The world is producing too much coal, oil and natural gas to meet the targets set 10 years ago under the Paris Agreement, in which countries agreed to limit climate pollution and avoid the worst effects of global warming.
A new report, led by the nonprofit research group Stockholm Environment Institute, shows countries plan to produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
The 2025 Production Gap Report comes as countries are submitting their nationally determined contributions, ahead of the annual United Nations climate conference in November in Belém, Brazil. NDCs are meant to show the progress countries are making toward the Paris Agreement goals of dramatically reducing the human sources of greenhouse gases that are heating the planet.
The SEI report shows the 20 most polluting countries, including China, the U.S. and India, actually plan to produce even more fossil fuels than they did two years ago, when the report was last updated.
"In particular, the near-term gap has increased with projected 2030 production exceeding levels consistent with 1.5 degrees [Celsius] by more than 120%, up from 110% in 2023," Derik Broekhoff, senior scientist at SEI and report co-author, said on a call with reporters.
China is driving much of the increase, according to the report, because it now plans to reduce coal production more slowly through 2030 than it did in the 2023 Production Gap Report. "And China, because it represents over half of total global coal production, drives a lot of those numbers," Broekhoff says. Among fossil fuels, coal is the dirtiest in terms of climate pollution.
"The reality is stark," says Melanie Robinson, global climate director at the World Resources Institute. During a recent presentation, she said countries reviewed their progress at the 2023 UN climate meeting in Dubai and found they need to move away from fossil fuels, triple renewables, double energy efficiency, end deforestation and cut transportation pollution. "And this wasn't a wish list — it's a to-do list. Countries pledged to it in Dubai, so now it is time to deliver," she says.
This report doesn't take into account Trump administration policies that are aimed at boosting U.S. fossil fuel production and limiting cleaner sources of electricity, such as wind and solar. It's based on data collected when President Biden was in office.
While Trump's flurry of executive orders and regulation changes are altering the country's climate and energy policies, those changes won't happen quickly. There are still state and local policies focused on the Paris Agreement goals and investments that companies have already made under laws passed during the Biden administration.
"The level of impact that the Trump administration is able to have on global climate is still an open question," says Neil Grant, analyst at Climate Analytics and co-author of the report.
Trump has already started the process to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, something he did during his first term in office. His administration has proposed a series of policy changes, including repealing climate pollution limits on fossil fuel power plants, reversing a 2009 finding that climate pollution harms people and eliminating climate pollution limits on vehicles.
The top U.S. environmental regulator has touted the administration's efforts to roll back plans to address climate change.
"We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more," Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency said in March, when he announced rollbacks.
Grant says Trump's effect on the world's climate efforts will depend on whether other countries choose to follow the President's lead.
"We saw in 2016 to 2020 that Trump tried to kill climate action and tried to kill the Paris Agreement," Grant says. "He hasn't succeeded. I'm confident that he won't succeed again."
And for now, most countries are sticking with their commitments to reach the goals in the Paris Agreement, even if this report shows they're not on track to do that. The authors of this report say achieving that now will require an even steeper decline in fossil fuel production and use in the future.
Copyright 2025 NPR
