The empirical evidence is unambiguous. Based on a study published in Nature in March 2026, cumulative emissions accounting from Carbon Brief, and climate tipping point research coordinated by the University of Exeter, the United States stands alone as the most destructive force in the history of global climate change.

Having caused approximately $10 trillion in global economic damages between 1990 and 2020 alone, the largest total attributed to any nation, the U.S. has now abandoned its international climate commitments under the administration of Donald Trump, withdrawn from the United Nations climate treaty framework, and eliminated its net zero target.

The figure exceeded even China’s estimated contribution, despite China now being the world’s largest annual emitter.

Meanwhile, the planet is approaching irreversible tipping points — including the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet — that would trigger catastrophic, permanent changes to Earth’s life-support systems.

This analysis argues that the U.S. is not merely a contributor to the climate crisis but the primary historical driver and, under current policy trajectories, the agent most responsible for locking in a future of planetary destruction.

The largest emitter in history

The United States has emitted a cumulative total of 542 billion tons of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) since 1850, accounting for more than one-fifth of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in history, says a Carbon Brief report covering emissions during the past 175 years until 2025.

This dwarfs the contributions of all other nations. China, the world’s current largest annual emitter, ranks second with 336 GtCO2 — a substantial figure, but still only 62% of the U.S. total. The disproportion becomes even more stark when viewed on a per-capita basis.

The U.S. population constitutes just 4% of the global total, yet its per-capita cumulative historical emissions are seven times higher than China’s, more than double the European Union’s, and 25 times higher than India’s.

To put this in perspective: the U.S.’s historical emissions exceed the combined total of the 133 lowest-emitting countries — home to over 3 billion people.

Humanity has already consumed most of the remaining carbon budget (some sources claim 95%) consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.

Quantifying damages

The Nature study by Marshall Burke and colleagues provides the first comprehensive framework for quantifying the economic “loss and damage” attributable to specific emitters.

The findings are staggering. U.S. emissions since 1990 have caused approximately $10 trillion in global economic damages. These damages include $500 billion to India and $330 billion to Brazil — countries that have contributed vanishingly little to the problem.

European emissions over the same period caused roughly $6 trillion in damages.

However, the most terrifying finding is not about the past it is about the future that past emissions have already locked in. The study calculates that one ton of CO2 emitted in 1990 had already caused $180 in discounted global damages by 2020, and it will cause an additional $1,840 in damages by 2100.

In other words, future economic costs associated with historical emissions are at least ten times higher than costs already incurred from those same emissions.

This means the $10-trillion figure is not a final accounting. It is merely the down payment on a debt that will grow to $100 trillion or more from the same historical emissions, even if the U.S. stopped emitting entirely today.

The risks of withdrawal from the global climate regime

Just as the science has become undeniable and the damages are accelerating, the U.S. government has chosen this moment to abandon its responsibilities entirely.

The U.S., already the world’s biggest historic polluter, has withdrawn from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the foundational treaty for all international climate cooperation. This follows the Trump administrations withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which it claimed unduly and unfairly burdened the United States. The official position now explicitly rejects the principle that the largest historic emitter bears any special responsibility.

Elimination of the net zero target

Perhaps the most consequential policy reversal concerns the U.S. net zero commitment. The Climate Action Tracker, which evaluates national climate targets against the Paris Agreements 1.5-degree limit, now formally considers that America no longer has a net zero target. Under the Biden administration, the U.S. had committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. That commitment has been rescinded.

This places the U.S. in a category of extreme climate irresponsibility shared only with a handful of nations including Egypt, Iran, Kenya, and the Philippines — countries with negligible historical emissions. The U.S. is now counted among those with no target, despite being responsible for more than one-fifth of all historical emissions.

The drill, baby, drill agenda

The current administration has explicitly prioritized fossil fuel extraction over climate stability. The official U.S. position, as stated at the United Nations, is that the Paris Agreement hampers U.S. economic competitiveness and that withdrawing from it serves to unleash affordable and reliable energy. The administration has taken bold steps to expand oil and gas production, rolled back EPA regulations, and has taken extraordinary measures to hobble domestic clean energy projects.

The looming catastrophe

The reason Washington abandonment of climate action qualifies as a trajectory toward planetary destruction lies in the nonlinear nature of the climate system. The Earth is not a bathtub that fills gradually and drains gradually. It is a complex system with tipping points thresholds beyond which change becomes self-sustaining and irreversible.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — the ocean current system that includes the Gulf Stream and regulates climate across the Northern Hemisphere — is already weakening. Analysis of nonlinear physics by climate scientist and physicist Paul Beckwith shows that the probability of an AMOC shutdown between 2025 and 2095 is 95%, with the highest likelihood around 2050.

