Today marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Paris Agreement, a landmark global climate agreement that has demonstrably and powerfully helped focus global attention on climate action. It’s a sobering time to mark this day, though, because the trajectory of global heat-trapping emissions remains stubbornly, perilously high, and scientists confirm that the world is on track to overshoot 1.5°C of warming by the early 2030s. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has pulled the US out of the agreement yet again, the only country that has shamefully exited it (twice!)
On this day, I am reminding myself of the feeling of incredible relief and hope that I and so many others had back in 2015. I am remembering the tears of joy on many of our faces when the gavel came down on the Paris Agreement. Despite stiff political obstacles from the “big powers,” because of the moral courage of small island nations and unrelenting pressure from civil society climate justice advocates, 190+ countries agreed to a strong framework to work together to tackle the climate crisis.
But even then, we weren’t naïve about what it would take to actually implement this hard-won agreement. We knew we would have to fight back at home in every country to get the policies and investments that would make the Paris agreement’s goals come alive. We knew the malign opposition we would face from well-funded fossil fuel interests.
What lessons have we learned in the last decade and how can we use them to inform what comes next? Here are some that I see as critical:
- Solving a huge global problem like climate change requires cooperation from countries. Zero-sum competitive thinking and harmful trade wars directly undermine cooperation, pit one country’s clean transition against the other, and will set back climate progress. Instead, countries must work together in a fair way to rapidly deploy cheap renewable energy everywhere, bringing down people’s energy costs, cutting health-harming pollution, and closing the energy poverty gap for millions who don’t have access to modern forms of energy today.
- Tackling climate change requires rapidly scaling up clean technologies and practices AND simultaneously phasing out fossil fuels. Both/and. Cheap renewable energy is already expanding rapidly across the world, and we have to accelerate that momentum. But there is no credible pathway of meeting climate goals without also advancing a fast, fair transition away from fossil fuels.
- Climate change is inherently a problem of equity and justice. Richer nations have already consumed the lion’s share of the rapidly dwindling carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5°C or even 2°C. Their emissions are primarily responsible for the catastrophic climate impacts being experienced today. Taking responsibility for their role in creating the climate crisis is essential to advancing just solutions to address it.
- The most important climate solution that gets the least attention: climate finance from wealthier nations for lower income countries to cut their emissions, adapt to climate change and cope with climate loss and damage. Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement is clear on this: Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention. Yet, year after year, richer countries continue to evade this responsibility and force inequitable outcomes.
- We must accelerate climate progress in every venue we can and at all scales—from the local to the national and international—and that includes seeking justice in the courts.
- Let’s be appropriately skeptical of the lure of magic bullet solutions, the siren song of the latest new tech “fix” that keeps us still hooked on polluting fossil fuels. If we’re serious about solving a problem, we have to address its root causes.
I’m sometimes asked if the current dire reality of the climate crisis proves that the Paris Agreement has failed. No, I don’t think so at all. The Paris agreement—and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the treaty under which it was negotiated—has all the ingredients needed to address climate change. And every country, but one, that signed the agreement is still committed to it, as we saw recently at COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
Many forward-leaning businesses too have embraced the economic opportunity created by a clean energy transition, and global investments in clean energy have surged tremendously over the last ten years.
The monumental failure here is that world leaders, especially those from richer countries, have reneged on the promises they made under the Paris Agreement. They have allowed fossil fuel interests to continue to dictate the world’s energy policies. They have ignored their obligations to poorer, less well-resourced countries. And they may have given lip service to science and the importance of the 1.5°C target, but they are actively undermining it in practice by continuing to expand fossil fuel production.
Where we go from here depends on our ability to hold our political leaders and the fossil fuel industry accountable. It depends on whether we will heed the blaring alarms from climate science, the terrifying climate impacts we are beginning to unleash on the world, some of which are multi-century, irreversible harms. It depends on our recognition that the climate crisis on our doorstep is magnified and much worse for those with the fewest resources around the world.
Protecting people from the ravages of climate change is crucial, and that includes guaranteeing human rights protections for those forced to be on the move for their safety. It depends on us embracing a simple daring truth: the world will be unquestionably better off without burning fossil fuels. How can we get to that bright future as quickly as possible?
Every agreement, every promise is only as good as the word of those who make it. If we, the nations of the world, fail to keep our word, the Paris Agreement won’t save us. But if we are bold enough and brave enough to make those words we pledged in the Paris agreement a reality, the future we leave the world’s children can still be a good one.