Almost exactly 10 years ago, a remarkable thing happened in a conference hall on the outskirts of Paris: After years of bitter negotiations, the leaders of nearly every country agreed to try to slow down global warming in an effort to head off its most devastating effects.<\/p>\n
The core idea was that countries would set their own targets to reduce their climate pollution in ways that made sense for them. Rich, industrialized nations were expected to go fastest and to help lower-income countries pay for the changes they needed to cope with climate hazards.<\/p>\n
So, has anything changed over those 10 years? Actually, yes. Quite a bit, for the better and the worse. For one thing, every country remains committed to the Paris Agreement, except one. That\u2019s the United States.<\/p>\n
We wanted to help you cut through the noise and show you 10 big things that have happened in the last 10 years.<\/p>\n
1. Emissions have come down, but there\u2019s still far to go.<\/p>\n
Call this good-ish news. Lower emissions mean the arc of temperature increase has curved downward over the past 10 years. If countries stick to current policies, the global average temperature is projected to rise by 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. That\u2019s a significant improvement from where we were 10 years ago: In 2015, scientific models said we were on track to increase the global average temperature by up to 3.8 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n
Global greenhouse gas emissions and expected warming <\/p>\n
But none of the world’s biggest emitters \u2014 China, the U.S., the European Union, India \u2014 have met their Paris promises. And every degree of warming matters. A one-degree increase in average temperature, for instance, raises malaria risk for children<\/a> in sub-Saharan Africa by 77 percent.<\/p>\n 2. The last 10 years were the hottest on record.<\/p>\n We started burning coal, oil and gas on a large scale roughly 150 years ago. As a result, global temperatures have been rising ever since, and the last 10 years have been the hottest 10 on record<\/a>.<\/p>\n Global temperatures compared with late-19th-century average <\/p>\n Source: Copernicus\/ECMWF<\/p>\n Note: Temperature anomalies relative to 1850-1900 averages.<\/p>\n The most scorching was 2024. That year, extreme heat killed election workers in India and pilgrims on the hajj in Saudi Arabia. This year, it forced the temporary closure of the top of the Eiffel Tower at the peak of tourist season and shuttered schools in parts of the United States.<\/p>\n 3. Solar is spreading faster than we thought it would.<\/p>\n Solar power has been the largest source of new electricity generation<\/a> for the last three years. Most of this new solar infrastructure is coming up inside China, and Chinese companies are making so much surplus solar equipment \u2014 cells, modules and everything that goes into them \u2014 that prices have plummeted.<\/p>\n Forecasts keep underestimating solar growth <\/p>\n Source: IEA STEPS via BNEF and Ember<\/a><\/p>\n Today, solar panels hang from apartment balconies in Germany and cover vast areas of desert in Saudi Arabia. Solar and onshore wind projects offer the cheapest source of new electricity<\/a> generation. Little wonder, then, that in India\u2019s electricity sector, more than half<\/a> of the generation capacity now comes from solar, wind and hydropower.<\/p>\n 4. Electric vehicles are now normal.<\/p>\n The way the world moves has changed. At the time of the Paris Agreement, Tesla had just unveiled its luxury electric SUV. Fast forward to last year: Worldwide, one in five cars sold was electric.<\/p>\n In the United States, 265,000 children ride electric buses to school. In Kenya, electric motorcycle taxis ferry commuters to work. Chinese carmakers are assembling E.V.s abroad, including in Brazil, Indonesia and, soon, in Saudi Arabia, a petrostate.<\/p>\n World<\/p>\n Electric2015202440M80M<\/p>\n United States<\/p>\n 201520248M16M<\/p>\n Electrifying transportation is important because it\u2019s one of the biggest sources of emissions globally. Currently, electric vehicles are displacing 2 million barrels of oil demand per day, roughly equal to Germany\u2019s total daily demand, according to BloombergNEF.<\/p>\n 5. Rich countries have put relatively little money on the table.<\/p>\n One of the key tenets of the Paris Agreement was an acknowledgement that countries had different responsibilities. Wealthy industrialized countries were supposed to pony up money to help poorer countries do two things: transition to renewable energy and adapt to the problems brought on by a hotter climate.