It’s not every day you tell a positive story about climate. But 10 years after the Paris Agreement, this data tells one.

When nearly 200 nations struck the landmark deal in December 2015, analysts and commentators were cautious, some outright sceptical. That year’s forecasts from BP and the International Energy Agency (IEA) assumed only modest growth in renewables. Electric vehicles (EVs) were niche and expensive. Fossil fuels were expected to dominate for decades.

A decade on, those forecasts look quaint. The clean energy transition hasn’t just accelerated, it has blown past expectations. Global non-fossil electricity generation, which BP thought would hit 38% by 2035, has already reached 41%. Solar power, dismissed as uneconomic by The Economist in 2014, became ‘the cheapest electricity in history’, according to the IEA. In 2024, the world installed 553 GW of solar capacity, 15 times more than the IEA predicted a decade ago. Wind kept pace too, and together they now generate more power than coal.

Renewables are close to outpacing electricity demand growth in many regions. Early German and UK subsidies for solar and offshore wind – once written off as economic folly – proved to be global gifts.

On the policy front, climate framework laws have tripled since 2015, many embedding carbon budgets and expert advice for long-term decarbonisation. National climate policy tools are up seven-fold since 2015. Despite Trump’s rollbacks, net zero targets still cover 83% of the global economy, most enshrined in law or policy; 19 of the G20 still target net zero by mid-century.

Cascading through the economy
The effects of this progress are cascading through the economy. Clean energy investment is now double that of fossil fuels, led by the US, EU, China and India. EVs have surged to 20% of global new car sales and are on track to reach 40% by 2030, a decade ahead of IEA’s 2015 projections. In 2015, the world hoped for 100 million EVs by 2030. We’re now on course to reach that milestone in 2027. In China and the UK, the clean energy economy is growing three times faster than the broader economy. Jobs in clean energy – over 36 million globally – outnumber those in oil, gas, coal and fossil-engine manufacturing combined.

Most importantly, global CO₂ emissions have plateaued. Between 2005 and 2014, they rose by 18%. Since Paris, they’ve edged up by about 2%. Annual greenhouse gas emissions growth has slowed fivefold – from 1.7% a year in the decade before Paris to 0.3% after. We’re very near peak emissions.

Of course, to meet the Paris temperature goals and achieve net zero by mid-century, global emissions must decline, not simply flatten. The speed and depth of that shift will depend on the strength and consistency of policy action – and what happens in China. We can be cautiously optimistic: clean energy growth has already helped CO₂ emissions of the world’s largest emitter, China, fall by 1% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, extending a trend that began in March 2024.

The Paris Agreement’s greatest achievement was to send an incontrovertible signal that the world intended to stop climate change. Policymakers, markets and entrepreneurs mobilised, creating feedback loops of ambition and innovation still compounding today. When global emissions finally enter structural decline, it will mark the end of the beginning of global climate action.

But, as US environmentalist, author and journalist Bill McKibben warns us: ‘Winning slowly is the same as losing.’ Even if stated policies are fully delivered, 2.6°C of heating is on the cards this century, far beyond the bounds of climate safety.

Of course, to meet the Paris temperature goals and achieve net zero by mid-century, global emissions must decline, not simply flatten. The speed and depth of that shift will depend on the strength and consistency of policy action – and what happens in China.

Brazil and the ‘Global Mutirão’
The next test comes at COP30 in Belém, where countries are expected to submit upgraded carbon-cutting plans to 2035. The Brazilian presidency’s ‘Global Mutirão’ aims to align energy, nature and livelihoods – a collective effort to close the finance gap, protect forests and accelerate the shift to renewables. If the past decade proved the transition could happen faster than imagined, the next must make it fairer and more durable.

Progress can beget more progress, not just in gigawatts and gigatonnes, but in finance and resilience. Renewables growth has to beat demand growth year after year, and we need to electrify everything, taking electricity from one-fifth of global energy to about two-thirds.

The global energy transition is unstoppable, but it is ‘slowdownable’. Populism, protectionism and fiscal tightening have slowed progress. With the US stepping back twice under Trump, China has filled the leadership vacuum – financing renewables across the Global South and exporting clean tech, slashing emissions along the way.

Developing nations, which did least to cause the problem and are most exposed to its effects, still face steep barriers to affordable finance and technology. Closing that gap, investing in grids and rebuilding trust in multilateralism are the challenges of the next decade.

The lesson of the last 10 years is simple: policy signals and cooperation matter; naysayers don’t. The Paris Agreement showed what happens when intent combines with S-curves. The next decade will determine whether this momentum delivers the first sustained decline in global emissions, the start of the next chapter of climate action.

John Lang is also the founder of the ECIU’s Net Zero Tracker.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author only and are not necessarily given or endorsed by or on behalf of the Energy Institute.

• Further reading: ‘On the way to Brazil, via Beijing?’. Is there good news or bad on the state of world renewables development as the world looks forward to COP30? Steve Hodgson FEI, Editor-at-Large at New Energy World, takes the global temperature.
• There is likely to be an increased sense of urgency at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, as governments, business leaders, national, regional and local communities, and environmental lobbies prepare to get together on 10–21 November to thrash out support for stronger climate action. Find out what key issues will be discussed and debated.