State of climate action 2025 is the title of a research report by the World Resources Institute (WRI), and is the subject of an article by the C40 Knowledge Hub. Here the report is described as setting out how to close “the global gap in climate action” so as to keep the Paris Agreement goals within reach. It “grades collective efforts … across key sectors” and finds that in each sector climate action has not been adequate to “achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal.” Forty-five indicators are assessed in the report and none are on track to meet their targets by the end of this decade. The report sets “actionable targets for 2030, 2035 and 2050 across the world’s highest-emitting sectors – power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture” and assesses recent progress and the rates of progress needed for the future. A few examples of the targets are: to phase out coal at least ten times faster than at present; to reduce deforestation nine times faster; to remove carbon dioxide more than ten times faster; and increase climate finance by nearly US$1 trillion annually C40, 2025).

The World Resources Institute published a short article introducing the report, the fifth in the State of climate action series, which it describes as “the most comprehensive roadmap yet for closing the global gap in climate action to help keep the Paris Agreement goal within reach” It claims that although “more than three-quarters of indicators are heading in the right direction, progress is alarmingly inadequate, exposing communities, economies and ecosystems to unacceptable risks.” Moreover recent rates of change for some indicators are “heading in the wrong direction entirely and require an immediate course correction” while “most of today’s bright spots represent isolated instances of rapid change.” Meeting targets for 2030 and 2035 “demands an enormous acceleration of efforts across every sector” (WRI, 2025).

The report itself, which may be downloaded from the WRI, acknowledges financial support from Bezos Earth Fund, ClimateWorks Foundation and the Global Commons Alliance.

The Bezos Earth Fund describes itself as a “new philanthropy” and made its first grants in 2020. It believes that the right actions on climate and nature “can lead to a healthier economy as well as healthier people and a healthier society” and it “seeks to help drive the systems changes required in this decisive decade” (BEF, 2025). Its Systems Change Lab, which originated the State of climate action 2025 report, “monitors, learns from and mobilizes action toward the transformational shifts needed to protect both people and the planet” (SCL, 2025).

ClimateWorks Foundation helps to “develop and support high-impact solutions that reduce emissions, improve health, strengthen economies, and build resilience” and to “connect philanthropic capital with innovative, proven strategies led by local experts.” It is “on a mission to end the climate crisis by amplifying the power of philanthropy“ (CWF, 2025).

The Global Commons Alliance seeks to accelerate “systemic transformation across culture, governance and the economy:” Member include Bellwethers, Climate Basecamp, Earth Commission, Future Earth, The Nature & Climate Impact Team, and Open Planet Studios (GCA, 2025).

Structure of the report

State of climate action 2025 runs to over a hundred pages, so no more than an outline of its structure and a few quotations will be given here.

A single page Foreword provides context: “Ten years after countries around the world united to adopt the Paris Agreement, we find ourselves at a precarious juncture”; there have been remarkable advances in some areas, but slow progress and even backsliding in others. Not one of “the 45 indicators assessed is on track to achieve its 1.5°C-aligned benchmark for 2030” and the question facing the transition is no longer ‘if’, but ‘how fast’. Climate impacts are intensifying, but “climate action is arguably the defining economic opportunity of this century … If the story of Paris was one of collective vision, the story of the decade ahead must be one of accelerated action — pragmatic, inclusive, and unstoppable.”

A ten page Executive Summary begins with highlights of the report: progress for most of the 45 indicators in the report is heading in the right direction but is too slow; bright spots include increased private climate finance, rapid growth in solar power, and innovations such as green hydrogen; troubling trends include slow growth in EV sales, and lack of progress in reducing deforestation and use of coal. “An enormous acceleration in effort is needed across every sector.” In more detail, the world must: phase out coal generation more than 10 times faster, rapidly increase growth in solar and wind power, achieve a fivefold acceleration in the construction of public transit systems, reduce deforestation nine times faster, rapidly reduce consumption of beef, lamb, and goat meat in high-consuming regions, rapidly scale up carbon dioxide removal technology, and increase global climate finance “by nearly $1 trillion each year through the end of this decade.”

