Governments, industries, and communities around the world are tackling climate change on multiple fronts, from scaling up renewable energy and electric vehicles to restoring forests and building infrastructure that can withstand a warmer planet. Progress is real but uneven. Current national policies, if fully implemented, put the world on track for roughly 2.8°C of warming this century, well above the 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement. Closing that gap requires cutting global emissions 55% below 2019 levels by 2035.
Renewable Energy Is Scaling Fast
The single largest effort to reduce emissions is replacing fossil fuel power plants with solar and wind. In 2023, the world added 473 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity, the largest annual increase ever recorded. Solar power alone accounted for nearly three-quarters of that, adding 346 gigawatts, while wind contributed another 116 gigawatts. Renewables made up 86% of all new power capacity installed globally that year.
By the end of 2023, renewables represented 43% of the world’s total installed power capacity. That figure describes how much generation equipment exists, not how much electricity actually flows from it (solar panels don’t produce at night, and wind turbines sit idle on calm days). Still, the trajectory is steep. Countries are building clean energy infrastructure faster than most forecasts predicted even five years ago, driven by falling costs. Solar electricity is now cheaper than new coal or gas plants in most markets.
Electric Vehicles Are Going Mainstream
Transportation accounts for a major share of global emissions, and electric vehicles are the primary tool for cutting it. More than 20% of new cars sold worldwide in 2024 were electric, and that share is expected to reach one in four by the end of 2025. Global EV sales are projected to top 20 million units in 2025, growing at roughly 25% per year.
Several countries are pushing harder. Norway is on track for 100% zero-emission new car sales in 2025, backed by tax policies that make conventional vehicles significantly more expensive. Ethiopia banned imports of petrol and diesel cars at the start of 2024, leading to about 100,000 electric vehicles hitting its roads. Nigeria signed an international declaration to work toward all new car and van sales being zero emission by 2040 and is developing domestic EV manufacturing capacity with support from Morocco.
National Climate Targets and the Emissions Gap
Nearly every country on Earth has submitted climate pledges under the Paris Agreement, known as Nationally Determined Contributions. These pledges, if fully implemented, would limit warming to somewhere between 2.3°C and 2.5°C. That’s a meaningful improvement over the 2.8°C projected from policies currently in place, but it still overshoots the 1.5°C goal by a wide margin.
The math is stark. To stay on a 2°C pathway, annual emissions need to fall 35% below 2019 levels by 2035. For 1.5°C, that number jumps to 55%. No major economy is currently on pace to meet those benchmarks, which means the gap between ambition and action remains one of the central challenges of climate policy. Some countries have written net-zero targets into law, but legislation alone doesn’t guarantee the investments and regulatory changes needed to deliver results.
Climate Finance for Developing Countries
Poorer nations contribute the least to climate change but face some of the worst consequences. Wealthier countries have long promised financial support, and in 2022, developed nations finally met their longstanding pledge to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance, delivering $115.9 billion. That milestone came two years late.
Adaptation finance, the money specifically meant to help communities prepare for floods, droughts, and rising seas, lags further behind. At COP26 in Glasgow, nations pledged to double adaptation funding to around $40 billion per year by 2025. By 2022, that figure had reached only $32.4 billion, leaving a significant shortfall in the places that need it most.
Forests and Natural Carbon Sinks
Reforestation is one of the most straightforward ways to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In tropical regions with sufficient rainfall, newly planted forests can absorb roughly 11 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year, accounting for carbon stored both above and below ground. At a typical planting density of about 600 trees per hectare, that works out to around 18 kilograms of CO2 per tree per year.
These numbers sound modest on a per-tree basis, but they scale meaningfully across millions of hectares. Mangrove restoration projects, like one along Colombia’s Pacific coast, serve double duty: the trees act as breeding grounds for fish species that support local livelihoods while also shielding coastal villages from storm surges. The challenge with nature-based solutions is that they take years or decades to reach full carbon-absorbing potential, and they’re vulnerable to wildfires, drought, and land-use changes that can release stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
Carbon Removal Technology
Direct air capture, which uses industrial equipment to chemically filter CO2 out of ambient air, is often discussed as a potential backstop for emissions that are difficult to eliminate. The reality, for now, is extremely small scale. Twenty-seven direct air capture plants have been built worldwide, and together they remove less than 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. For context, global emissions exceed 37 billion tonnes annually.
Only three facilities capture 1,000 tonnes or more per year: Climeworks’ Orca plant in Iceland, a Global Thermostat facility in Colorado, and Heirloom’s plant in California. Most of the remaining plants are small demonstration projects. The technology works, but costs remain high and scaling it to a level that meaningfully affects the atmosphere will require enormous investment in energy and infrastructure.
Green Industry Is Still in Its Infancy
Heavy industry, particularly steel and cement production, generates a large share of global emissions and is among the hardest sectors to decarbonize. Hydrogen-based steelmaking has attracted significant attention as a potential replacement for coal-fired blast furnaces, but no low-emission primary steel production technology has yet been commercially deployed. Multiple pilot projects are underway in Europe and elsewhere, but commercial-scale green steel remains a future prospect rather than a present reality.
This gap matters because steel production alone accounts for roughly 7% of global CO2 emissions. Until clean alternatives become cost-competitive and can operate at industrial scale, emissions from manufacturing will remain stubbornly high even as the power and transportation sectors make progress.
Adapting to a Warmer World
Alongside efforts to reduce emissions, communities are adapting to climate impacts already underway. In Somalia, projects have helped drought-affected farmers capture rainwater from rooftops. In Ghana, automated weather stations now give farmers more accurate drought forecasts. In Chennai, India, a pilot project used nature-based cooling strategies to lower temperatures inside schools in low-income neighborhoods by 3°C.
Small island nations face some of the most urgent threats. In the Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Niue, Palau, and Tuvalu, international programs have helped governments track weather patterns and wave heights more precisely, giving earlier warning of tropical storms. Along Colombia’s coast, mangrove replanting protects villages from increasingly severe storm surges while restoring fish habitats. These projects are individually small, but they represent a growing recognition that cutting emissions alone won’t be enough. The warming already locked into the climate system will require physical changes to how and where people live, grow food, and build infrastructure.