Enhancing Climate Mitigation Efforts

Keeping the momentum in climate mitigation efforts

2025 marks the 10-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement - a pivotal moment that set a unified temperature goal to shape global climate policies in the years to come. This temperature goal necessitates substantial investments in climate mitigation efforts to significantly mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions flooding into our atmosphere. Yet, despite this milestone agreement, CO2 emissions soared to unprecedented heights in 2023, reaching nearly 38 billion tonnes from fossil fuels alone (Ritchie & Roser, 2024). Alarmingly, data from the World Meteorological Organization suggests even higher figures for 2024, with the year between 2023-2024 showing the highest ever increase in CO2 emissions (WMO, 2025).

Against this worrying backdrop of increasing emissions and rising global temperatures, COP28 in Dubai stood out as a breakthrough in mitigation strategies. Nations across the globe made a historic accord to:

1. Transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
2. Triple renewable energy capacity globally.
3. Double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements.

Unfortunately, when the world reconvened one year later at COP29, no new commitments to mitigate carbon emissions were made. This stagnation has amplified the urgency for COP30 in Belém to reignite global efforts towards climate mitigation. In light of these challenges, the following analysis reviews the ambitious goals set forth in the COP28 Agreement Text and looks to the future to evaluate global mitigation projections.

Transition away from fossil fuels

COP28 marked a historic milestone as it was the first COP agreement text to explicitly acknowledge the necessity to transition away from all fossil fuels. This was a crucial step in globally recognising the causal relationship between increasing CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and rising global temperatures.

However, as illustrated in Figure 2, global fossil fuel consumption continues to climb, reaching an all-time high in 2024 across major sources, including gas, oil, and coal, collectively exceeding 142 terawatt-hours (TWh). The International Energy Agency forecasts that demand for these fossil fuels will not peak until 2030, which deviates from the goal set at COP28 (IEA, 2024A). This forecast is corroborated by a report from the Stockholm Environment Institute, which estimates that, based on current governmental plans, the production of fossil fuels in 2030 will be 120 pct. higher than levels consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1,5-degree Celsius temperature target (SEI, 2025). The same report indicates that this represents an expansion of the discrepancy compared to their previous analysis published in 2023, concluding that the world is heading in the wrong direction.

Moreover, the International Monetary Fund notes that fossil fuel subsidies reached a record USD 7 trillion in 2022, with further growth anticipated, reaching 8,2 trillion in 2030 (IMF, 2025). The persistent financial support for the fossil fuel sector further jeopardises the ambition to transition towards clean energy alternatives.

Tripling renewable energy capacity

The COP28 Agreement introduced another pivotal milestone with the commitment from countries to triple renewable energy capacity to 11000 GW by 2030. This goal found robust support, particularly from the EU, as it catalyses the former goal to transition away from fossil fuels. Global renewable energy capacity expanded by a record-breaking 582 GW in 2024, giving renewable energy a 46 pct. share in installed capacity worldwide (IRENA, COP30 and GRA, 2025). Between 2015 and 2024, a substantial 2600 GW of renewable energy was added. China is a strong driver of this growth, where the clean energy sector in 2024 accounted for 10 pct. of the country’s economy and 25 pct. of its growth in GDP (UN, 2025). The cost of electricity generation from renewables has continued its downward trend, with solar photovoltaic being 41 pct. cheaper and onshore wind 53 pct. cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives.

The share of fossil fuels in global energy supply, on the other hand, decreased, although slightly, from 83 pct. in 2015 to 80 pct. in 2024. Overall, the fossil fuel capacity increased by around 16 pct. (UN, 2025).

Renewable energy capacity is expected to continue expanding in the coming years. Capacity grew by 14,4 pct. in 2023 and 15,1 pct. in 2024. Assuming last year's rate of expansion is maintained, a total of 10.300 GW of renewable capacity will be installed by 2030. This is 7,7 pct. or 872 GW below the target of tripling capacity. To achieve the tripling goal, an average annual growth rate of 16,6 pct. will be required for the remainder of the decade (IRENA, COP30 and GRA, 2025). Importantly, the outlook has improved since last year’s IRENA forecast, which anticipated a gap of 1.490 GW to the tripling target (IRENA et al., 2024).

There is also the possibility that the world can get even closer to the tripling goal under an accelerated case where key policy measures are put in place to improve grid connection, enhance financing, and address permitting challenges. Under these improved conditions, the IEA estimates that the world could reach 10.779,4 GW of installed renewable energy capacity, only around 200 GW short of the tripling goal (IEA, 2024).

Doubling the energy efficiency rate

The COP28 Agreement Text also states an agreement to double the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements every year towards 2030 from two to four pct. A monumental recognition of the importance of energy efficiency in driving a green energy transition and lowering emissions. Not only do we need to save energy and green the energy used, but also need to use it smarter. This will become increasingly important in a world where the demand for energy is increasing rapidly. According to IEA, improvements in energy intensity lowered global CO2 emissions by almost seven Gt CO2 between 2010-2022 (IEA, 2024). And yet the potential for further reductions remains almost untouched.

So far, the world is not on track to live up to this commitment. In 2023 and 2024, the rate of change in primary energy intensity was around one pct., equivalent to half of the average rate between 2010-2019 (IEA, 2024). As Figure 4 illustrates, the global annual improvement in primary energy intensity is so far well below the four pct. that the world needs to meet each year until 2030. This insufficient progress to date necessitates an annual increase in energy efficiency of at least 5 pct. from 2025 to 2030 which will require an enhanced focus on how global efforts to increase energy efficiency can be achieved (IRENA, COP30 and GRA, 2025).

Conclusions

This analysis concludes that, based on the measurement of the three specified parameters, the world is not on track to meet the COP28 goals. Particularly, the objectives to transition away from fossil fuels and to double the energy efficiency rate by 2030 are significantly out of reach and will necessitate substantial action. In contrast, with regard to the goal of tripling the share of renewable energy, the world appears to be closer to achieving it, and an accelerated approach may bring us very close to reaching this target. This leaves the negotiations at COP30 more important than ever.

References

(2024A): World Energy Outlook 2024, https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2024

IEA (2024B): Energy Efficiency 2024, https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-efficiency-2024

IEA (2024C): Renewable Energy Progress Tracker, https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/renewable-energy-progress-tracker

IMF (2025): Fossil Fuel Subsidies, https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies

IRENA (2025): Statistics Time Series, https://www.irena.org/Data/View-data-by-topic/Capacity-and-Generation/Statistics-Time-Series

IRENA, COP28, COP29, GRA, MoEA and Government of Brazil (2024): Delivering on the UAE Consensus: Tracking progress toward tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030, https://www.irena.org/Publications/2024/Oct/UAE-Consensus-2030-tripling-renewables-doubling-efficiency

IRENA, COP30 and GRA (2025): Delivering on the UAE Consensus: Tracking progress toward tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030, https://www.irena.org/Publications/2025/Oct/UAE-Consensus-2030-tripling-renewables-doubling-efficiency

Ritchie & Roser (2024): CO2 emissions, Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

SEI, Climate Analytics, & IISD. (2025). The Production Gap Report 2025, https://productiongap.org/2025report/

United Nations (2025): Seizing the moment of opportunity: Supercharging the new energy era of renewables, efficiency, and electrification, https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/un-energy-transition-report_2025.pdf

WMO (2025): WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin No. 21, https://wmo.int/sites/default/files/2025-10/GHG-21_en.pdf