Nevada is probably most famous for the lights and luxury of Las Vegas—the city receives over 40 million visitors each year. It is also the driest and most mountainous state in the country and is home to over 150 mountain ranges not to mention more than 3 million people. It spans nearly 110 square miles making it the seventh largest state by land area and the 32nd most populated state.
CLIMATE IMPACT
As Nevada is already the driest state in the nation, it is extremely vulnerable to extreme heat and drought.
- Nevada’s Reno is the fastest-warming city in the US. By 2050 the state is projected to see about 55 heat wave days per year, up from 15 in 2000, and 30 days that reach dangerous levels. Already in the summer of 2019, Las Vegas had to set up shelters and temporary cooling stations to help people escape the intolerable heat. Four of the five years with the largest burn area from wildfires have occurred since 2005 in Nevada, and increased fire frequency also increases the spread of invasive species.
- These changes are putting an extreme strain on Nevada’s water supply. As in other places around the world, warmer temperatures shift rain patterns so that rain storms often become more intense even as they are less frequent. As snowpack melts earlier in the Spring, it also evaporates more quickly. The result of these combined forces is dried-out land and shrinking bodies of water.
- Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country, has dropped 143 feet since 2000. So disturbed by the water scarcity, representatives of seven Western states (Nevada, California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico) and the federal government signed a landmark deal in 2019, laying out potential cuts in water deliveries through 2026 in order to reduce the risks of the river’s reservoirs hitting critically low levels. 25 million people rely on Lake Mead and, as the first round of water cuts take place, hardest hit will be the agricultural and tribal communities. As Nevada’s Director of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources admitted at the time, Nevada has already reached critical mass in terms of its water supply and is seeking ways to pump in water from out of state.
- As of 2024, Nevada, Arizona and California have managed to increase water levels in Lake Mead by almost 20 feet and together conserved more water in 2023 than any previous year since 1984. However, in August 2026 Lake Mead hit its lowest levels recorded since it was filled in the 1930s, and the previous winter was the worst snowpack on record for the Colorado River Basin.
- And, there is another danger: more than four-fifths of Nevada’s land is owned and managed by the federal government—a higher share than in any other state—and one of the nation’s largest federal hydroelectric facilities, the Hoover Dam–normally producing 2,000 megawatts of hydropower—enough electricity for nearly 8 million Americans, is delivering 25% less as Lake Mead is diminished. This affects several states, including California, Arizona and Nevada, all of which get energy from the dam. If the lake loses another 175 feet, water will no longer flow through the Hoover Dam.
- In August 2026, the federal government released a 10 year management plan for the Colorado River basin, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, resulting in sharp water cuts for the next two years for California, Arizona, and Nevada. Nevada is to lose 17% of its Colorado River allocation. The federal government’s prioritization of Lake Powell over Lake Mead will result in Lake Mead continuing to drop over the next two years, and could cause an up to 40% reduction in the hydropower generating capacity of the Hoover Dam. Governor Joe Lombardo was critical of the plan, claiming it “seeks to impose unrealistic reductions on Nevada and our water users.” In late August 2026, Nevada sued the Trump administration over the new cuts.
ENERGY
Nevada is not a major energy-producing state — in 2025, the state used nine times more energy than it produced and ranked sixth-lowest in energy production. Nevada is the only state with lithium production, and an open pit mine began construction in 2023 in northern Nevada at the largest lithium deposit in North America. Nevada generates the majority of its electricity from natural gas (48% in 2025, the smallest amount since 2005). Renewables have the second largest share, at 47% in 2025. Solar accounted for 34%, exceeding hydroelectric for the first time in 2016 and geothermal in 2017. Nevada is currently fifth in the nation for solar generation, seventh for capacity, and first for solar power potential. Nevada also has a first-of-its-kind hybrid geothermal-solar power plant, which combines geothermal power with solar PV and solar thermal generation, and is home to the nation’s first large-scale solar power plant built on tribal land, the Moapa Southern Paiute Solar project. Geothermal contributed 8% in 2025, making Nevada second in the nation, after California, for geothermal generation. Hydropower contributed 4%, primarily from the Hoover Dam, a decline from previous years due to ongoing drought conditions. Finally, coal generated 5% of the state’s total electricity, down from 52% in 2005, with only one coal-fired power plant remaining.
LEGISLATION
Nevada’s Renewable Portfolio Standard was first enacted in 1997. It was most recently modified in 2019, requiring that 50% of retail sales must be generated by renewables by 2030.
- Nevada joined the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of governors committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in 2019 under Governor Sisolak.
- In 2020 Governor Steve Sisolak signed an executive order that required collaboration across state, private, and tribal partners to create a State Climate Strategy. The Strategy aimed to serve as a roadmap for policymakers to reduce Nevada’s greenhouse gas emissions to meet the 2019 RPS targets and the goals of the U.S. Climate Alliance.
- In June 2021, the legislature approved a sweeping clean energy bill that aims to accelerate construction of a massive transmission project, increase spending on electric vehicle infrastructure and require that the state join a regional transmission organization (RTO) by 2030.
- In 2023, Nevada’s current governor Joe Lombardo withdrew the state from the U.S. Climate Alliance, claiming their goals “conflict with Nevada’s energy policy objectives.”
- Governor Lombardo also pulled Sisolak’s State Climate Strategy offline, replacing it with his administration’s Nevada’s Climate Innovation Plan in 2024. Environmental activists and lawmakers have criticized the plan for vaguely summarizing past actions without putting forth new specific objectives, and for being produced without input from residents or community environmental groups.
- The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, Governor’s Office of Energy and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources released the Nevada Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) in February 2024. The PCAP was produced with funding from the EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program and focuses on six areas to reduce GHG emissions: transportation, buildings, energy system, industry, waste reduction and Nevada submitted a Comprehensive Climate Analysis Plan in 2025 to fulfill phase 2 of the EPA’s program.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
The Nevada Environmental Justice Coalition is a statewide coalition of community organizations, working to “prioritize justice in the fight to protect our state’s natural resources through a social and racial equity lens, to ensure a just transition away from extractive industries and to liberate frontline communities from environmental hardships.” Made up of organizations including Chispa Nevada, Make the Road Nevada, and Native Voters Alliance Nevada, the Coalition works towards expanding access to reliable housing, clean energy, public transit, clean, safe drinking water, and worker protections from extreme heat. In 2025, the coalition was successful in getting two bills passed - one requiring local governments to adopt heat mitigation plans, and one requiring the development of worker protections from wildfire smoke - and they released a report on Nevada’s priorities for affordable housing, public transportation, extreme heat and water.
In June 2026, a South Caroline federal judge ruled the Trump administration’s termination of the $2.8 billion Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant program was illegal, following a lawsuit filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Public Rights Project. When the Trump administration terminated the programming May 2025, $20 million in federal funding was rescinded from the Walker River Paiute Tribe in Nevada that would have funded a multi-year climate resilience plan to deliver energy efficiency and climate resiliency for 30% of homes on the reservation, improve water infrastructure and water quality, and build a Community Resilience and Food Storage Hub.
As of December 2025, Nevada wasn’t even halfway to meeting its emissions reductions goals set for 2030, and rapid AI data center development will impede this progress further, threatening limited water resources in the driest state. Nevada currently has 71 data centers, and has no reporting requirements or statewide regulations on water usage. Proposed data center projects in 2025 requested more energy than the residential population of Las Vegas, and as of March 2026 the energy requested by data center projects would require the state’s largest utility to double its entire energy capacity in just 10 years, potentially increasing emissions 150% by 2030.
