Amid record heat and worsening climate impacts on people’s lives, 2025 is a turning point for global climate action, as countries renew their climate commitments — known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — under the international Paris Agreement. This process reveals whether global ambition to tackle climate change is rising fast enough to meet the crisis head on.

Over the past decade, the Paris Agreement has delivered meaningful progress. Prior to the agreement, the world was hurtling toward 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of the century. Ten years after the agreement’s adoption, the latest NDCs and current policies bring us closer to a 2.3-2.8 degrees C (4.1-5.0 degrees F) trajectory — modestly better than the previously projected 2.6-3.1 degrees C (4.7-5.6 degrees F) path.

Yet even with this shift, we remain far above the 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) guardrail set by the Paris Agreement that can prevent some of the most serious damage from a warming planet. And while some sectors are showing real momentum — including the renewable energy, transport and land-use action reflected in many countries’ NDCs — overall progress is still dangerously slow.

Every fraction of a degree of warming the planet avoids helps secure a safer, greener future. And the investment required to achieve this is far less than the costs of the alternative path, which would bring increased floods, wildfires, insecure food supplies and destroyed lives.

At the annual UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, nations must confront the gap between current climate pledges and what is needed to unlock a new economy that’s better for both people and the planet.

Here, we propose five key actions that countries can rally behind for a credible response:

1. Reaffirm 1.5 degrees C and commission a global roadmap for ambition and implementation.
2. Accelerate near-term sectoral action to deliver 2030 global goals.
3. Mobilize long-term strategies for equitable, resilient transitions to net zero.
4. Strengthen intergovernmental initiatives for greater impact.
5. Deliver a credible finance package to back ambitious climate goals.

With countries gathered under one roof, a clear political response will be needed that faces up to the shortfall in ambition and seizes the economic, social and other opportunities that assertive action can provide.