5 Charts Show Climate Progress as Paris Agreement Turns 10

"Ten years ago the world came together to forge a path out of the climate emergency in the form of a global treaty dubbed the Paris Agreement. Under the accord, nations committed to keeping global temperatures to well below a two-degree-Celsius increase over preindustrial levels and to striving to limit that increase to 1.5 degrees C. These goals were ambitious and required greenhouse gas emissions to begin declining by 2025. Yet emissions continue to rise."

"Annual negotiations around seeing the Paris Agreement through have continued over the past two weeks at this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Brazil, where participants are acknowledging two simultaneous truths: we have made meaningful strides in protecting our planet, but huge leaps are still needed to avoid the worst outcomes. Those leaps are daunting, given that President Donald Trump is once again pulling the U.S. out of the accord."

"The Paris Agreement is built around temperature increases compared with an unspecified preindustrial baseline, generally taken as the latter half of the 19th century. Every year since 1970more than half a centurytemperatures have been above this average and soaring upward. In 2015 the average global temperature was 1.1 degrees C hotter than it was during the preindustrial period. Today it is around 1.3 degrees C."

Ten years after adoption, the Paris Agreement set targets to keep warming well below 2°C and aim for 1.5°C, requiring emissions to decline by 2025. Emissions continue to rise and global negotiations at COP30 in Brazil show mixed progress: meaningful strides exist but much larger reductions are needed to avoid severe outcomes. Political resistance persists, including U.S. withdrawal and fossil-fuel advocacy by some nations, even as China rapidly expands renewable capacity and solar and wind grow exponentially worldwide. Global temperatures have risen from about 1.1°C above preindustrial levels in 2015 to roughly 1.3°C today, continuing an upward trend.

Read at www.scientificamerican.com