The Climate Gap Ahead of COP30: Why a 10% Cut by 2035 Won’t Hold the Line at 1.5°C

With COP30 approaching in Belém, a new UN assessment finds current national climate pledges would lower emissions only about 10% by 2035, far below the roughly 60% drop required to keep the 1.5°C temperature limit achievable. The shortfall reflects underpowered targets, slow implementation, and inadequate finance. Closing the gap demands stronger 2035 NDCs, rapid clean power and grid build-out, deep methane cuts, protection of forests, and bankable finance packages that scale proven technologies across economies.

On the eve of COP30 in Belém, Brazil (November 10–21, 2025), the world has a fresh scoreboard and it’s sobering. A new assessment from the UN climate secretariat finds that, if fully implemented, countries’ updated climate plans would drive a decline in global greenhouse-gas emissions of roughly 10% by 2035 (from 2019 levels). That’s progress in direction but not magnitude: to keep a 1.5°C limit within reach, science indicates emissions must fall by about 60% by 2035. The result is a yawning “climate gap” that COP30 will be judged on closing. 

A first-ever global dip, too small, too late

There is real movement hidden in the headline numbers. For the first time, the UN projects global emissions would start to decline over the next decade if current pledges are fully delivered. That’s a departure from earlier outlooks that saw emissions still rising in 2030. But the expected ~10% cut by 2035 remains far below the trajectory compatible with 1.5°C, which requires about 60% by 2035 along a pathway where emissions drop ~43% by 2030 and keep falling rapidly thereafter. In other words: the curve bends, but nowhere near enough.

This conclusion is consistent with the UN Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report 2024, which estimated the world needs 57–60% reductions by 2035 to align with 1.5°C, amplifying the scale of effort required in the new round of national climate commitments due ahead of COP30. 

Why the gap persists

1) Underpowered national plans. Many updated national climate plans (NDCs) sharpen near-term targets and extend timelines to 2035, but, in aggregate, they still don’t add up. Even with enhancements, the combined ambition only trims a tenth off global emissions by 2035, far from the deep, economy-wide cuts scientists say are necessary. 

2) Uneven coverage and uncertainty. Not every major emitter has submitted final, detailed 2035 targets, and some pledges hinge on uncertain peak years or conditional elements. That patchwork lowers confidence in real-world delivery and drags down the global sum. 

3) Policy–implementation lag. Even where ambition looks credible on paper, execution often lags: grid build-out falls behind renewable additions; permitting bottlenecks slow clean infrastructure; and industrial decarbonization projects face financing and supply-chain hurdles. The gap is no longer just about inventing technology, it’s about deploying what we already have, at scale and speed. 4) Finance that doesn’t yet flow. The transition’s capital needs are enormous. Parties have been negotiating a new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG); discussions point to the hundreds of billions annually, with developed countries leading and broader sources contributing. But commitments still trail needs, and concessional finance is especially scarce for the hardest-to-abate sectors and for adaptation. 

What a 60% cut by 2035 actually entails

The science-based pathway to 1.5°C isn’t a slogan; it’s a sequence. The IPCC outlines a mid-range scenario in which global emissions peak before 2025, fall ~43% by 2030, ~60% by 2035, and ~69% by 2040, reaching net zero around mid-century. Each waypoint implies concrete structural shifts: retiring unabated coal, scaling clean power and grids, electrifying transport and heat, slashing methane across energy and agriculture, and deploying carbon management carefully where needed. 

UNEP’s 2024 analysis adds that technically and economically feasible mitigation by 2035 exceeds the size of the gap, a crucial point. In plain terms: the world can bridge the difference with known solutions if policy, finance, and execution line up. 

Where COP30 must deliver

1) Stronger 2035 NDCs, aligned with 1.5°C math. Belém is the deadline moment. Countries are expected to lodge next-generation NDCs that extend to 2035. Aligning these with a ~60% global cut means major economies tightening targets, specifying robust sectoral pathways, and removing ambiguities (like undefined peak years). A synthesis report preview already signals the gap will remain without a step-change in ambition. 

2) A finance package that matches the task. The credibility of deeper targets depends on money moving. Parties will pressure for a concrete, scaled NCQG, on the order of hundreds of billions per year by 2035, with clarity on sources (public, private, multilateral, innovative) and on improving access for developing countries. 

3) Systems, not pilots. COP30 should pivot political energy from announcing projects to building systems: transmission lines and interconnectors; flexible grids; cross-border hydrogen and CO₂ transport where justified; ports tailored for clean shipping fuels; and industry clusters for low-carbon cement, steel, and chemicals. The goal is to turn today’s pockets of progress into economy-wide retooling fast enough to bend the 2030s curve toward −60%. (UNEP and IPCC framing reinforces that the technologies exist; the bottleneck is scale and integration.) 

4) Methane as a sprint lane. Because methane is a potent but short-lived greenhouse gas, cutting leaks across oil, gas, and coal, improving waste management, and adopting better livestock and rice practices can deliver near-term cooling benefits that complement CO₂ cuts. Targeted regulations plus finance for leak-reduction technology can have outsized impact this decade. (This is a widely recognized mitigation lever in UN assessments.) 

5) Protecting nature as carbon infrastructure. Forests, central to Belém’s Amazon setting, must be treated as core climate assets. Ending deforestation, scaling high-integrity restoration, and funding indigenous guardianship can avoid gigatons of emissions while buffering climate risks. Success here directly narrows the 2035 gap without waiting for new tech. 

What major emitters do next matters most

The UN outlook reflects a global average, but a handful of large economies will determine whether the world hits the 2035 waypoint. Strengthened national policies on power sector coal phase-down, accelerated EV adoption with charging networks, building efficiency mandates, and industrial decarbonization incentives can swing gigaton-scale outcomes. Media and analytical briefings underscore that some big players have yet to lock in detailed 2035 trajectories, and that stronger targets, paired with bankable implementation plans, could move the global figure far beyond 10%. 

Why Belém is a pivotal stage

COPs are often criticized as talk shops, but they regularly reset the tempo of national policy and private investment. COP30, hosted in the Amazon, adds symbolic weight and practical urgency. Logistics challenges aside, the two-week program is designed to integrate negotiations with real-economy “thematic days,” a format meant to drive sector-specific deals and coalitions. If countries arrive with sharpened targets, COP30 can convert them into actionable blueprints: finance commitments, standards, procurement mandates, and cross-border infrastructure agreements that deliver measurable emissions cuts well before 2035. 

The bottom line

A projected 10% global emissions drop by 2035 is not nothing; it’s confirmation that policy works and that the world has started to turn. But against a ~60% reduction needed to hold 1.5°C within reach, it’s nowhere near enough. The good news is that the technology and technical potential exist to close most of the distance. The hard news is that it will take political courage, large-scale finance, and relentless execution, starting now, and crystallizing at COP30.

Belém shouldn’t be remembered as the summit where the world agreed to aim high again. It should be remembered as the summit where countries made the 2030s a decisive decade, by wiring ambition into grids, factories, farms, finance, and forests, so that a 60% cut by 2035 is not an aspiration on paper but a reality in the atmosphere.

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