10 Years of the Paris Agreement: How the Climate Has Changed, in 4 Charts

While the notorious 1.5C global warming threshold countries agreed to in 2015 is now virtually dead, the Paris Agreement marked a crucial turning point in how the world sees – and deals with – climate change.

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“The 12th of December, 2015, will remain a great date for the planet.”
– François Hollande, former president of France

On December 12, 2015 at COP21 in Paris, 195 countries agreed to accelerate and intensify the actions needed for a sustainable global future.

The Paris Agreement marked the first legally binding global treaty uniting nearly all countries on Earth to combat the ever-growing climate crisis, setting out a framework for limiting global warming to below 1.5C or “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Beyond this limit, experts warn that critical tipping points will be breached, leading to devastating and potentially irreversible consequences for several vital Earth systems that sustain a hospitable planet.

The treaty mandates its signatories to set their own voluntary and nationally determined climate plans for emissions reduction – also known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs – and update them every five years.

But where exactly does the global fight against climate change stand today, 10 years on from the Paris Agreement?

1. We will reach global warming of 1.5C earlier than expected

When COP21 concluded with the adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, global warming had reached 1.04C above pre-industrial levels, and predictions indicated that, if emissions continued on the trajectory at the time, it would reach 1.5C by March 2042.

Today, the planet is 1.41C warmer compared to pre-industrial levels. According to predictions by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), we are on track to reach the 1.5C threshold as early as March 2029 – a good 13 years earlier than previously thought.

The rise in global temperatures coincides with a steady increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the unequivocal main driver of climate change – particularly in the last decade.

“Whilst we don’t yet fully understand all the reasons behind the recent rapid increase in global temperatures, it is clear that the ever-growing concentrations of [greenhouse gases] in the atmosphere have worsened the situation, making the goal of keeping global temperature anomalies below 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average more difficult to achieve,” said C3S.

2. Greenhouse gas concentrations have continued to rise since 2015

All major greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide – reached historic high levels last year, committing the planet to more long-term temperature increase.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached 422 parts per million (ppm) at the end of 2024, 2.9 ppm higher than the year prior. On December 7, 2025, they stood at 427.48 ppm.

A by-product of burning fossil fuels, biomass, land-use changes, and industrial processes such as cement production, CO2 is the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, responsible for about three-quarters of planet-warming emissions. Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have increased by more than 60% since 1990, with concentrations in the atmosphere now 50% higher than they were before the onset of the Industrial Revolution, and some 7% higher than 2015, when the Paris Agreement was agreed.

Meanwhile, methane concentrations reached 1,897 parts per billion (ppb) in 2024, 4 ppb higher than 2023. They now stand at 1,930.95 ppb.

The gas – mainly associated with fossil fuel use, agriculture and waste – is the second major greenhouse gas after CO2, responsible for 25% of global warming. It is 84 times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a two-decade period and it possesses a 100-year global warming potential 28-34 times that of CO2.

Atmospheric concentrations of this potent gas are now more than 165% higher than pre-industrial levels and 5.33% higher compared to 2015.

3. We are bending the curve of emissions downwards (for the first time)

At last month’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said the Paris Agreement “is delivering real progress.”⁠ The comment came as he unveiled a graph showing that national climate plans are indeed contributing to bending the emissions curve globally.

Without the Paris Agreement – the graph suggests – we would be looking at an increase of emissions between 20-48% by 2035 compared to 2019 levels. But 86 new national climate plans submitted by 113 countries ahead of COP30 put us on track to cut emissions by 12% in the next 10 years.

“That’s a big deal,” said Stiell. “We are now bending the curve of planet heating emissions downwards – for the very first time.” But while this is true, scientists have long said that keeping global warming to 1.5C requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 (at the latest), and be reduced by 43% by 2030.⁠ All evidence now suggests we will now almost certainly overshoot the target.

4. We just had the hottest decade ever recorded

The past 10 years (2015–2024) were the 10 warmest on record, and trend that is expected to continue. European scientists said this week that 2025 is “virtually certain” to finish as either the second- or third-warmest year on record.

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Featured image: United Nations Photo/Flickr.