- Renewables overtook coal in first half of 2025
- But much more investment needed to meet Paris Agreement goals
- At COP30 Brazil hopes to spur action to cut through inertia
- Carbon pricing coalition could cut emissions sevenfold, raising $180 billion annually.
- Brazil building $125 billion Tropical Forest Forever Facility to generate $4 billion yearly
October 27 – What a difference a decade makes. When the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 the world looked to be heading for four degrees of warming. Investment in clean energy hadn’t caught up with fossil fuels but the relentless growth in carbon emissions had seemingly stalled and renewables were generating 20% of global electricity.
Fast forward and in the first half of 2025 renewables produced 34.3% of global electricity, overtaking coal for the first time. The growth in solar and wind alone outpaced the increase in demand for electricity – proof that renewables are beginning to replace fossil fuels globally.
Last year, global spending on clean energy outpaced spending on fossil fuels two to one. More than $2 trillion was spent on low-carbon solutions (BloombergNEF) but there’s a huge investment gap: we need to be spending almost three times as much to be in line with Paris ambition.
Emissions must peak this year if we’re to meet the target set in Paris to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but they continue to rise, albeit at a slower rate than in the decade to 2015. All but two of the nine planetary boundaries that make for a safe existence on Earth have been breached, and the tipping points that climate scientists have warned about for decades are upon us.
Systems such as the Greenland ice sheet, Amazon basin and key ocean currents moved closer to thresholds that will change them irrevocably. Widespread dieback of warm water coral reefs on which marine life and millions of people depend indicate they are already passing their tipping point.
An iceberg floats near Nuuk, Greenland, February 9, 2025. The Greenland ice sheet is among the planetary systems that have moved towards irrevocable change. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
All these red indicators are flashing at a time when the global consensus on climate action is fracturing, with wars and trade strains pulling attention away. The U.S. is ducking out of the Paris accords for a second time and, not content with dismantling its own mechanisms to tackle climate change, including cancelling renewables projects, the Trump administration is actively trying to stymy the efforts of other countries.
Europe has agreed to buy more U.S. fossil fuels and is in the process of limiting the scope and scale of legislation aimed at driving sustainable business practices to all but the largest entities. Investment in emerging low-carbon technologies was down last year. Wrangling has delayed submission of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to tackling emissions, ceding credibility and leadership to others.
But while the West dithers or looks backwards, conversations are quite different in Asia says Champa Patel, executive director for governments and policy at international non-profit the Climate Group.
“There’s not the same debate as we’re (having) in the U.S. and Europe … the weaponisation of net zero. There is political buy in and an economic buy that (net zero) is the only way forward.”
Just 62 nations, covering 31% of global emissions had, at the time of writing, submitted their plans. China and India were among those missing, though China’s leader Xi Jinping told the U.N. General Assembly in September that the country would cut emissions by 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry holds his two-year-old granddaughter Isabelle Dobbs-Higginson as he signs the Paris Agreement on climate change at United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York, U.S., April 22, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Analysts say the target falls short of what is needed for a 1.5-degree pathway. “They always under-promise and over-deliver (but) what they did was miss out on the opportunity to play a global leadership role by coming in that low,” suggests Patel.
Against this backdrop, can the Belem COP snatch action from the jaws of inertia? “We can celebrate that there’s no more things to be negotiated … now is the time to be accountable and deliver,” said Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, at the launch of this year’s planetary boundaries report in September.
The Brazilian presidency recognises this. Its Action Agenda builds on the foundations of commitments made at previous COPs, such as the tripling of renewables, doubling energy efficiency and transitioning away from fossil fuels, by pulling in the actors who don’t sit at the negotiating table, but make things happen.
That includes business, cities, states, regions and philanthropy. “That’s where the bulk of implementation happens, that’s where a lot of the high ambition actually sits,” suggests Patel.
“What we’d want to see is an annual implementation forum that is part of the COP, not getting mired in the negotiations and the debates, but really showcasing what good looks like, what’s scalable, where the gaps are, what can be done to address those gaps.”
That’s echoed by Arunabha Ghosh, the South Asia Envoy for COP30, who told Harvard University’s Climate Symposium in September that COP can act as a springboard for creating platforms to coordinate action at a regional level.
Brazil’s COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago, Brazil’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva and Brazil’s Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara, attend the ministerial preparatory meeting (Pre-COP30), ahead of the COP30 Climate Summit, in Brasilia, Brazil October 13, 2025. REUTERS/Mateus Bonomi Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
“I’m hearing things like, ‘let’s pool our NDCs’. ‘Let’s create a resilience investment facility’. ‘Let’s create a technology hub’, said Ghosh. “Not everything will see the light of day, but you clearly see a strong desire to keep at it.”
Arathi Rao, director of the Global Climate Policy Project at Harvard and MIT, told The Ethical Corporation: “I think the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement has made clear that relying solely on global consensus is challenging, and that we really need to move forward with coalitions of countries who are willing to lead on climate.”
