A Decade After Paris Agreement: Global Climate Crisis Deepens Despite Progress in Green Technologies

The wealthiest 0.1% of the global population has increased their carbon emissions by 3% since 2015.

In the decade following the historic Paris climate agreement celebration, the world has transformed significantly, though not in the ways leaders anticipated or desired.

Earth's climate has deteriorated more rapidly than society has reduced its dependence on carbon-emitting fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, according to numerous scientists and officials.

Progress has been made—future warming projections have decreased by more than one degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2015—but the insufficient pace of change will be a central topic during the upcoming two-week United Nations climate negotiations in Belem, Brazil.

"I think it's important that we're honest with the world and we declare failure," stated Johan Rockstrom, director of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Research. He emphasized that climate-related damages are occurring faster and more severely than scientists predicted.

Diplomats, however, remain determined.

"We're actually in the direction that we established in Paris at a speed that none of us could have predicted," noted former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who helped facilitate the agreement requiring countries to develop climate action plans.

She acknowledged that humanity's climate efforts are progressing more slowly than climate harms are accelerating, adding that "the gap between the progress that we see on the ground and where we ought to be, that gap is still there and widening."

UN Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen stated that the world is "obviously falling behind."

"We're sort of sawing the branch on which we are sitting," she remarked.

Global annual temperature has risen approximately 0.46 degrees Celsius (0.83 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2015, one of the most significant 10-year temperature increases on record, according to European climate service Copernicus data. This year will rank as either the second or third hottest on record, Copernicus calculated. Every year since 2015 has exceeded the temperature of the Paris climate deal year.

Deadly heat waves have impacted not only traditional hotspots like India and the Middle East but also typically temperate regions such as North America's Pacific Northwest and Russia's Siberia.

Earth has experienced increasingly costly, dangerous, and extreme weather events. The decade since 2015 has witnessed the highest number of Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes and billion-dollar weather disasters in the United States, according to US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration records. America has endured 193 disasters costing at least $1 billion each over the past decade, totaling $1.5 trillion in damages.

Wildfires have devastated parts of Hawaii, California, Europe, and Australia. Floods have ravaged regions of Pakistan, China, and the American South. Scientists have determined that many—though not all—of these disasters bear the fingerprints of human-caused climate change.

Since 2015, over 7 trillion tons of ice have vanished from the world's glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, according to ice scientists' calculations. This equals more than 19 million Empire State Buildings.

Sea level rise is accelerating. During the past decade, global seas have risen 40 millimeters (1.6 inches). Though seemingly modest, this volume would fill 30 lakes the size of Lake Erie, according to University of Colorado professor Steve Nerem, who researches sea level rise.

Even the Amazon, where the climate negotiations will take place, has transformed from a carbon-absorbing region that removes heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere to an area that sometimes emits them due to deforestation.

Nevertheless, officials have celebrated numerous achievements over the past decade.

Renewable energy is now more economical than polluting fossil fuels in most regions. Last year, 74% of global electricity generation growth came from wind, solar, and other green alternatives, according to two July UN reports. Electric vehicle sales have skyrocketed from 1 million globally in 2015 to 17 million last year.

"There's no stopping it," said former US Special Climate Envoy Todd Stern, who helped negotiate the Paris Agreement. "You cannot hold back the tides."

In 2015, UN projections indicated Earth was heading toward almost 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since the mid-1800s. Currently, the world is on track for 2.8 degrees (5 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, potentially slightly less if countries fulfill their promises.

However, this remains far from the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), identified in scientific reports as approximately the danger threshold and established as the Paris Agreement's overarching objective.

"Ten years ago, we had a more orderly pathway for staying away from 1.5 degrees C entirely," Rockstrom observed. "Now we are 10 years later. We have failed."

A report examining dozens of progress indicators in transitioning from a fossil fuel economy, including solar and wind power installations, found none were advancing quickly enough to maintain warming at or below the 1.5-degree goal.

The collaborative report by the Bezos Earth Fund, Climate Analytics, the Climate High-Level Champions, ClimateWorks Foundation, and World Resources Institute determined that 35 indicators are moving in the right direction, though far too slowly.

"Technologies, once hypothetical, are now becoming a reality. And the good news is that reality has outpaced many of the projections a decade ago," said report author Kelly Levin, science and data chief at the Bezos Earth Fund. "But it's not nearly fast enough for what's needed."

Atmospheric methane levels increased 5.2% from 2015 to 2024, while carbon dioxide levels rose 5.8% during the same period, according to NOAA data.

Several developing countries, including the United States and other developed nations, have reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 7% since 2015. However, emissions have surged elsewhere, with China's increasing by 15.5% and India's soaring by 26.7%, according to Global Carbon Project data.

Oxfam International's analysis of global emissions by income level revealed that the richest 0.1% of people increased their carbon emissions by 3% since 2015, while the poorest 10% reduced their emissions by 30%.

"The Paris Agreement itself has underperformed," said University of Cambridge climate negotiations historian Joanna Depledge. "Unfortunately, it is one of those half-full, half-empty situations where you can't say it's failed. But then, nor can you say it's dramatically succeeded."