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Climate
Nations' Climate Plans Could Cause 2.5°C of Warming, Imperiling 'Livable Future'
"Years of grossly insufficient action from richer nations and continued climate deception and obstruction by fossil fuel interests are directly responsible for bringing us here," one expert said.
Nov 04, 2025
A United Nations assessment released Tuesday—less than a week before the UN Climate Change Conference summit in Brazil—warns that countries' latest pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement could push global temperatures to 2.3-2.5°C above preindustrial levels, up to a full degree beyond the treaty's primary goal.
A decade after that agreement was finalized, only about a third of state parties submitted new plans, officially called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), for the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target.
While the updated NDCs—if fully implemented—would be a slight improvement on the 2.6-2.8°C projection in last year's report, the more ambitious Paris target is to limit global temperature rise this century to 1.5°C. Already, the world is beginning to experience what that looks like: Last year was the hottest on record and the first in which the global average temperature exceeded 1.5°C, relative to preindustrial times.
As with those findings, UNEP's report sparked calls for bold action at COP30 in Belém next week, including from UN Secretary-General António Guterres. He noted that "scientists tell us that a temporary overshoot above 1.5°C is now inevitable—starting, at the latest, in the early 2030s. And the path to a livable future gets steeper by the day."
"1.5°C by the end of the century remains our North Star. And the science is clear: This goal is still within reach."
"But this is no reason to surrender," Guterres argued. "It's a reason to step up and speed up. 1.5°C by the end of the century remains our North Star. And the science is clear: This goal is still within reach. But only if we meaningfully increase our ambition."
UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen also stressed that while inadequate climate policies have created the conditions in which now "we still need unprecedented emissions cuts in an increasingly tight window, with an increasingly challenging geopolitical backdrop," reaching the Paris goal "is still possible—just."
"Proven solutions already exist. From the rapid growth in cheap renewable energy to tackling methane emissions, we know what needs to be done," she said. "Now is the time for countries to go all in and invest in their future with ambitious climate action—action that delivers faster economic growth, better human health, more jobs, energy security, and resilience."
NEW – UNEP: New country climate plans ‘barely move needle’ on expected warming | @ayeshatandon.carbonbrief.org @ceciliakeating.carbonbrief.org @unep.org Read here: buff.ly/U0XaME9
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— Carbon Brief (@carbonbrief.org) November 4, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Climate campaigners responded with similar statements. Savio Carvalho, head of regions at the global advocacy group 350.org, said that "this report confirms what millions already feel in their daily lives: Governments are still failing to deliver on their promises. The window to keep 1.5°C within reach is closing fast, but it is not yet gone."
"All eyes are now on Belém," Carvalho declared. "COP30 must be a turning point, where leaders stop making excuses, phase out fossil fuels, and scale up renewable energy in a way that is fast, fair, and equitable."
Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said that "this report's findings, confirming that a crucial science-based benchmark for limiting dangerous climate change is about to be breached, are alarming, enraging, and heartbreaking."
"Years of grossly insufficient action from richer nations and continued climate deception and obstruction by fossil fuel interests are directly responsible for bringing us here," she highlighted. "World leaders still have the power to act decisively to sharply rein in heat-trapping emissions and any other choice would be an unconscionable dereliction of their responsibility to humanity."
Cleetus—a regular attendee of the annual UN climate talks who will be at COP30, unlike President Donald Trump's administration—continued:
Costly and deadly climate impacts are already widespread and will worsen with every fraction of a degree, harming people's health and well-being, as well as the economy. Policymakers must seize the opportunity now to accelerate deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency—solutions that are plentiful, clean, and affordable—and transition away from polluting fossil fuels. Protecting people, livelihoods, and ecosystems by helping them adapt to climate hazards is also critical as higher temperatures unleash rapidly worsening heat, floods, storms, wildfires, drought, and sea-level rise.