<\/p>\n Last year, countries agreed that a total of $1.3 trillion would be needed every year by 2035 to help developing countries manage climate harms, including $300 billion a year in public monies from rich countries. That\u2019s\u00a0far more than what rich countries have thus far made available. Where that money will come from is still uncertain<\/a>.<\/p>\n Public climate finance from developed countries would need to increase substantially <\/p>\n Meanwhile, some of the poorest countries are getting clobbered by extreme weather. They\u2019re falling deeper into debt as they try to recover.<\/p>\n 6. Coal is in a weird place. <\/p>\n The growth of coal is slowing worldwide. That matters because coal, which powered the modern industrial economy, is the dirtiest fossil fuel.<\/p>\n Coal is waning in wealthy countries, including the United States, despite President Trump\u2019s efforts to expand its use. Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, closed its last coal plant<\/a> in 2024. That year, more than half of Britain\u2019s electricity<\/a> came from renewables. But coal is still growing in China, which, despite its pledge to clean up its economy, has gone on to build more coal plants than any other country, ever.<\/p>\n In America, coal demand fell faster than expected…<\/p>\n 05001,0001,500 megatons20002035ActualProjections<\/p>\n …while in China, it grew faster than expected<\/p>\n 3,5004,0004,5005,000 megatons20152027ActualProjections <\/p>\n Sources: International Energy Agency via Ember<\/a>, RethinkX and Thunder Said Energy<\/p>\n Note: U.S. demand was converted from quadrillion BTU to metric tons using the U.S. EIA’s annual heat content factor<\/a> for the electric power sector; all projected years use the 2025 factor.<\/p>\n 7. Natural gas, a planet-warming fossil fuel, is ascendant thanks to America.<\/p>\n Over the decade since the Paris Agreement was signed, the United States has rapidly become the world\u2019s leading producer and exporter of gas.<\/p>\n Liquid natural gas opened up an export boom <\/p>\n Source: S&P Global<\/p>\n Note: Chart shows top four global LNG exporters.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump, in his second term, has supersized that ambition. He appointed Chris Wright, a former fracking executive, as the U.S. energy secretary, and he has used the sale of American gas as a diplomatic and trade cudgel. That matters because, while gas is cleaner than coal as a source of electricity, it stands to lock the world into gas use for decades to come.<\/p>\n 8. Forests are losing their climate superpower.<\/p>\n Fires are increasingly driving forest loss worldwide. That\u2019s because rising temperatures and more intense droughts are making forests burn more easily and also because people are setting fire to forests to clear land for agriculture.<\/p>\n The world\u2019s forests are absorbing less carbon dioxide <\/p>\n Source: World Resources Institute<\/p>\n Note: Each bar represents annual net emissions of forests<\/p>\n That’s limiting the ability of many forests to store planet-warming carbon dioxide. In fact, it\u2019s pushing parts of the Amazon rainforest, often called the lungs of the planet, to a startling tipping point. Parts of the Amazon are releasing more carbon than trees and soil are absorbing. One recent study found the same pattern in the rainforests of Australia.<\/p>\n 9. Corals are bleaching more often.<\/p>\n Since 2015, two separate global bleaching events have stretched over six years. They\u2019re happening much more often than before, and affecting more reefs, because the oceans are heating up fast.<\/p>\n Percent of the world\u2019s coral reefs affected by each bleaching event <\/p>\n Corals are important because they support so many other creatures, including fish that millions of people rely on for nutrition and income. About a quarter of all marine species depend on reefs at some point in their life cycle.<\/p>\n Many reefs have been ravaged, but some coral species are turning out to be more resilient to marine heat waves than we had thought. That\u2019s good-ish news, too. <\/p>\n 10. U.S. electricity demand is soaring, in part because of A.I.<\/p>\n Power demand had always been expected to increase worldwide. More than a billion people still need access to electricity, and billions of others around the globe are buying air-conditioners and plugging in electric vehicles. But a big surprise came from the United States.<\/p>\n American electricity demand was pretty flat in the 2010s but is now rising significantly and is projected to climb for at least another decade. One reason: energy-hungry A.I. That raises a critical question for Big Tech: Will its A.I. ambitions heat up the planet faster?<\/p>\n After two decades of slower demand growth, energy needs are rising. <\/p>\n What does all this mean for the world\u2019s 8 billion people?<\/p>\n