Corporate broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — aired a combined 2 hours and 28 minutes across 42 segments of climate and environmental-related coverage during Earth Month in 2025. Only 5 segments mentioned any actions taken by the Trump administration, including the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, all of which aired on CBS.

• ABC led with 54 minutes across 15 segments, followed by CBS with 50 minutes across 14 segments, and NBC with 44 minutes across 13 segments.

During Earth Week (April 20–27), broadcast networks aired a combined 93 minutes of coverage across 23 segments.

• ABC led with 33 minutes across 8 segments, followed by NBC with 31 minutes across 8 segments, and CBS with 29 minutes across 7 segments.

On Earth Day itself (April 22), the networks aired 42 minutes across 11 segments. 

• ABC again led with 25 minutes across 6 segments, followed by CBS with 13 minutes across 4 segments, and NBC with 4 minutes across 1 segment.

Broadcast network coverage of Earth Day has steadily declined over the past four years, falling from 71 minutes across 20 segments in 2022 to 46 minutes in 2023 and 2024, and just over 42 minutes across 11 segments in 2025.

Trump’s environmental rollbacks were largely ignored

Despite a coordinated push by the Trump administration to dismantle environmental protections, corporate broadcast networks rarely connected those actions to the environmental and climate segments they aired during Earth Month. Of the 42 total segments aired by ABC, CBS, and NBC, only 5 directly referenced the administration’s climate or environmental policy agenda, and all of them aired on CBS.

Although CBS did more than its peers to hold the administration accountable, even its coverage faltered under pressure. One of the few times EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin appeared outside the Fox News ecosystem came during the April 20 episode of CBS’ Face the Nation, which presented a critical opportunity for a mainstream news network to confront Zeldin directly about his sweeping environmental rollbacks and contested attempt to claw back $20 billion in climate funding. While host Weijia Jiang opened with questions about the administration's deregulatory actions and funding freezes, Zeldin relied on vague economic justifications, procedural deflections, and claims already dismissed by a federal judge. Jiang did not challenge his misrepresentations or press him on climate and public health consequences of the EPA's actions, effectively allowing Zeldin to replicate his Fox playbook on a mainstream platform without meaningful accountability.

ABC and NBC did not air any Earth Month segments that explicitly named the Trump administration’s environmental actions, even though both networks produced segments with clear policy implications, including segments about pollution, extreme weather, and species loss. At a time when the Trump administration is actively dismantling environmental protections, this lack of attribution points to a deeper flaw in network climate coverage — a reluctance to link environmental outcomes to the decisions that drive them.

Consumption-focused content continued to dominate Earth Month coverage

Climate and environmental coverage during Earth Month continued to rely heavily on consumption-based framing. Segments promoting lifestyle changes, product swaps, and green shopping tips often displaced deeper analysis of structural drivers of climate change or systemic accountability.

ABC was the network that most consistently chose this approach, airing multiple segments that focused on eco-friendly deals and product promotions. Although these segments framed environmental awareness as a positive consumer choice, they did little to contextualize the limitations of individual action or connect the promotion of eco-friendly products to broader questions of corporate responsibility and accountability, missing an opportunity to present climate action as a collective project rooted in policy, infrastructure, and justice, not just personal lifestyle choices.

While much of the coverage during Earth Month defaulted to surface-level environmental themes or consumer framing, several segments across ABC, CBS, and NBC offered more substantive approaches. These segments stood out for linking environmental harms to policy, incorporating expert perspectives, or foregrounding systemic challenges instead of individual responsibility. They demonstrated what broadcast climate journalism can look like when it moves beyond symbolic gestures and engages with structural causes and consequences.

During the April 22 episode of ABC's Good Morning America, chief meteorologist Ginger Zee explored enhanced rock weathering as a climate solution, highlighting efforts to repurpose mine waste as finely ground rock dust that can both remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and enrich farmland.

The April 22 episode of CBS Evening News featured a segment examining how EPA budget cuts under the Trump administration are undermining pollution monitoring and public health projects in marginalized communities. One of the strongest Earth Day segments in recent years, it framed the rollback of environmental justice programs as a deliberate policy choice with material human and ecological costs.

During the April 25 episode of NBC's Today, the network spotlighted climate-resilient architecture, focusing on how intentional building design can help communities adapt to rising seas, heavier rainfall, and more frequent extreme weather.

Other notable segments included the April 6 episode of CBS Evening News, which aired one of the few segments to directly link a Trump-era policy to climate risk. The report mentioned the administration’s plan to increase timber production by weakening forest protections, outlining how the move could undermine climate mitigation and heighten wildfire danger. CBS Evening News also aired a two-part series on April 22 and 23 that investigated how nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project ended up in a St. Louis waterway, exposing nearby communities to long-term health risks and highlighting a legacy of environmental injustice. 

During the April 21 episode of Good Morning America, Ginger Zee reported that emissions from buildings and construction now surpass those from transportation in order to highlight emerging low-carbon construction methods, including 3-D-printed homes and recycled-material bricks, as scalable solutions. The April 3 episode of NBC’s Today aired a substantive segment on the health risks of microplastic exposure, spotlighting new research that found plastic particles in human brains and arteries and linked them to higher rates of dementia, heart attack, and cancer.

Earth Month remains a largely missed opportunity for broadcast networks to inform the public, hold power accountable, and deepen understanding of the systems driving climate and environmental collapse. To meet the scale of the climate crisis and serve the public interest, coverage must move beyond symbolic gestures and consumer advice. These are three areas where improvement is both urgent and achievable.

Prioritize political accountability

Coverage should directly connect environmental harms to the policies and people responsible for them, especially the Trump administration’s ongoing deregulatory agenda. Viewers deserve clarity on how decisions in Washington shape climate outcomes, public health, and environmental injustice. Earth Month should not obscure those connections; it should confront them. Segments must name the consequences of rollbacks on air and water protections, forest management, and fossil fuel regulation, particularly as those impacts accumulate in frontline communities.

Replace consumer framing with structural analysis

Segments centered on personal product choices and “green” lifestyle tips should evolve toward reporting on systemic forces like fossil fuel subsidies, regulatory capture, and corporate greenwashing. Covering climate as a governance and accountability issue could help viewers understand the real levers of change. 

Elevate underrepresented voices and environmental justice

Too often, Earth Month coverage privileges corporate perspectives or individual consumers over the communities most affected by environmental harms. That must change. Networks should include frontline activists, Indigenous leaders, and local organizers whose work directly addresses the consequences of environmental injustice. Earth Month coverage should reflect the lived reality of those most impacted, not just the aesthetics of sustainability.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original episodes for ABC’s Good Morning America, GMA3, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; NBC’s Today, Today 3rd Hour, Nightly News, and Meet the Press for any of the terms “Earth Day,” “global warming,” “climate,” or “carbon” or “Zeldin” or “EPA,” or any variations of any of the terms “emissions,” “pollute,” or “environment” from April 1, 2025, through April 30, 2025, the month-long coverage of Earth Day.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when environmental or climate issues were the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of environmental or climate issues. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed environmental or climate issues with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a multitopic segment mentioned environmental or climate issues without another speaker engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about environmental or climate issues scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.

We then reviewed the identified segments for whether any speaker(s) mentioned any actions taken by the EPA or Administrator Lee Zeldin.