Climate action is expanding across governments, companies, communities and international initiatives, but the latest measurements show a sharp gap between progress and the pace required. In 2023, global greenhouse-gas emissions reached 57.1 GtCO2e, while current policies still implied 2.6–3.1°C of warming this century. At the same time, renewable capacity additions reached 585 GW in 2024 and clean-energy investment exceeded USD 1.7 trillion in 2023.
Contents
- Global participation and climate initiatives
- Emissions, warming and the remaining carbon budget
- What is driving global emissions
- Clean-energy investment and economic activity
- Renewable capacity, costs and deployment
- Climate finance, adaptation and jobs
- Observed warming and atmospheric change
Global participation and climate initiatives
The UNFCCC Global Climate Action Portal was launched in 2014. It now tracks more than 39,000 actors, compared with 1,000 actors in 2014, according to the UNFCCC Yearbook of Global Climate Action 2024. The portal began tracking voluntary climate action at COP26 in November 2021, extending its record of action beyond formal national commitments.
The same yearbook tracks 175 Cooperative Climate Initiatives, or CCIs. Nearly 80% of these initiatives operate globally, indicating that a large share is designed to work across national boundaries rather than within one jurisdiction. The 2024 publication was the eighth report in the series and highlighted climate action by non-Party stakeholders; it was launched on 10 November 2024.
The UNFCCC received 27 responses to the 2024 High-Level Champions letter in June. Those responses represented 38 Parties. The portal also added three initiatives in its update: Early Warnings for All, the Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative and 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy. Together, these figures describe a climate-action landscape that includes formal public institutions as well as voluntary, cross-border and sector-specific efforts.
Emissions, warming and the remaining carbon budget
The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024 recorded global greenhouse-gas emissions of 57.1 GtCO2e in 2023, up 1.3% from 2022. The report says emissions need to fall 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 to remain aligned with a 1.5°C pathway. These are reduction requirements, not forecasts of what will happen under current policy.
Current policies put the world on a 2.6–3.1°C warming path this century, according to the report. Current nationally determined contributions are consistent with 2.6–2.8°C of warming. The report’s press statement says that if nothing changes, warming reaches 3.1°C this century. The ranges reflect different policy and implementation assumptions, so they should not be treated as a single precise outcome.
The report also estimated the remaining carbon budget in 2024. For staying below 2°C with more than a 66% probability, the estimate was 900 GtCO2. For staying below 1.5°C with more than a 50% probability, it was 200 GtCO2. If the emissions gap is bridged by 2030, an additional 20–35 GtCO2 of cumulative emissions would still occur during 2020–2030.
These budgets are probability-linked estimates, not permits for a fixed amount of emissions. Their meaning depends on the temperature threshold, probability level, start date and assumptions used in the assessment.
What is driving global emissions
The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024 breaks the 2023 global total into sectors. Power was the largest listed source at 26% of global greenhouse-gas emissions. Transport accounted for 15%, agriculture for 11% and industry for 11%.
Fuel production represented 10% of emissions, while industrial processes represented 9%. Land use, land-use change and forestry accounted for 7%, buildings for 6%, and waste and other sources for 4%.
| Sector | Share of global GHG emissions in 2023 |
|---|---|
| Power | 26% |
| Transport | 15% |
| Agriculture | 11% |
| Industry | 11% |
| Fuel production | 10% |
| Industrial processes | 9% |
| Land use, land-use change and forestry | 7% |
| Buildings | 6% |
| Waste and other | 4% |
The sector shares help explain why climate action cannot be reduced to one technology or policy. Electricity, mobility, food and land use, buildings, industrial production and fossil-fuel supply all contribute measurable portions of the total. The percentages describe the global 2023 distribution and should not be read as country-specific profiles.
Clean-energy investment and economic activity
The IEA World Energy Investment 2023 estimated global energy investment at about USD 2.8 trillion in 2023. More than USD 1.7 trillion went to clean energy, while slightly over USD 1 trillion went to unabated fossil-fuel supply and power. About 15% of fossil-fuel spending was directed to coal.
The 2023 global investment ratio was USD 1.7 in clean energy for every USD 1 in fossil fuels. Five years earlier, the ratio was 1:1. Solar investment was expected to exceed USD 1 billion per day in 2023, while full-year solar investment reached USD 380 billion.
The United States accounted for 15% of global clean-energy investment, according to IEA World Energy Investment 2024: United States. US clean-energy investment rose from USD 200 billion in 2020 to USD 280 billion in 2023. By the end of 2023, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act had allocated nearly USD 75 billion to clean energy.