Ambitious climate action can cut energy costs, improve public health, and create a myriad of economic opportunities. Richer, high-emitting countries' continued failure to tackle the challenge head-on is undermining the well-being of their own people and is a monumental injustice toward lower-income countries that have contributed the least to this problem yet bear the most acute harms. It’s past time for wealthy countries to heed the latest science and pay up for their role in fueling the climate crisis. With alarms blaring, the upcoming UN climate talks must be a turning point in global climate action. Powerful politicians and billionaires who willfully ignore urgent realities and continue to delay, distract, or lie about climate change will have to answer to our children and grandchildren.
Jean Su, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Energy Justice Program, also plans to attend COP30.
"This report shows Earth's livable future hanging in the balance while Trump tells climate diplomacy to go to hell," she said. "The US exit from Paris threatens to cancel out any climate gains from other countries. The rise of petro-authoritarianism in the US shouldn't be an excuse for other countries to backpedal on their own commitments. This report sends alarm bells to rich countries with a conscience to exercise real leadership and lead a fossil fuel phaseout to protect us all."
The UNEP report was released on the same day that the German environmental rights group Urgewald published its Global Oil and Gas Exit List, which shows that a green transition is being undercut by fossil fuel extraction and production.
Other publications put out in the lead-up to COP30 include an Oxfam International report showing that the wealthiest people on the planet are disproportionately fueling the climate emergency, as well as a UN Food and Agriculture Organization analysis warning that human-induced land degradation "is undermining agricultural productivity and threatening ecosystem health worldwide."
There have also been mounting demands for specific action, such as Greenpeace and 350.org urging governments to pay for climate action in part by taxing the ultrarich, and an open letter signed by advocacy organizations, activists, policymakers, artists, and experts urging world leaders to prioritize health during discussions in Brazil next week.
As Common Dreams reported earlier Tuesday, COP30 Special Envoy for Health Ethel Maciel said that "this letter sends an unequivocal message that health is an essential component of climate action."
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Ahead of COP30, Report Finds Oil and Gas Expansion Continues to Outpace Climate Action
"While the Loss and Damage Fund sits almost empty, oil and gas companies are investing more than $60 billion each year into new exploration," said one campaigner.
Nov 04, 2025
The fossil fuel industry is "racing toward climate breakdown with its foot on the accelerator," said one official at the German environmental rights group Urgewald on Tuesday as the group released its Global Oil and Gas Exit List.
The report shows that as world leaders prepare to meet in Brazil for the annual United Nations climate summit, any discussion they have there regarding a green transition is being undercut by massive expansion in oil and gas extraction and production, including in the fracking and liquefied natural gas (LNG) industries.
Four years after the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that no new oil and gas fields have a place on a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C—marking global energy experts' public endorsement of warnings that had come from climate scientists for years prior—96% of fossil fuel firms are exploring and developing new oil and gas resources, said Urgewald.
Short-term expansion is up 33% since 2021, when the IEA issued its warning, with fossil fuel giants planning to bring 256 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent (bboe) into production in the coming years.
Five companies account for about one-third of global short-term expansion: QatarEnergy (26.2 bboe), Saudi Aramco (18.0 bboe), ADNOC in the United Arab Emirates (13.8 bboe), Russian state-owned entity Gazprom (13.4 bboe) and US firm ExxonMobil (9.7 bboe).
Nils Bartsch, head of oil and gas research at Urgewald, said the largest fossil fuel companies in the world "are treating the Paris Agreement like a polite suggestion, not a survival plan."
The analysis comes a decade after 195 countries signed the legally binding Paris Agreement, committing to develop and implement national climate action plans to draw down fossil fuel emissions.
"With 256 billion barrels of new projects on the table, this is not a transition—it is defiance," said Bartsch.
The Paris Agreement also included a demand for wealthy countries to contribute funds to help the Global South mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency, and annual UN conferences have addressed climate finance, but the industry is still spending about 75 times more on oil and gas exploration than governments have pledged to the UN Loss and Damage Fund, according to the report.
