Global Emissions Up 9 Percent Ten Years After Paris Agreement Entry into Force

Ten years after the Paris Agreement entered into force, global greenhouse gas emissions stand 9 percent higher than in 2016, despite clean energy investments reaching nearly double those of fossil fuels. The treaty was adopted by 196 parties at the COP21 summit in Paris in December 2015 and officially took effect on November 4, 2016. Today, 194 parties belong to the accord, comprising 193 states and the European Union.

The United States has departed and rejoined the international climate framework twice over the past decade. President Donald Trump first pulled the country out in November 2020, before President Joe Biden re-entered the deal in February 2021. The United States withdrew again in January, twelve months after Trump issued a second exit order upon returning to office.

Under the agreement's structure, member nations set individual targets through Nationally Determined Contributions that are updated every five years. The framework relies on transparency and a periodic Global Stocktake rather than legally enforceable penalties. Its primary aim is to restrict global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, with a targeted ambition of 1.5 degrees.

Global monitoring shows that 2024 marked the first full calendar year in which planet-wide temperatures exceeded the 1.5-degree threshold. The period from 2023 to 2025 became the warmest three-year stretch on record, pushing the long-term warming average to roughly 1.4 degrees Celsius. The UN Environment Programme reported in October that the possibility of remaining below 1.5 degrees of warming without an overshoot has ended, with UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen noting that additional temperature increases compound risks such as floods, heatwaves, and wildfires.

China, the United States, and India currently generate over half of all annual global emissions. China produces more emissions than the United States, India, Russia, and Japan combined, although the United States accounts for the largest share of cumulative historic carbon releases. The report source does not quote Moscow's position regarding its national emission trajectories.

While Germany, Japan, and the United States reduced emissions by transitioning from coal to natural gas and renewable energy sources, global growth outweighed these cuts. Increasing power demand in developing economies, including Indonesia—which entered the top ten emitters in place of Canada—led to higher overall coal consumption. According to the Climate Action Tracker, policy measures implemented since 2015 have lowered the projected global temperature rise by the year 2100 from 3.6 degrees Celsius to approximately 2.6 degrees Celsius.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com