- Formal negotiations
- Finance
- Global review
- Global report
- Digital sequence information
- Harmful subsidies
- Marine biodiversity
- Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
- Article 8(j) implementation
- Biodiversity and climate change
- Links with other bodies
- Around the COP
- Armenian presidency
- Protests
- Lobbying and influence
- Carbon and biodiversity markets
Piers Forster is Professor of Physical Climate Change and founding Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the landmark Paris Agreement, which has become a key compass in policymaking over the past years, preventing us from reaching a world with 4°C of warming. Climate ambition and implementation must continue at the pace the Paris Agreement requires.
Ten years ago, governments adopted an agreement that was supposed to keep the global average temperature “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial times and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
A decade later, 1.5°C is no longer a distant possibility but a lived reality.
UN accepts overshooting 1.5C warming limit – at least temporarily – is “inevitable”
The Paris Agreement is failing to meet its lowest temperature goal. Yet it has done something profound: it has steered the world away from 4°C of warming, towards a level closer to 2-something.
That is nowhere near safe, but it is not nothing.
As a climate scientist, I’ve seen the climate changing over the years. The influence humans exert on it is unequivocal. And it became clear that in a world that is shifting so rapidly, it’s key to provide decision-makers with frequent, robust updates on the state of the climate system. This is why, together with other colleagues, we created the Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) initiative.
Hot seas and even hotter land bring dangerous impacts
Since 2023, we’ve been using IPCC methodologies to update key climate indicators that help us track how the climate is changing and how much of that is due to human influence. We found that global greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high, with around 53 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) having been released into the atmosphere, much higher than the approximate 41 GtCO2 in 2014.
The planet is now around 1.4°C warmer than in the late 19th century, compared with roughly 0.4°C in 1990, the year I embarked on my PhD, and about 1°C in 2015.
Land temperatures increased by 1.79°C from 1850–1900 to 2015–2024 and ocean temperatures by 1.02°C over the same period. Among the negative consequences of a warmer ocean, there’s sea level rise, which impacts coastal areas and becomes very dangerous for human settlements in those areas.
Unnervingly, this is likely the most stable and safest climate we will know for the next hundred years or more, given the carbon dioxide levels already in the atmosphere.
Capital shifting to clean energy sources
Although not as fast as humanity requires, climate policies have moved forward. The most visible change is in the power system. In 2015, renewables and nuclear made up about 24% of global electricity generation; today, they account for just over 40%.
In most of the world, new wind and solar are now cheaper than new fossil power. The economic case is better than ever to transition. The investment, innovation and policy shifts triggered or accelerated by Paris have rerouted capital in the right directions.
Taking the UK as an example, the government passed a net-zero emissions law in 2019, becoming the first major economy in the world to take such a step. The UK has also made significant progress in reducing emissions: in 2024, emissions levels were around 50% below those in 1990.
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As the Paris Agreement turns 10, what has it achieved?
A decade since the deal was adopted, climate experts say it is working to cut emissions, spur action and reduce the projected temperature rise – but not as fast as we need it to -
US set to push fossil fuels under its G20 presidency
But Trump’s attempts to undermine climate action could face blowback as most other nations remain committed -
Government attendance at COP30 was lowest in 10 years
With a shortage of affordable accommodation on COP30’s official platform, just 7,500 people attended the summit with official government badges
How the Paris pact can mature
Here’s what we need in the next 10 years for the Paris Agreement to survive its adolescence:
First, science cannot be treated as a battleground.
The latest IPCC cycle (AR6) had a more balanced authorship than ever before, with an approximately equal split between experts from the Global North and Global South and near parity between men and women. That diversity has strengthened, not weakened, the scientific consensus.
Yet at this year’s COP30 climate conference, some governments tried to sideline IPCC findings and to block routine updates on the state of the climate from the final decision text – not because the numbers were wrong, but because they were angry at the glacial progress on climate finance or did not want their own climate ambitions scrutinized too closely.
However, turning the scientific messenger into a target will not move a single dollar or tonne of CO2.
Second, the world needs to stop obsessing over the “net” in net zero.
The cheapest, fastest and most reliable way to slow the pace of climate change is to replace fossil fuels with renewables and, where appropriate, nuclear power, backed by storage, grids and efficiency.
