Published ahead of COP30, the State of Climate Action 2025 translates the Paris Agreement temperature goal into actionable targets for 2030, 2035 and 2050 across the world’s highest-emitting sectors – power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture – as well as specifies how quickly technological carbon dioxide and climate finance must scale up. It then assesses recent progress made towards these global benchmarks, highlighting where – and by how much – efforts must accelerate this decade.  

This report card, the fifth in the State of Climate Action series, finds that, while the ten years following the adoption of the Paris Agreement have seen the transition to net-zero emissions take off, there’s still a long way to go. Across every single sector, climate action has failed to materialize at the pace and scale required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal. None of the 45 indicators assessed are on track to reach their 1.5°C-aligned targets by the end of this decade. 

Key Findings 

Although more than three-quarters of indicators are heading in the right direction, progress is alarmingly inadequate, exposing communities, economies and ecosystems to unacceptable risks. Global efforts across 29 indicators are well off track, such that at least a twofold—and for most, more than a fourfold—acceleration will be required this decade to keep the 1.5°C limit within reach. 

That progress made in effectively halting permanent forest loss falls within this category for the third installment in a row is particularly worrying. Not only does deforestation, alone, account for just over 10 percent of global GHG emissions, but alongside other forms of land-use change, it also poses among the most significant threats to biodiversity across terrestrial ecosystems. Equally concerning are sluggish efforts to phase out electricity generated from coal, the largest source of GHG emissions in the power sector. Lackluster declines in this indicator also stymie mitigation across buildings, industry and transport that all, to varying degrees, rely on a decarbonized power grid. And the scale-up of total climate finance, particularly from public sources, also remains well off track. Failure to mobilize sufficient funds similarly risks constraining climate action across all sectors.  

Worse still, recent rates of change for another five indicators are heading in the wrong direction entirely and require an immediate course correction. Public fossil fuel finance, for example, has grown by an average of $75 billion per year since 2014; progress made in decarbonizing steel has largely stagnated; and the share of trips taken by passenger cars, many of which still rely on the internal combustion engine, continue to rise. 

While promising, most of today’s bright spots represent isolated instances of rapid change—a far cry from the systemwide transformations urgently needed to close the GHG emissions gap for 1.5°C. Progress for another six indicators is heading in the right direction at a promising, albeit still inadequate, pace. Private climate finance, for example, increased so sharply that global efforts to mobilize these funds shifted from “well off track” in the State of Climate Action 2023 to just “off track.” Between 2022 and 2023, these funds rose from roughly $870 billion to a record high of $1.3 trillion, with individual consumers, businesses and institutional investors, particularly in China and western Europe, driving much of these recent gains.

Electric vehicle sales also continue to rise rapidly, fueled by impressive growth across China, the world’s leading consumer and manufacturer of these light-duty vehicles. But in two other major markets, momentum has stalled and dampened global progress. Consequently, annual growth rates in EVs’ share of total light-duty vehicle sales fell to an average of roughly 20 percent in 2023 and 2024 compared to growth rates of more than 60 percent in each of the three previous years. So, while EVs are still achieving meaningful gains in the global share of light-duty vehicle sales, more recent progress has fallen from “on track” in the State of Climate Action 2023 to “off track” for what’s needed to help achieve the Paris Agreement temperature goal.  

Getting on track for 2030 and staying on track for 2035 demands an enormous acceleration of efforts across every sector. The world must, for example:

  • Phase out coal more than ten times faster — equivalent to retiring nearly 360 average-sized coal-fired power plants each year and halting all projects in the pipeline.
  • Reduce deforestation nine times faster. Current levels are far too high — roughly equivalent to permanently losing nearly 22 football (soccer) fields of forest every minute in 2024.
  • Expand rapid transit networks five times faster — equivalent to building at least 1,400 km (870 miles) of light rail, metro and bus lanes annually.
  • Lower consumption of beef, lamb and goat meat in high-consuming regions five times faster — equivalent to reducing consumption by 2 or fewer servings per week in North and South America, Australia and New Zealand.
  • Scale technological carbon dioxide removal more than ten times faster — equivalent to building nine of the largest direct air capture facilities currently under construction each month.
  • Increase climate finance by nearly $1 trillion annually — equivalent to roughly two-thirds of public fossil fuel finance in 2023. 

Published under Systems Change Lab, this report is a joint effort of the Bezos Earth Fund, Climate Analytics, the Climate High-Level Champions, ClimateWorks Foundation and World Resources Institute. 

Preview image by DENNIS SCHROEDER / NREL