Ten years after Paris, the world grapples with climate overshoot and what's next

Ten years after the Paris climate agreement, scientists say the world is living with climate overshoot: average warming over the past three years has exceeded 1.5°C, the threshold nations pledged to avoid “if at all possible.” In practice, global averages mask the uneven reality: parts of the Arctic, Central and Eastern Europe, and North America are now 3–7°C hotter than pre-industrial levels. Whether this overshoot is brief or prolonged will shape the stability of societies for decades.

The Paris Agreement demonstrated what multilateralism can achieve when science guides policy and shared survival outweighs short-term politics. A decade on, however, politics in many countries has become more polarized and combustible, and trust between governments has thinned. The United States has stepped back from consistent climate leadership, a factor shaping the current landscape. Yet cooperation persists through coalitions of countries, states, cities, and businesses willing to move faster. It is worth noting that some of the most important advances in the energy transition occurred before Paris: between 2000 and 2015, governments pressed renewables into markets with policy mandates. European countries led, followed by California and China. Renewables were not cost-competitive with fossil fuels at the time, but market scale collapsed prices and the technology improved. Policy created markets; markets transformed technology. That logic still holds today.

At COP30 in Brazil this year, more than 80 countries aligned behind a call to end fossil fuel expansion. While the symbolism may lack the Paris-era romance, the alliances are already shifting investment flows, expectations, and industries. There is no longer a single summit capable of delivering universal consensus; progress now hinges on coalitions of governments, subnational actors, and the private sector willing to move faster.

China’s role in this new climate landscape has been quieter but no less consequential. Its deployment of clean energy at scale—manufacturing capacity, grid expansion, electric vehicles, and battery storage—now matters as much as diplomatic language. China’s direction over the coming decades will heavily influence outcomes, and there is cautious optimism about what it could deliver if it sustains momentum.

Despite these signals, progress remains dangerously incomplete. Overshoot has changed the terms of success: not only where emissions end up by mid-century, but how high temperatures rise and how long they stay there. The responses require an integrated approach with four inseparable tasks: reducing emissions; removing excess greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere; restoring damaged ecosystems; and building resilience.

Reducing emissions remains paramount. Fossil fuels are still the main driver of warming, and carbon dioxide persists for centuries. Methane behaves differently: it is short-lived but powerful, contributing roughly 30% of warming to date. Current carbon-dioxide concentrations are around 427 parts per million, but when methane is included, effective greenhouse gas levels exceed 500 ppm, compared with about 275 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. Recent analysis by the Climate Crisis Advisory Group suggests that cutting methane emissions by 30% over the next decade could reduce global average temperatures by about 0.3°C, a gain that could be achieved at relatively low cost with existing technologies. Combined with rapid CO₂ reductions, that could spell the difference between a manageable overshoot and a dangerous one.

Repairing the Earth’s systems—from forests and soils to oceans and the atmosphere—is not idealism; it is planetary maintenance. Resilience must be central to public policy, shaping infrastructure, housing, food systems, and health care. Climate change is a present condition, not a distant risk, and the cost of inaction now far exceeds the cost of action. The capital to act exists; what is missing is political coherence and sustained leadership.

The Paris Agreement was never meant to solve the climate crisis in a single moment. It was designed to change direction. Ten years on, the real test is not whether it reassures us on its anniversary, but whether it still pushes us to act with urgency. History will judge what comes next.