‘Tis the season to be merry … and get graded. As students across the country anxiously await their report cards, we thought it would be a good time to ask climate experts to grade the United States’ efforts to address the issue over the last year.

They were more than happy to play along.

“As a professor of sustainability, grading is very much in our working dialog,” one respondent told us. Another chimed in: “I’m finishing up my fall semester class right now, so grades are on my mind.”

The stakes, however, are much greater for the planet than for their students. This almost certainly will go down as the hottest year in recorded history, and the time for meaningful action is drawing short. Although the U.S. showed great effort as the Inflation Reduction Act started to roll out, it fell short of its potential with incomplete work on issues such as permitting reform, not to mention the approval of a massive drilling project in Alaska.

While experts varied in the grade they assigned, everyone agreed the country has a lot of homework to do if it hopes to pass the planet’s hardest test.

Read the full article about U.S. progress on climate action by Tik Root at Grist.