EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/29/phasing-out-fossil-f...
https://assets.ctfassets.net/75ila1cntaeh/74J1QC64SxYY3vshG3pCWL/d59f8e3...
Climate action has reached an impasse. Past optimism assumed that green growth, political will and public engagement would drive decarbonisation. Yet today, we are experiencing the greatest loss of climate momentum in recent history, just as the crisis escalates.
Last year was the warmest on record,1 bringing with it devastating wildfires, hurricanes and widespread flooding around the world. Rising emissions, record-breaking temperatures and worsening climate impacts demand urgent action, yet political momentum is fading. Net-zero policies, once seen as the pathway to economic transformation, are increasingly viewed as unaffordable, ineffective, or politically toxic. In many economies, the promise of green jobs has not materialised at the scale expected. Meanwhile, industries inmany developed economies face rising costs and are losing competitive ground to countries like China. And despite net-zero pledges and a global deal to phase out fossil fuels, demand for coal, oil and gas keeps hitting new highs.
The current climate debate is broken. Public confidence in policies to reduce emissions and spark green growth is waning, exacerbated by the fact that many of the promised benefits of past climate policies have failed to materialise. Proposed green policies that suggest limiting meat consumption or reducing air travel have alienated many people rather than bringing them along. This failure to deliver has created an opening for populists who exploit public scepticism and frame climate action as an elite-driven agenda. The result? Political will is receding just as the crisis accelerates. Governments are backtracking, businesses are dropping climate targets and voters are electing leaders who deprioritise the planet’s future. The crisis is here, but action is stalling.
We are living in the climate paradox: awareness of the climate crisis has never been higher, yet meaningful action is in decline. How do we solve this? The old climate playbook isn’t working. We need a political strategy that wins, and that ends the net-zero culture war. We need to rebuild public trust in climate policy, and for that, politicians need to start with showing the public they are listening – and delivering. The debate needs to be taken out of the hands of campaigners and put in the hands of policymakers.
A realistic voice in the climate debate is required, neither ideological nor alarmist but pragmatic, solutions-driven and outcome-oriented. We need to move away from the continued sounding of the alarm and shift to the pragmatic delivery of solutions – pushing back on unrealistic demands that don’t deliver impact while rejecting fossil-fuel driven status quo arguments.
The global reality is that no country can afford to pay the price of decarbonisation as well as the cost of climate disasters caused by others’ inaction. The worst of all worlds for any country is to invest heavily in domestic decarbonisation but also be faced with the high costs of adapting to climate impacts due to the failure of others to similarly decarbonise.
However, climate change is not an issue that can be solved by action from any country in isolation. We need international cooperation far beyond the current frameworks and a collective commitment to fast decisive action, especially from the leaders of major emitting economies. Continuing on the same path and relying on outdated, ineffective policies will not cut emissions fast enough. Doing so is a recipe for global disorder driven by the catastrophic impacts of climate change. Instead, the world must embrace new disruptive solutions and act collectively and decisively. It’s time to redefine climate leadership and move into an age of delivery – an era of bold action, technological breakthroughs and transformative shifts in policy.
The choice is clear:
innovate and cooperate or face a future of escalating climate chaos.
That means: THE CLIMATE PARADOX: WHY WE NEED TO RESET ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE 9 1. Accelerating and scaling technologies that capture carbon. Cutting emissions incrementally is not enough. We need to invest in solutions that capture emissions at source before they reach the atmosphere, together with breakthrough technologies that permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere, pulling it straight out of the air and storing it permanently. Both technologies need to be deployed at scale and at speed.
Harnessing the power of technology, including AI. We must use artificial intelligence and other innovations to decarbonise smarter and faster. From AI-enhanced energy grids to new materials that support energy efficiency, technology must turbocharge our path to net zero. These technologies help cut emissions faster, more cheaply and more intelligently than ever before. This is about making the green choice the easier choice, with smarter tech delivering lower bills, better systems and faster progress.
3. Investing in breakthrough and frontier energy solutions. We need to power everything with clean energy, and ensure all new generation is zero emissions. New solutions, including a new generation of nuclear and fusion technologies, have the potential to transform our ability to do this. Clean energy is cheaper and healthier – and scaling it faster means less pollution, more jobs and new abundant energy sources that don’t fuel the climate crisis.
4. Scaling nature-based solutions. From planting forests to developing carbon-sequestering crops, we must harness the power of nature and science together. Nature is one of our best allies in this fight, and we need to back it with smart science and innovation. Forests, wetlands and smart farms can absorb carbon and protect food systems as well as buy the planet time to develop and deploy new engineered solutions.
5. Adapting to what is coming. From flood defences to green cities, we must prioritise adaptation efforts and invest in resilience to prepare communities for the climate impacts they are already experiencing. Climate action must include domestic and global resilience and security –keeping people safe, today and tomorrow. 6. Simplifying global efforts to deliver collective action. While the multilateral process, characterised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Parties (COP), has been an integral part of achieving global consensus on the problem of climate change, this process is moving too slowly to deliver the outcomes needed. The world now needs a laser focus on the key issues driving rising emissions, and targeted, high-impact agreements that drive real change where it matters most. This includes an imperative for China and India – two of the countries that hold the keys to the world’s climate future. As such, the creation of new plurilateral solutions co-designed by these countries are needed to sit alongside any wider multilateral process. And as global trade fragments, we have a generational opportunity to realign trade and climate objectives as countries focus on retaining key markets for exports. 7. Rethinking the role of finance, including philanthropy. From green bonds to climate-risk pricing, money must flow to where it can make the most difference. If we want a green future, we need to make the money work towards solutions. This includes philanthropic giving, which could push frontier solutions over the finish line, reducing their costs and allowing for faster deployment.
