2024 was a Complicated Year for Climate Action
By early November, it was virtually certain that 2024 would be the hottest year on record. The evidence was being felt around the world—from flooding that killed hundreds in Spain to drought in 48 of America’s 50 states. Insurance-giants dropped coverage in danger zones and warned about the growing challenge posed by climate change. Amid all that, a casual observer might have expected negotiators gathered at U.N. climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, to double down on the most critical efforts to cut global emissions and -prevent the problem from getting worse.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Instead, the talks, known this year as COP29, devolved into a chaotic conflict across decades-old battle lines. The deal that emerged—an agreement for developed countries to lead in providing $300 billion annually in climate finance to Global South nations—was enough to keep hope alive but far from sufficient to tackle the scale of the problem. Chandni Raina, a negotiator for at-risk India, summed up the prevailing sentiment after the finance agreement was gaveled in: “We are extremely hurt.”
The talks were a fitting end to a complicated year of climate action. As the problem grows worse, leaders constrained by political considerations keep eking out piecemeal solutions. The solutions could be worse, but they could also be a lot better. In 2024, few politicians are denying the urgent science of climate change. Yet most are struggling to act on the scale necessary to help the world avoid the worst effects of warming.
But that doesn’t mean all is lost. This year brought some glimmers of progress. The economics of clean energy have improved. Policies enacted years ago are paying dividends. And innovators—technological, financial, and policy—continue to forge ahead. In time, those developments will make a more sustainable future inevitable. The question is what the path looks like to get there.
Any assessment of the year in climate requires a clear-eyed look at the science. In November, the World Meteorological Organization warned not only that 2024 is on track to be the hottest on record, but also that global temperature rise may bob above the 1.5°C threshold laid out in the Paris Agreement. To avoid that, a U.N. Environment Program report said countries would need to cut emissions 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035. It noted that hitting these numbers remains “technically” possible. But it would require muscular government programs to promote clean energy, stop carbon-releasing deforestation, and push high-polluting industries to decarbonize.
The current political context is not exactly friendly to such sweeping government programs. In the E.U., a long-standing climate leader, populist backlash this year gave right-wing, anti-climate policymakers a record presence in the European Parliament. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, head of the E.U.’s executive branch, remains in office, but her new cabinet will be playing defense. Top officials say they will focus on streamlining existing climate policies to make the bloc more competitive rather than issuing new ones. “There is a clear conviction that we will continue to lead on this,” Wopke Hoekstra, the bloc’s top climate official, told me in April. But the E.U. needs to “bridge that better, marry that better with competitiveness for our companies and a just transition for our people.”
Nowhere, however, is the reality of challenging politics more stark than in the U.S., where Donald Trump won a nonconsecutive second term as President. He will enter the White House promising to end what he has called “the Green New Scam,” as he describes the Biden Administration’s clean-energy tax breaks and subsidies. Trump may not be able to repeal in its entirety the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law, given the jobs the law has created in conservative places where voters support Trump. But his return nonetheless casts a pall on global climate efforts. Investors dumped green stocks in response to Trump’s ascent. Leaders in the Global South have already felt less diplomatic pressure to decarbonize. And some companies have doubled down on their strategy of keeping quiet on climate efforts. “It’s clear that the next Administration will try to take a U-turn and erase much of this progress,” John Podesta, Biden’s climate envoy, said on the first day of COP29. “I’m keenly aware of the disappointment that the United States has at times caused.”
Combine the stark science with the stark political realities and you get a pretty grim picture: the uphill climate battle got a lot more difficult this year. Still, a careful observer can identify meaningful green shoots.
No matter the political complications, countries continued to deploy clean energy at a rapid clip this year driven by economics (renewables are often cheaper than fossil fuels) and energy-security concerns (producing clean electricity at home means less reliance on polluting imports). Globally, investment in green technologies has reached nearly $2 trillion annually, twice the level of investment in new fossil-fuel supply, according to the International Energy Agency. Many climate advocates have celebrated the resurgence of nuclear power. Long considered taboo, and too expensive, investing in nuclear offers a zero-carbon solution to companies building energy-intensive AI data centers.
And there are the nascent initiatives launched in 2024 that will pay dividends in the months and years to come. Financial innovators have pursued new ways of investing in climate projects. That includes efforts on the global stage to use government money to “derisk” private-sector climate investments in the Global South. Thus far, these efforts have been relatively small, but their impact will grow as the programs scale. Policy innovators, too, are thinking through ways to continue progress in the new political atmosphere. Linking emissions reduction with trade, for example, offers a potential opportunity, even under Trump.
In climate conversations it has become almost cliché to say the energy transition is inevitable. And yet that’s the truth.
Will it happen fast enough? Right now, things don’t look good, but that doesn’t mean we should give up. Every bit of warming we can avoid matters. In November, I spoke with World Bank President Ajay Banga about his agenda to remake the bank with climate in mind. More than any policy guidance, what struck me was his approach to making change by carefully tweaking the organization’s structures. It’s a lesson worth remembering as we head into 2025: in time, small changes add up to something much bigger. “Forecasts are not destiny,” he says. “You can change destiny, but you have to work at it.”