The main body of the report has sections on Methodology, Power, Buildings, Industry, Transport, Forest and land, Food and agriculture, Technological carbon dioxide removal, and Finance, with a Conclusion followed by Appendices.

Comment on the report

Many writers have shown general support for the findings of the report. Ripple et al. (2025) review climate change mitigation strategies centred on “energy, nature, and the global food system”, and note the importance of social tipping points which “can trigger accelerated climate action through cascading effects in societies, institutions, and economic systems once a critical threshold is crossed.”

Climate Analytics selected ten key findings from the report for discussion (CA, 2025). The concluding paragraphs of the report state that: “Every fraction of a degree matters for lessening the scale and severity of these impacts. And the roadmap for reducing GHG emissions and enhancing carbon removals is clear: Everything from phasing out unabated fossil gas to electrifying industry is urgently required this decade — and remains technically feasible … The solutions exist. We know what to do. We just need to act with the urgency this moment demands.”

Rutger Bregman: action with urgency

If we know what to do and how to do it, why do we not move fast enough?

This year’s BBC Reith Lectures, on the subject of Moral Revolution, were given by the historian and author Rutger Bregman. In 2020 he wrote an article on the possible devastion of Holland by increased sea level (Bregman, 2020). In it he told the story of the storm of February 1953, when the the dykes protecting Holland broke in more than 500 places. “Thousands of homes and farms were destroyed, 100,000 people had to be evacuated and 1,836 died.” The floods could easily have been much worse, bringing ruin to the whole of the Netherlands. Turning to more recent predictions on sea level rise, Bregman wrote that “If the world doesn’t cut greenhouse gas emissions fast enough, the Netherlands will face a sea-level rise approaching three metres by 2100. And a hundred years after that, five to eight metres.” He wrote of plans “for a vast seawall going from northern France to Denmark” and asked “will we wait once more for the worst to happen? For the sea to swallow half the country before we stop grouching about expensive heat pumps and unsightly windmills?”

While in his 2020 article he focussed on one small country at risk of devastation, in his 2025 Reith Lectures Bregman addressed broader issues, the transformative moral movements of the past: the abolitionists, the suffragettes, and the civil rights leaders (BBC, 2025). It is not difficult to link these movements to the present efforts to mitigate climate change. The leaders of moral revolution faced opposition which to some might have seemed unsurmountable, and many of them did not live to see the results of their efforts. Some words from Bregman’s final paragraphs may apply to the work now needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change: “ … let us throw ourselves fully into the task. We know it will not be easy. The future holds no guarantees, no certainty that our species will endure or that our story will end well. But that has always been the human condition. What we do know is this. Again and again, small groups of committed citizens have bent the arc of history towards justice.”

References

BBC, 2025, The Reith Lectures 2025, online, accessed 22 Dec 2025, https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2025/Reith_4_R4_2025_Transcript.pdf

BEF, 2025, Bezos Earth Fund, online, accessed 17 Dec 2025 https://www.bezosearthfund.org

Bregman, R., 2020, This is what climate change means if your country is below sea level, September 2020, The Correspondent, online, accessed 22 Dec 2025

https://thecorrespondent.com/685/this-is-what-climate-change-means-if-your-country-is-below-sea-level

CA, 2025, The State of Climate Action in 2025: 10 key findings, Climate Analytics, online, accessed 22 Dec 2025

https://climateanalytics.org/comment/the-state-of-climate-action-in-2025-10-key-findings

CWF, 2025, ClimateWorks Foundation, online, accessed 17 Dec 2025

https://www.climateworks.org

C40, 2025, State of climate action 2025, C40 Knowledge Hub, online, accessed 10 Dec 2025

https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/State-of-climate-action

GCA, 2025, Global Commons Alliance, online, accessed 17 Dec 2025

https://globalcommonsalliance.org

Ripple, W., et al., 2025, The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink, BioScience, online, accessed 23 Dec 2025

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/75/12/1016/8303627

SCL, 2025, Systems Change Lab, online, accessed 29 Dec 2025