On average, companies listed in the Global Oil and Gas Exit List (GOGEL) spent an average of $60.3 billion over the last three years on oil and gas expansion.
“Brazil is showing an alarming level of climate hypocrisy—presenting itself as a climate leader at COP30 while allowing oil and gas expansion right at the summit’s doorstep, threatening one of our most fragile ecosystems."
The US has pledged just 17.5 million to the Loss and Damage Fund, while two of its biggest fossil fuel companies, Chevron and ExxonMobil, have spent $1.3 billion and $1.1 billion on oil and gas exploration, respectively, in the last three years.
"While the Loss and Damage Fund sits almost empty, oil and gas companies are investing more than $60 billion each year into new exploration, exacerbating the problem the fund is meant to alleviate. This is financial and moral negligence. Regulators and supervisory authorities need to start treating this as a risk, not a footnote," said Fiona Hauke, oil and gas researcher and financial regulation expert at Urgewald.
The report was released a week before world leaders are scheduled to meet in Belém, Brazil for the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), even as state-owned fossil fuel company Petrobras begins drilling in Foz do Amazonas Basin in the fragile, biodiverse Amazon rainforest.
Petrobras was named in GOGEL as the 15th largest fossil fuel exporter worldwide, currently spending $1.1 billion annually searching for new reserves, as Brazil prepares to host a meeting that is meant to focus on implementing emissions reduction plans.
“Brazil is showing an alarming level of climate hypocrisy—presenting itself as a climate leader at COP30 while allowing oil and gas expansion right at the summit’s doorstep, threatening one of our most fragile ecosystems,” said Nicole Oliveira, executive director of the Arayara International Institute in Brazil.
GOGEL also pointed to oil and gas expansion in the US under the Trump administration, with the US overtaking China as the number-one developer of gas-fired power even as a recent UN and World Bank report found that nine out of 10 renewable energy projects are cheaper than even the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternatives.
The US is home to the largest LNG export developer worldwide, Venture Global, as companies are planning an export capacity of around 847 million tons per year—a 171% increase from current operational capacity.
Urgewald noted that even TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné recently acknowledged that the LNG sector is "building too much."
"Analysts warn that if current plans proceed, the world could face an oversupplied gas market within five years, with far more capacity than global demand can absorb," reads GOGEL. "Yet despite industry leaders acknowledging the risk, investment continues."
"US fracking companies are producing far more gas than they can sell domestically," adds the report, noting that the country is turning to Mexico as an export platform. "Now faced with a flood of excess gas, companies are racing to build new LNG facilities to liquefy their surplus and push it onto countries around the globe."
Pablo Montaño, director of Conexiones Climáticas, Mexico, said new LNG projects "are not for the benefit of Mexicans."
"They will import fracked gas from the US, liquefy it in Mexico and send it straight to Asia. Gas liquefaction is an incredibly dirty business," he said.
Despite clear warnings from energy and climate experts, said Cathy Collentine, Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign director at the Sierra Club in the US, "fossil fuel expansion continues to put communities and the climate at risk."
"Under the Trump administration," she said, "we are seeing a disregard for both to do the bidding of Big Oil and Gas."
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Calling Climate Change a 'Public Health Crisis,' Open Letter Urges Action at COP30
"By putting health first, leaders can design climate policies that protect lives, reduce inequalities, and rebuild trust in international cooperation," the letter reads.
Nov 04, 2025
In the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, more than 230 climate and health organizations, activists, policymakers, artists, and experts have signed an open letter urging world leaders to prioritize health as they discuss how to address the climate emergency.
The letter, "Put Health at the Heart of Climate Action," was publicized on Tuesday. It urges leaders not only to center health but to "raise ambition" in crafting policy to respond to the health harms caused by the burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent heating of the atmosphere.