He called the AMOC collapse as “the mother of all tipping points.”

The consequences of an AMOC collapse would be catastrophic, he warns. The High Arctic would cool by as much as 8 degrees Celsius, Western Europe by 2 to 3 degrees, and eastern Canada by 1 to 2 degrees.

Latin America and the western African coast would warm by 2 to 3 degrees. The Intertropical Convergence Zone would shift southward, increasing rainfall by up to 100% in some regions while decreasing it by the same amount in others. The Gulf of Mexico to the Mediterranean would see sea level rise of one foot, while the High Arctic would rise 0.91 to 2.74 meters.

The numbers are alarming, but mind that there’s no scientific consensus on these predictions.

Another document — the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report, coordinated by the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute with 160 researchers across 23 countries — identifies escalating risks to multiple Earth systems. Coral reefs have already crossed their critical threshold at 1.5 degrees Celsius, leading to complete ecosystem collapse.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, at approximately 3 degrees Celsius, would trigger 7 meters of sea level rise. The Greenland Ice Sheet, at 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, would produce multi-meter sea level rise. The Amazon rainforest, at approximately 4.5 degrees Celsius, would transition to savannah, causing biodiversity collapse. Permafrost is already thawing, releasing methane and accelerating warming.

According to Levent Kurnaz, director of Bogazici University’s Center for Climate Change and Policy Research, all these processes can reinforce each other, leading to faster and more severe tipping point events than expected. Critically, he notes: if we lose the Amazon or the methane trapped in permafrost, there is no way to bring them back.

The toxics time bomb

The destruction is not limited to ecosystems. A study from UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Climate Central found that approximately 5,500 hazardous sites across the United States including toxic waste facilities, sewage treatment plants, and industrial sites are at risk of coastal flooding by 2100 under a high emissions scenario. Nearly 3,800 of these facilities could flood as soon as 2050.

When these sites flood, they will release contaminants into surrounding communities — and the study found that those communities are disproportionately poor, Hispanic, and linguistically isolated.

The U.S. is not only destroying the global climate; it is building a domestic public health catastrophe that will fall heaviest on its most vulnerable populations.

Comparisons

I took time to compare the U.S. trajectory with that of its major competitors to understand just how exceptional American irresponsibility has become.

The E.U. peaked its emissions in 1990 — more than three decades ago — and has been steadily reducing them since. It has committed to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050. The E.U. has enacted the European Green Deal, expanded its emissions trading system, and passed the Net Zero Industry Act to strengthen domestic clean technology manufacturing.

While European historical emissions have caused roughly $6 trillion in damages, the E.U. is actively reducing its future contribution by investing heavily into renewables.

China faces an enormously challenging transition as the world’s manufacturing center, but its trajectory is toward a peak and decline. China has committed to peaking emissions by 2030 (with projections now suggesting a peak as early as 2025) and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. Notably, China vowed to accomplish in 30 years what the E.U. is taking 60 years to do — from peak to net zero.

China is also investing more heavily in clean energy than any other nation. In 2023, China invested $680 billion in clean energy — more than the United States and European Union combined, and 70% more than their sum total. China accounts for 38% of global renewable energy capacity, compared to just 10% for the U.S.

By contrast, the U.S. has:

Peaked emissions in 2007 but failed to sustain meaningful reductions;

Abandoned its net zero target entirely;

Initiated withdrawal from the UNFCCC and abandoned the Paris Agreement;

Expanded fossil fuel production under a “drill, baby, drill” doctrine;

Hobbled domestic clean energy through executive action;

Refused to participate in the loss and damage fund for vulnerable nations.

The U.S. is the only major emitter whose projected emissions have been revised upward due to policy rollbacks. China and the E.U. are moving toward their targets — however imperfectly. The U.S. is moving in the opposite direction. Even worse — the U.S. has withdrawn from the loss and damage fund established at COP27 to help vulnerable countries cope with climate destruction.

The scientists could not be clearer. Even if countries completely stopped emitting carbon dioxide today, we would still face some of these disasters. But as long as we keep burning coal, oil, and natural gas, we are guaranteeing a much worse future.

Our world is approaching irreversible tipping points — AMOC collapse, ice sheet disintegration, rainforest dieback, permafrost thaw — that would constitute “planetary destruction” by any reasonable definition.

The evidence supports no other conclusion: The United States caused the biggest problem to Earth, acknowledges no responsibility, refuses to pay for the damages, and now is on track to destroy Earth’s ecosystems.

Earth itself will survive. Many human habitats may not.

THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN MEDIUM.