A Feb. 10 deadline for the 195 signatories of the Paris (climate) Agreement to publish and submit their emissions-reduction plans to the U.N. has come and gone with just 10 nations complying.
The reason so many countries have not published their reports on time remains unclear.
When the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, member countries agreed to work toward the goal of keeping the global temperature from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial era levels.
The optimum target is 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the agreement.
To hold the signatories accountable, the deal requires each country to list its efforts, measure its results, report on its progress, and talk about further action every five years.
The reports are called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). They include the pledges each nation has made toward meeting the COP’s (Conference of Parties to the Paris Agreement) objectives for 2035.
The current NDCs are scheduled to be considered at a COP meeting in November.
A Change of Direction
Consistent with President Donald Trump’s campaign promise, his new administration began the process of extricating the U.S. from the Paris Agreement altogether, as it did during his first term.
President Joe Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement in 2021.
The United States was one of the 10 compliant nations because its NDC was submitted by the Biden administration.
The nine other nations were the United Kingdom, Saint Lucia, Ecuador, Andorra, Uruguay, Switzerland, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, and Brazil.
Two major industrialized nations, China and India, did not submit an NDC by the deadline.
China is the biggest CO2 emitter, the United States second, and India third.
How the Big Economic Powers Rate
In September 2024, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), an ongoing, independent analysis of how countries are responding to climate change, gave China and India an overall rating of “Highly Insufficient.”
CAT rated the response of the United States to climate change as “Insufficient.”
President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office on Feb. 10. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
The CAT analysis said the United States made progress under the Biden administration but will still be “far from meeting its domestic climate target—let alone aligning its emissions with a 1.5 degrees Celsius trajectory.”
International Cooperation
In 2023, under Biden’s leadership, the United States formally adopted the COP policy of pursuing net-zero carbon emissions in the energy and transportation sectors by 2050.
The Biden administration declared its intention to decarbonize transportation by relying primarily on electric-powered vehicles—a plan critics call an electric car mandate.
The 2050 American timeline “is not compatible with the Paris Agreement,” the CAT analysis said.
According to a September 2024 report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the goal of carbon neutrality, as declared by the COP, necessitates a transitioning away from fossil fuels in a “just, orderly, and equitable manner” with “accelerating action in this critical decade.”
Achieving the COP’s optimum target by the turn of the century, the IEA states, would “require a holistic package of complementary actions and alignment with a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway to realize all of them comprehensively.”
The IEA report emphasized “the importance of continued multilateral cooperation in driving implementation” of the COP goals.
How the exit of the United States from the Paris Agreement will impact the situation is not yet known.
Experts say leaving the agreement may take as long as a year.
The Trump Approach
Transitioning away from fossil fuels runs contrary to the promises candidate Trump made on the campaign trail to increase American fossil fuel production in order to bring down gasoline prices, which he said would in turn reduce inflation.
The IEA states that another essential leg is the tripling of renewable capacity by accelerating the deployment of low-emissions technologies over the next five years.
That objective also runs contrary to Trump administration policies that have deemphasized renewable energy sources such as windmills and solar farms.
Trump also eliminated the so-called EV mandate.
According to CAT, the United States is the world’s largest crude oil producer, achieving record production in 2023. The country is also the world’s largest fossil gas producer and exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG).
In early 2024, the Biden administration placed a temporary moratorium on pending LNG export terminals.
Trump lifted the moratorium on Jan. 20, the first day of his second term.