"Health is not a secondary benefit of climate policy—it is the foundation of resilience, prosperity, and justice. Yet health remains marginal in most climate negotiations, treated as an outcome rather than a driver," the letter reads. "At COP30, this must change."
The letter—backed by major public health groups like Médecins Sans Frontières and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments; green organizations like Amazon Watch, Greenpeace UK, and several Fridays for Future branches; prominent climate activists like Vanessa Nakate; and environmentally minded artists like director Adam McKay—urges five central actions for governments attending COP30 to take:
- Follow through on a just transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy;
- Fund local climate action, especially in poorer countries;
- Don't let polluting industries like fossil fuels, industrial agriculture, or transportation influence climate and health policy;
- Make sure that health is incorporated into all climate plans and policies, including Nationally Determined Contributions and National Action Plans; and
- Include "planetary health education" into school lesson plans and medical training.
“The climate crisis is not just an environmental issue. It is a health and human rights emergency," said Marta Schaaf, director of the Program on Climate, Economic, and Social Justice, and Corporate Accountability for Amnesty International, which signed the letter. "Governments need to take decisive action to fully phase out fossil fuels, to save lives, build resilient communities, and uphold people's right to a healthy environment.”
In particular, the letter writers emphasized the health importance of rapidly phasing out fossil fuels. In addition to being the root cause of all climate-caused health impacts—from deaths, illness, and injury due to more frequent and severe heatwaves and wildfires to waterborne diseases spread by flooding—the burning of oil, gas, and coal also leads to 8 million early air pollution deaths every year and sickens communities living near wells and mines.
"These are not abstract numbers but real people—families struggling to breathe, children developing lifelong conditions, health workers pushed to [the] breaking point," the letter writers said.
The open letter acknowledges the Belém Health Action Plan, which is designed to help the health sector adapt to the climate emergency. However, it argues that COP30 could go further by recognizing and acting upon "the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis and impacting human health."
“Promoting resilient health systems is a central objective of the COP30 Action Agenda," said COP30 Special Envoy for Health Ethel Maciel. "Efforts like this open letter are helping build a broad coalition to drive implementation of the Belém Health Action Plan and its shared goals. I am pleased to add my name as the COP30 health envoy and to see a wide range of partners doing the same as we move closer to the 30th Conference of the Parties in Belém. This letter sends an unequivocal message that health is an essential component of climate action.”
The letter was instigated by Think-Film Impact Production, which has launched a Healthy Planet Now campaign linked to the upcoming documentary My Planet Now, produced by Sandpaper Films and codirected by Jenny Saunders and Henry Singer.
“Every signature on this letter represents a shared story of human resilience and hope," said Amy Shepherd, the chief operating officer of Think-Film Impact Production. "It is essential that policy leaders champion films like My Planet Now, which translate the urgency of the climate and health crisis into emotion and movement—because only when people feel the story will they fight to change its ending.”
It isn't only Think-Film Impact Production and the letter signers who are raising the alarm about the health dangers of the climate crisis. The letter's announcement comes one week after The Lancet published its annual "Countdown on Health and Climate Change."
The 128-authored paper reached several alarming conclusions, including:
- Climate change caused 84% of life-threatening heatwave days between 2020 and 2024;
- Heat-related deaths have risen by 63% since the 1990s, to reach one per minute;
- Extreme drought impacted 61% of land area in 2024;
- Global heating has increased the risk of dengue fever and tick-borne diseases;
- A record-breaking 639 billion work hours were lost due to extreme heat in 2024; and
- A lack of climate action has led to millions of preventable deaths each year.
"With the threats to people's lives and health growing, delivering a health-protective, equitable, and just transition requires all hands on deck. There is no time left for further delay," The Lancet authors wrote at the end of their executive summary.
The Healthy Planet Now letter also concludes with a call to action: "At COP30, governments must treat climate change not only as a planetary emergency but as a direct public health crisis and opportunity. By putting health first, leaders can design climate policies that protect lives, reduce inequalities, and rebuild trust in international cooperation."