Within that allocation, USD 21.3 billion went to grid improvement and expansion, USD 21.5 billion to clean-energy demonstrations, USD 6.5 billion to energy efficiency, and USD 8.6 billion to clean-energy manufacturing and workforce development. The US Inflation Reduction Act provides an estimated USD 370 billion in funding for energy security and climate change action.
Across governments, the IEA Global Energy Transitions Stocktake reported USD 1,343 billion in clean-energy investment support enacted since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. The IEA clean energy economic growth commentary estimated that clean energy added around USD 320 billion to the world economy in 2023.
Clean-energy manufacturing investment reached USD 200 billion in 2023, more than 70% higher than in 2022, according to IEA Advancing Clean Technology Manufacturing. That investment accounted for around 4% of global GDP growth. The same source reported that solar PV module manufacturing capacity was already in line with what is needed in 2030 under the IEA Net Zero Emissions scenario.
Renewable capacity, costs and deployment
Renewables reached 4,448 GW of installed capacity in 2024, according to IRENA Renewable Capacity Statistics 2025. Renewable additions totaled 585 GW, representing 92.5% of total global capacity expansion. Renewable power grew by 15.1% in 2024, and renewable additions accounted for more than 90% of global electricity capacity expansion.
Asia added 413.2 GW of renewable capacity in 2024. Its additions increased 24.9%, taking the regional total to 2,374 GW. China accounted for 61.2% of global photovoltaic additions and 69.4% of new wind installations in 2024.
The scale-up also came with cost evidence. IRENA Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2024 reported that renewables were the most cost-competitive option for new electricity generation in 2024. Of newly commissioned utility-scale renewable capacity, 91% delivered power at a lower cost than the cheapest new fossil-fuel alternative.
| Renewable technology | Global weighted-average LCOE in 2024 |
|---|---|
| Onshore wind | USD 0.034/kWh |
| Solar PV | USD 0.043/kWh |
| Hydropower | USD 0.057/kWh |
The same IRENA source estimated that renewables avoided USD 467 billion in fossil-fuel costs in 2024. Total installed costs fell by more than 10% for all renewable technologies between 2023 and 2024 except offshore wind and bioenergy. Bioenergy total installed costs rose by 16% over that period.
Despite the growth, the deployment rate remains below the stated 2030 requirement. IRENA Renewable Capacity Statistics 2025 said the world would need annual renewable additions well above 1,000 GW in the latter half of the decade to reach the 11,000+ GW target by 2030.
Climate finance, adaptation and jobs
Adaptation finance remains substantially below estimated need. The UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2024 recorded international public adaptation finance to developing countries rising from USD 22 billion in 2021 to USD 28 billion in 2022. The Glasgow Climate Pact called for developed countries to at least double adaptation finance from its USD 19 billion 2019 level by 2025.
Even fully achieving that Glasgow finance goal would reduce the estimated adaptation finance gap by only about 5%. UNEP estimated the gap at USD 187–359 billion per year. In 2024, UNEP’s Climate Change Adaptation Unit managed an adaptation project portfolio of around USD 550 million, according to UNEP Access to Adaptation Finance.
The transition also affects employment. In the IEA Net Zero Emissions Scenario, clean-energy sector jobs rise from 33 million in 2021 to 70 million in 2030, according to IEA Energy Technology Perspectives 2023. Fossil-fuel-related sectors lose 8.5 million jobs on that same transition path. These are scenario figures, not a description of observed employment in every economy.
Observed warming and atmospheric change
The WMO confirmed 2024 as the warmest year on record, at 1.55°C above the 1850–1900 average. The estimate carried an uncertainty of ±0.13°C. The ten years from 2015 through 2024 were the ten warmest years on record, according to WMO confirms 2024 as warmest year on record.
January through September 2024 averaged 1.54°C above pre-industrial levels. WMO also said that 16 consecutive months from June 2023 through September 2024 likely exceeded any prior recorded monthly temperatures, according to WMO 2024 on track to be hottest year.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide continued to rise. The WMO carbon dioxide levels increase by record amount to new highs in 2024 reported a globally averaged concentration of 423.9 ppm in 2024, 25% above the pre-industrial level. The concentration rose by 3.5 ppm from 2023 to 2024, the largest increase since modern measurements began in 1957. For comparison, the annual average was 377.1 ppm in 2004, when WMO’s bulletin was first published.
The CO2 growth rate accelerated from 0.8 ppm per year in the 1960s to 2.4 ppm per year in 2011–2020. About half of yearly CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere. The global upper-2,000-metre ocean heat content increased by 16 zettajoules from 2023 to 2024, an increase WMO described as about 140 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2023. Global mean sea level rose by 4.7 mm per year between 2015 and 2024, according to WMO State of Climate update text.