Global climate action too slow despite progress under Paris Agreement, warns UN report

New Delhi: Ten years after the Paris Agreement was adopted, a latest UN report has showed that countries are making progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions but not fast enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The 2025 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report, released by the UN Climate Change on Tuesday, said the 64 new national climate plans submitted between January 2024 and September 2025 would collectively cut emissions by about 17 per cent below the 2019 levels by 2035. Though this marks "real and increasing progress", the report said that "major acceleration is still needed in terms of delivering faster and deeper emission reductions and ensuring that the benefits of strong climate action reach all countries and peoples". NDCs are climate action plans that every country makes under the Paris Agreement. These plans set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and outline how each country will adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Together, these national plans determine whether the world can meet the goal of keeping temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius this century. The deadline for submitting the new NDCs was February 10, 2025, which over 90 per cent of the countries missed. The 64 NDC-submitting countries covered in the report include the US, Russia, Japan, Brazil, Canada, the UK, Australia and Nigeria, among others. Other major emitters such as China, India, the EU, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are yet to submit their updated plans. According to the report, the implementation of the new NDCs would bring total greenhouse gas emissions of the 64 reporting countries down to around 13 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2035 from 13.9 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030, with emissions peaking before 2030. However, the 64 NDCs cover only about 30 per cent of global emissions, and therefore "it is not possible to draw wide-ranging global conclusions or inferences from this limited dataset". The report said countries are "bending their combined emission curve further downwards, but still not quickly enough". It said that 89 per cent of the new climate plans include economy-wide targets, 88 per cent were informed by the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake, and 73 per cent contain adaptation components. UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said the data shows both progress and the urgency for stronger action. "Countries are setting national climate targets and plans to achieve them that differ in pace and scale to any that have come before," Stiell said. "Ten years after we adopted the Paris Agreement, we can say simply that it is delivering real progress. But it must work much faster and fairer and that acceleration must start now," he said.

Stiell added that global emissions are "now clearly bending downwards for the first time", but "still not nearly fast enough". According to the report, the 64 countries analysed require between USD 1.97 trillion and USD 1.98 trillion to implement their NDCs -- USD 1.34 trillion for mitigation and around USD 560 billion for adaptation. Most nations said they would rely on a mix of domestic and international sources and are exploring green bonds, de-risking instruments and innovative finance options. Adaptation and resilience remain a key priority for the reporting countries, the report noted. "A total of 73 per cent of new NDCs include an adaptation component,” the report said, adding that countries are strengthening early warning systems, food and water security, disaster risk management and climate-resilient infrastructure. Almost all developing nations highlighted loss and damage in their submissions, with small island states integrating it as a "core component" of their climate plans. The report said that 70 per cent of countries considered just transition in their new NDCs, linking climate action to social protection and livelihoods. Many developing countries said this shift is essential to ensure the move to clean economies does not deepen poverty or inequality. Nearly all countries (98 per cent) have included domestic mitigation measures and 80 per cent have reported steps in at least one of the six most cost-effective mitigation areas such as afforestation, reforestation, solar energy and reducing deforestation. The report said 89 per cent of the new NDCs include gender-related actions and 88 per cent refer to children and youth, reflecting a "whole-of-society" approach to climate action. Forests and oceans have emerged as critical components of the new climate plans. Stiell called for COP30, to be held in Belem, Brazil, in November, to send a "clear signal" that nations remain committed to climate cooperation. The world has already heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era (1850-1900), largely due to burning of fossil fuels. To limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the UN's climate science body, IPCC, says emissions must peak by 2025 and drop 43 per cent by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035. However, IPCC chair Jim Skea told PTI in an interview in March that the emission reduction target is now outdated due to inaction, meaning the actual reduction needed is even higher.