Efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C are failing across the board, with nearly every indicator lagging significantly behind the pace and scale necessary to address the climate crisis, a report from Systems Change Lab, a collaborative convened by World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Bezos Earth Fund, finds.

The report, State of Climate Action 2023 (244 pages, PDF), analyzed progress made in accelerating climate action across sectors that account for roughly 85 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture—quantifying the global gap between current efforts and those required as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The report found that only one of the 42 indicators in the study—the share of electric vehicles among passenger car sales—is on track to meet its 2030 target. Six indicators are “off track,” moving in the right direction at a promising but insufficient speed, while 24 indicators are “well off track,” heading in the right direction but well below the required pace. In addition, the report found that six indicators—deforestation, land restoration, maritime shipping, sustainable aviation fuel supply, bike lanes in urban areas, and the electrification of heavy-duty vehicles—are headed in the wrong direction entirely.

As a counterpoint to the dire findings, the report’s authors noted surprising gains made in the last year to demonstrate what can be achieved when substantive policies are set in motion, including exponential growth in electric passenger car sales (now 10 percent of the global market compared with 1.8 percent in 2018); solar and onshore wind power becoming the cheapest options for large-scale electricity generation; sales of energy-efficient heat pumps doubling on a year-over-year basis; and deforestation in Brazil declining by over 30 percent in the first six months of 2023.

But overall, “global efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius are lackluster at best,” said WRI research associate Sophie Boehm, a lead author of the report. “Despite decades of dire warnings and wake-up calls, our leaders have largely failed to mobilize climate action anywhere near the pace and scale needed. We need immediate, transformational changes across every single sector this decade. There’s no time left to tinker at the edges.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Gary Kavanagh)