily, Italy. Courtesy: Esteban Gazel Scientists reconstructed the underground magma pathways behind two historic explosive eruptions of Mount Etna. The study suggests carbon dioxide and water helped drive the eruptions in different ways. In one eruption, water-rich magma rose and stalled at shallow depths before erupting; in another, carbon dioxide-rich magma rose quickly from much deeper underground.

This piece was originally published by CCSI. AI technology has been advancing in sudden leaps. Each time it does, it catches the world off guard. We now stand at a fork in the road where the opportunities and risks of AI are becoming clearer, but what is not clear is the path we’ll take as a society. Our ability to govern this technology, so that we enjoy its benefits and mitigate its risks, has not kept pace.

The AI race is already generating forces that are transforming the global economy. That makes it surprisingly similar to the green transition, given the potential of both to upend traditional industries, labor markets, and geopolitical balances. Both call for trillions of dollars in upfront investments in exchange for significant benefits over the medium and long term.