10 Years After the Paris Climate Deal: What the World Got Right, Wrong, And What Comes Next

Ten years after the Paris Agreement, the world is living in climate overshoot, new analyses show, with average warming over the past three years surpassing 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. While the global average masks the lived experience in some regions, parts of the Arctic, Central and Eastern Europe, and North America are 3–7°C hotter than pre-industrial times. The overshoot’s depth and duration will influence the stability of societies for decades, particularly in coastal cities, food systems, and water resources.

The Paris accord changed how nations approach climate policy, but the political climate has grown more polarized. Trust between governments has thinned, and the United States' retreat from steady climate leadership is a defining factor. Nevertheless, progress is increasingly driven by coalitions of countries, subnational actors, and the private sector willing to move faster. At the same time, much of the early energy transition happened before Paris, when policy mandates spurred renewable deployment; today, renewables are often cost-competitive with fossil fuels. Policy created markets; markets transformed technology.

COP30 in Brazil this year brought a sense of momentum: more than 80 countries aligned behind a call to end fossil fuel expansion. The alliances may lack the symbolic heft of Paris, but they influence investment, reshape expectations, and begin to rewire industries even if formal summit consensus remains elusive.

China's role in this evolving landscape has been quieter, but its scale matters greatly. China is expanding clean energy deployment at unprecedented speed, building manufacturing capacity, expanding grids, and accelerating electric vehicles and battery storage. Its direction will heavily influence outcomes over the coming decades. Its policy choices on trade, finance, and technology transfer will shape the pace of the energy transition globally.

But progress globally remains incomplete. The planet has crossed 1.5°C, with wildfires, floods, and heat extremes becoming more common. Losses and damages are mounting, prompting warnings from major reinsurers that climate risks could threaten traditional economic models if unchecked. Wealthier nations promised climate finance to poorer ones, but funding remains below commitments, limiting ambition in the Global South.

Experts say action now must be integrated: four inseparable tasks — reduce emissions; remove greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere; restore damaged ecosystems; and build resilience into infrastructure, housing, food systems, and health care. Emissions reductions remain paramount, since carbon dioxide persists for centuries, but methane also matters: though methane only lasts a short time in the atmosphere, it has contributed roughly 30% of warming to date. Current CO2 concentrations hover around 427 parts per million; when methane is included, effective greenhouse gas levels exceed 500 ppm, compared with about 275 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. The Climate Crisis Advisory Group estimates that cutting methane by 30% over the next decade could reduce global average temperatures by about 0.3°C, potentially changing the boundary between a manageable overshoot and a dangerous one. Much of this could be achieved with existing technologies and low costs.

The Paris Agreement was never meant to solve the climate crisis in a single moment; it was designed to set a direction. Ten years on, the real test is whether it can still spur action — and whether governments, politics, and markets align to accelerate the arc toward a safer climate and more resilient economies. History will judge what we did next.