"The health of billions—and the future of generations to come—depends on it," it says.
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Land Degradation Threatens Billions of Lives Worldwide, Warns UN Food Agency
"Sustainable land management requires enabling environments that support long-term investment, innovation, and stewardship," said the head of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Nov 03, 2025
A report published Monday by a United Nations agency revealed that nearly 1 in 5 people on Earth live in regions affected by failing crop yields driven by human-induced land degradation, “a pervasive and silent crisis that is undermining agricultural productivity and threatening ecosystem health worldwide."
According to the latest UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) State of Food and Agriculture report, "Today, nearly 1.7 billion people live in areas where land degradation contributes to yield losses and food insecurity."
"These impacts are unevenly distributed: In high-income countries, degradation is often masked by intensive input use, while in low-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, yield gaps are driven by limited access to inputs, credit, and markets," the publication continues. "The convergence of degraded land, poverty, and malnutrition creates vulnerability hotspots that demand urgent, targeted and, comprehensive responses."
#LandDegradation threatens land's ability to sustain us. The good news: Reversing 10% of degraded cropland can produce food for an additional 154 million people.
▶️Learn how smarter policies & greener practices can turn agriculture into a force for land restoration.
#SOFA2025 pic.twitter.com/8U3yQk9lX4
— Food and Agriculture Organization (@FAO) November 3, 2025
In order to measure land degradation, the report's authors compared three key indicators of current conditions in soil organic carbon, soil erosion, and soil water against conditions that would exist without human alteration of the environment. That data was then run through a machine-learning model that considers environmental and socioeconomic factors driving change to estimate the land’s baseline state without human activity.
Land supports over 95% of humanity's food production and provides critical ecosystem services that sustain life on Earth. Land degradation—which typically results from a combination of factors including natural drivers like soil erosion and salizination and human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, and unsustainable irrigation practices—threatens billions of human and other lives.
The report notes the importance of land to living beings:
Since the invention of agriculture 12,000 years ago, land has played a central role in sustaining civilizations. As the fundamental resource of agrifood systems, it interacts with natural systems in complex ways, influencing soil quality, water resources, and biodiversity, while securing global food supplies and supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Biophysically, it consists of a range of components including soil, water, flora, and fauna, and provides numerous ecosystem services including nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, and water purification, all of which are subject to climate and weather conditions.
Socioeconomically, land supports many sectors such as agriculture, forestry, livestock, infrastructure development, mining, and tourism. Land is also deeply woven into the cultures of humanity, including those of Indigenous peoples, whose unique agrifood systems are a profound expression of ancestral lands and territories, waters, nonhuman relatives, the spiritual realm, and their collective identity and self-determination. Land, therefore, functions as the basis for human livelihoods and well-being.
"At its core, land is an essential resource for agricultural production, feeding billions of people worldwide and sustaining employment for millions of agrifood workers," the report adds. "Healthy soils, with their ability to retain water and nutrients, underpin the cultivation of crops, while pastures support livestock; together they supply diverse food products essential to diets and economies."
The report recommends steps including reversing 10% of all human-caused land degradation on existing cropland by implementing crop rotation and other sustainable management practices, which the authors say could produce enough food to feed an additional 154 million people annually.
"Reversing land degradation on existing croplands through sustainable land use and management could close yield gaps to support the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of producers," FAO Director-General Dongyu Qu wrote in the report’s foreword. "Additionally, restoring abandoned cropland could feed hundreds of millions more people."
"These findings represent real opportunities to improve food security, reduce pressure on natural ecosystems, and build more resilient agrifood systems," Qu continued. "To seize these opportunities, we must act decisively. Sustainable land management requires enabling environments that support long-term investment, innovation, and stewardship."
"Secure land tenure—for both individuals and communities—is essential," he added. "When land users have confidence in their rights, they are more likely to invest in soil conservation, crop diversity and productivity."
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