In a recent report, the project outlined how a voluntary coalition of countries agreeing to align on carbon prices could slash greenhouse gas emissions and raise billions of dollars for mitigation and adaptation.
The introduction of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism has focused minds on carbon pricing but also on the potential burdens it will impose on developing countries.
Brazil has put the proposal on its agenda at COP30, and has convened allied countries for technical sessions to discuss it in the buildup to the meeting in Belem.
With an initial focus on carbon-intensive sectors such as steel, cement, aluminium and fertilisers, coalition members agreeing a carbon price floor could cut emissions around seven times more than current policy trajectories, modelling suggests, while raising over $180 billion annually through in-country carbon pricing.
Electric buses and EV chargers are seen through a fence and foliage at an L.A. City Transportation Department (LADOT) in Los Angeles, California, U.S. COP30 will pull in actors such as cities, states, regions and philanphropy. REUTERS/Bing Guan Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
The modelling scenarios assume 21 countries and the EU join the coalition. The minimum carbon price would apply to all target industries within their borders, and countries would apply a carbon border adjustment to imports from non-member countries.
One element of the proposal is to allocate some of the revenues generated to a trust fund managed by a multilateral development bank, to provide funding to develop low-carbon technologies in low-income countries.
Around 50 countries or jurisdictions already have direct carbon pricing mechanisms covering 28% of global emissions – and 80% of the emissions of carbon-intensive industries. These raise more than $100 billion in revenue.
Under the EU’s CBAM, from next year, a steel exporter, for example, will have to pay a border adjustment commensurate with the emissions of its product. It will be credited with whatever carbon price has already been paid domestically. Charges only become significant from 2030, once free allowances given to EU industry are phased out. The report authors find that EU companies would reap more substantial climate and economic benefits in a wider coalition.
Cristina Froes de Borja Reis, deputy secretary for sustainable economic development at Brazil’s ministry of finance, has said it was crucial to bring countries together. “Otherwise in the future, if everybody is working alone, there’ll be many CBAMs around and trade and investment will have problems to flow.”
Rao says the coalition can work without the U.S. or China, but “China would be a really important anchor country given its size, its impact on global emissions and the amount of revenue that could potentially be generated (to) support the uptake of low carbon technologies in other low- and middle-income countries.”
A black howler monkey is seen climbing a tree branch at the Choco Andino forest, near Quito, Ecuador. A key focus for Brazil is to build a $125 billion Tropical Forest Forever Facility. REUTERS/Karen Toro Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Another key focus for Brazil is to build a $125 billion Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). Investor – as opposed to donor – nations are expected to provide $25 billion, from which to leverage a further $100 billion. The finance is expected to be self-sustaining and generate $4 billion a year for forest finance. Brazil has already announced it will invest $1 billion.
Brazil is also working on a “super-taxonomy” to enable harmonisation of different sustainable finance taxonomies. Brazil has recently developed its own, to add to more than 50 in use or on the drawing board around the world.
Yet as Brazil tries to build climate coalitions, it continues to explore for oil. By the time delegates arrive for COP its state oil company, Petrobas, will have begun exploratory drilling in the Amazon Basin. The decision to grant the licence was met with widespread condemnation, but Brazil’s president has made clear he sees oil revenues as a means to fund the energy transition.
The Paris Agreement established the Global Goal on Adaptation, to put adaptation on a more equal footing with mitigation. But progress on agreeing measurable targets and – crucially – the finance to underpin their achievement, has been slow.
That uncertainty is meant to end at COP30. Negotiators have been working to put flesh on the bones of a target framework agreed at COP28 in Dubai, to come up with indicators to track progress and crucially to finance it – through the “Baku to Belem” roadmap.
A new report frames how adaptation can be a growth story, highlighting the economic and social returns of investing in resilience against climate change. A group of research organisations led by Systemiq, suggests the benefits of investing in adaptation outweigh the costs four-fold, and scaling interventions could create over 280 million jobs in the next decade.Newly planted mangrove trees are seen in Bebatu, a remote area near Tarakan, North Kalimantan province, Indonesia. Scaling adaptation interventions could create over 280 million jobs in the next decade. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Speaking at the launch of the report at October’s World Bank annual meeting, Nick Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute, said investing in adaptation has got a “tremendous rate of return”.
“The discussion is now how do you invest in a way that makes your economies much more resilient. How do you create conditions for that investment?” The researchers calculate $350 billion will be needed by 2035. Today we’re spending less than $50 billion.
There’s a price for failing to act: the world’s largest companies face $1.2 trillion in losses by the 2050s owing to rising temperatures and nature loss, while GDP could fall by over 18% by 2050, globally.
While the net zero agenda has been weaponised by populist and right-wing parties, could this COP’s embrace of the adaptation agenda provide the link to real lives?
We’re now all experiencing – to greater or lesser extents – fires, flooding and drought, and the toll they are taking. Delivery from a COP has never been more urgent.
This article is part of our in-depth briefing Climate at a crossroads, which 10 years on from the Paris Agreement assesses whether COP30 can plot a safe path for the planet. To download the PDF for free click here
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