From Paris to Belém: Ten Years of Climate Action and What’s Next

And just like that, 10 years have passed since the very memorable 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris and the remarkable agreement that united almost all countries behind the positive ambitions of limiting global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while making extra efforts to stay below 1.5°C. Through this agreement, both developed and developing countries agreed on submitting their climate ambitions through what was known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), setting up as well mechanisms for cooperation between all nations.

From that year on, many more COPs have been held in an attempt to operationalize the Paris Agreement. To start, the COPs 22, 23, and 24, held in Marrakech, Bonn, and Katowice, respectively, addressed the “Paris Rulebook,” which outlined the way countries were to implement their NDCs, report their emissions, and review their progress. Some COPs later in Baku, very long-awaited progress was made on Article 6 and carbon market mechanisms, which could potentially enable the mobilization of trillions of dollars in climate finance worldwide.

While global negotiations take place, the temperature has continued to rise to record highs. For example, the global average temperature in 2024 was close to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, making it the first full year in which we exceeded one of the key thresholds set in the Paris Agreement. This comes as no surprise considering that we keep releasing to the atmosphere more than 50 GtCO2e, mainly due to our heavy dependency on fossil fuels. Moreover, our global NDCs are insufficiently ambitious, falling short of the 42% emissions reduction needed by 2030 compared to 2019 levels to keep global warming close to the 1.5° target, putting us on a trajectory of a 2.3-2.6°C temperature increase by 2100. So, while the Paris Agreement is still to date one of the biggest displays of global cooperation, the speed at which we are decarbonizing the economy at a global scale remains largely inadequate.

There are also good reasons to remain positive, though. There are great examples of countries adopting different policies and standards in areas such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, phasing out coal, and carbon pricing, resulting in important emission reductions compared to their baseline emissions. For example, the UK was able to halve its emissions compared to 1990 levels mainly by increasing its investment in renewable energy and by phasing out coal.

In the Latin American and Caribbean region, different countries are also making use of different instruments to expedite their decarbonization. Uruguay, for example, has reached a 95% electricity generation based on renewable sources like wind and solar. Another example is Costa Rica, where electromobility has become a great lever for their emission reductions, investing in electric trains and providing EV incentives. Chile is also poised to make good progress through the implementation of an ambitious plan to phase out coal from electricity generation by 2030.

Corporations are also making ambitious climate and science-based climate commitments, with close to half of the Fortune 500 committing to net-zero emissions by 2050 (at the latest). Over the course of its 20-plus years of existence, the GHG Protocol has served as a gold standard that corporations have used to account for and report their GHG emissions. Through it, companies have learned which levers they can use to accelerate their decarbonization, including but not limited to renewable energy use, energy efficiency and electrification, value chain decarbonization, nature-based solutions, and carbon pricing mechanisms. 

While tackling climate action is nowadays a necessity from a brand value perspective, companies have learned that it is actually profitable to decarbonize. This explains in part why, for example, some big tech companies are investing significant amounts of resources in carbon removal and renewable energy projects.

The need for much higher climate finance remains as the big elephant in the room, being a major barrier to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. Actually, it goes back to the COP15 in Copenhagen since that is where developed countries committed to mobilize US$100 billion per year by 2020, a milestone only met a few years after that deadline. More recently, in Dubai and Baku between 2023 and 2024, it was agreed to mobilize at least US$300 billion a year for developing countries and to aim to scale up climate finance from public and private sources to at least US$1.3 trillion annually by 2035. Closing this gap will require more than loans, including but not limited to concessional finance, blended finance mechanisms, green taxonomies, greater, improved, and coordinated adoption of carbon pricing mechanisms, and other new funding mechanisms, such as the Tropical Forest Finance Facility proposed by Brazil.

International cooperation will be more essential than ever for accelerating climate action, and mechanisms such as Article 6 and CORSIA will be pivotal for boosting project implementation. On the one hand, Article 6 will enable collaboration among countries through market and non-market approaches, supporting nations in meeting their goals cost-effectively. On the other hand, CORSIA will channel new investments from the aviation sector into reforestation, renewable energy, and efficiency projects.

As the world prepares for Belém, Brazil, the stakes could not be higher. First, during the upcoming conference, the so-called NDCs 3.0 will be assessed and their level of ambition scrutinized. Adaptation will be another key point under review, including the submission of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and the tracking of the progress related to the Global Goal on Adaptation (GCA). Also, there will be many more conversations about climate finance, continuing from where it left off in Baku last year.

Belém will be the first COP taking place in the Amazon, the planet’s largest rainforest, a critical carbon sink, a frontline in the fight against climate change, and one of the greatest examples of what nature-based solutions are. The conference marks both 10 years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement and 20 years since the Kyoto Protocol entered into force, making it a pivotal moment for stocktaking, renewed ambition, and climate action.