Countries Lag Behind on Climate Pledges Ahead of COP30

Wed Oct 29 2025 03:38:17 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

With only 64 countries committing to new climate strategies, the world faces challenges in meeting the 1.5C global warming limit. Leaders will gather in Brazil for COP30 amidst disappointing progress.

As nations prepare for the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, reports reveal that only 64 countries have submitted new plans to cut carbon emissions. This inadequate response indicates a struggle to meet the critical global warming threshold of 1.5C. Despite some progress shown, experts warn that commitments are insufficient, with a need for an unprecedented 57% emissions reduction by 2035 to combat climate change effectively. The UN emphasizes that while national pledges show potential, many major emitters still have not outlined their strategies, leaving the world in a precarious position against rising temperatures.

Only 64 countries have submitted new plans to cut carbon, the UN says, despite all being required to do so ahead of next month's COP30 summit.

Added together these national pledges would fail to keep the world from warming by more than 1.5C, a key threshold to very dangerous levels of climate change.

While the UN review does show progress in curbing carbon emissions over the next decade, the projected fall is not enough to stop temperatures surging past this global target.

The report underlines the scale of the task facing world leaders who head to Belém in northern Brazil next week for the COP30 climate gathering.

Ten years after the Paris climate pact was agreed in 2015, the efforts of countries to restrict the rise in global temperatures are under renewed scrutiny.

Every signatory agreed to submit a new carbon-cutting plan every five years, which would cover the next decade.

But only 64 countries managed to put a new pledge in place this year, despite many extensions of the deadline. These represent around 30% of global emissions.

In addition, the UN's review includes statements from China and the EU on their future plans made at Climate Week in New York in September.

Taken together, the efforts mean that global emissions of carbon dioxide should fall by around 10% by 2035.

However, scientists say that such a drop is nowhere near enough to keep the rise in temperatures under 1.5C.

To keep that goal alive will require steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, up to 57% by 2035, according to the UN last year.

This report shows that we are going in the right direction but too slowly—Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation.

The 1.5C limit, agreed at Paris, has long been seen as the threshold of very dangerous warming. In 2018, scientists outlined the massive benefits to the world of keeping the rise under 1.5C as compared to allowing them to rise to 2C.

However, that limit was breached in 2024 for a whole year for the first time. UN leaders are increasingly accepting the fact that the threshold will be breached permanently by the early 2030s at current rates.