Yes, we need to plan for carbon dioxide removal and yes, we need to help nature restore its damaged ecosystems. These “net” parts of net zero remain important, but without a planned phase-out of fossil fuel production and use, the Paris temperature goals are dead.
There are, however, glimmers of a post-fossil politics.
Charting a path away from fossil fuels
At COP30 in Belém, 24 countries, including major fossil fuel producers such as Australia and Colombia, backed language that points towards a managed transition away from fossil fuels.
And 18 nations have now endorsed the proposal for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would, in effect, do for coal, oil and gas what earlier treaties did for nuclear weapons: cap, then wind down, the most dangerous stocks.
Colombia seeks to speed up a “just” fossil fuel phase-out with first global conference
The Brazilian COP presidency is also working on a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap, signaling that the politics of “how” to leave fossil fuels behind is finally catching up with the science of “why”.
In some ways, it feels like 2014, when momentum built and delivered the Paris Agreement. The difference now is that we have the means to deliver on this vision.
The post Why the Paris Agreement worked – and what it needs to do to survive appeared first on Climate Home News.
Why the Paris Agreement worked – and what it needs to do to survive
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Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.
Formal negotiations
Finance
Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks.
At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes.
The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.
As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.
The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.
Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.
Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya.
Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after.
Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030.
However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.
Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF.
The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature.
Article 20 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states that developed countries “shall provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries to meet the costs of implementing measures to protect nature.
The text states that other countries – including emerging economies – may “voluntarily assume” these obligations to pay. However, it adds that this list of developed countries “shall” be reviewed periodically and amended “if necessary”.
The list was last amended in 2006.
(See this “jargon buster” which explains the specific meaning and legal weight of various terms and verbs used in UN formal documents.)
Discussions around this fraught subject had reached a dead end at intersessional talks this year, but resurfaced in Yerevan.
The first “non-paper” had four different options for expanding the contributor base. These ranged from using the World Bank’s country income groups “as a proxy” to identify high-income countries, to commissioning a study on the impacts of being included on the list.
By 21 October, the number of options swelled to eight, including two from Saudi Arabia and one from Peru.
Some countries “expressed concern” that certain options were based on a CBD secretariat study on “what constitutes a developed country”, Earth Negotiations Bulletin reported.
By the end of the first week, it was clear that the finance deadlock would have to go into informal ministerial consultations for any consensus to emerge.
At a press conference on 28 October, Christopher O’Sullivan, Ireland’s nature minister and representing the EU delegation, told Carbon Brief:
“Our position isn’t that we want to pull back in terms of contributing…but it’s been 20 years since that list was added to, times have changed and there are new realities. We just simply want those new realities reflected. I don’t fully understand why there’s so much opposition to that.”
The EU chose not to comment on which countries it would like to see on that list.
Lim Li Ching from the Third World Network, meanwhile, called the push for others to “assume the obligations” of developed countries “sheer hypocrisy”, adding that any country could make a voluntary contribution. She told Carbon Brief:
“At a forum like the CBD, this linking of income status with finance does not take into account where historical and current responsibilities lie. If you want to generate more funding for biodiversity, let’s look at sovereign debt burdens and rules, which are inequitable for developing countries. But if you can fund wars, and provide resources for your defence industry, then you know where the priorities are.”
On 29 October – at a plenary meant to adopt final texts for the most contentious subjects – Norway’s Gaute Hanssen announced that resource-mobilisation discussions would go into a smaller “friends of the chair” meeting.
Facilitated by Carolina Caceres from Canada and Imèn Meliane from Tunisia, the meeting would discuss the most contentious elements of a draft decision that had swelled to 112 brackets, denoting areas of disagreement on specific details in the text.
While the meeting was open to all, countries that were called to be present included Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the EU, Fiji, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UK.
At the same time, a “non-paper” text by finance and environment ministers laid out countries’ red lines and compromises.
At the end of COP17, countries welcomed a final compromise text, with Kenya thanking the “strong women” co-chairs who strove to strike a “delicate” balance.
China, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Fiji cautioned against any further interventions, with Brazil warning: “If we open