There isn’t much left until the end of the year, the COP30 in Belém recently ended and unfortunately “we recognize our failure”, to put it in the words of UN Secretary General António Guterres in an interview with Guardian. Yes, because ten years after the Paris Agreements the truth is that we have managed to do (or Not do) very little of what we had promised.
If the 1.5°C target, in fact, was the crucial element of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which required careful diplomacy to ensure its inclusion in the final agreement, to stay on track, emissions would have to peak by the end of this year and reduce by almost half by 2030, compared to 2019 levels.
Was it like this?
Absolutely not. Last year was the warmest year on record and the first in which the global average temperature clearly exceeded 1.5°C. According to the latest data, global greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1.3% in 2024 compared to the previous year. While a single year of average global temperatures of 1.5°C does not indicate that this threshold has been irreversibly broken, research suggests that the world is likely to surpass the 1.5°C mark in the next 20 years. The impacts of continued warming are already visible across the planet.
The world is failing to meet the 2025 Paris Agreement goal
In short, according to the most recent data, in 2024 global greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1.3% compared to the previous year. While just one year of global average temperatures of 1.5°C does not mean that this threshold has been irreversibly exceeded, research suggests that the world is likely to exceed 1.5°C in the next 20 years. The effects of continued warming are already visible around the world.
This global temperature benchmark was intended as a safeguard against the dangerous effects of warming.
Between 1.5°C and 2°C of warming, critical impacts will accelerate rapidly – explains Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate and political science at Imperial College London. The impacts will affect ecosystems, tropical coral reefs, alpine ecosystems, arctic ecosystems, which are already suffering enormously due to the global warming we are experiencing.
To achieve this, countries submitted their own climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), as part of the Paris Agreement. While some countries have made progress in reducing emissions, this has not been enough to offset high economic growth, says Adrian Raftery, professor emeritus of statistics and sociology at the University of Washington, whose work focuses on environmental science.
Over the past decade, despite great progress in reducing carbon intensity and carbon efficiency, the total amount of carbon emissions in the world has increased rather than decreased, Raftery says, explaining that rising global GDP has largely contributed to the increase in emissions.
Raftery recently led a study that examined the likelihood of when global emissions will finally peak. The researchers found a 22% chance that emissions will peak in 2025 and a 90% chance that this will happen by 2045.
In a report released last week, the United Nations said just over 60 countries have submitted updated domestic plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while more than 100 countries have not yet submitted them. Based on the plans presented so far, which also include an NDC submitted by the United States in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency, before Donald Trump withdrew the country from the agreement, greenhouse gas levels will be only 6% lower than the levels predicted in 2030 in previous NDCs, about 13 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions. To limit warming to 1.5°C, emissions would need to fall by around 45% from 2010 levels by 2030.
What will become of us?
Not all is lost. An International Court of Justice advisory opinion on climate change published in July found that countries are legally obliged to protect and prevent damage to the environment.
This makes it much easier for many countries and governments to push for more ambitious climate action – says Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London. Furthermore, renewable energy is becoming cheaper and more widespread than fossil fuels. For the first time, renewables overtook coal as the world’s largest source of electricity, contributing 34.3% of all global electricity generated in the first half of 2025, while coal fell to 33.1%, according to energy think tank Ember. While emissions likely won’t peak this year, that doesn’t mean we can’t stop global warming completely.
Signed by 196 Parties (195 States and the European Union), the Paris Agreement is everyone’s work. It defines the rules of multilateral cooperation for a fight that no country can lead alone. Ten years later, in a very tense international context, it remains the cornerstone of international climate governance to which we should all look.
