Solutions for Policymakers
Policymakers must drive a just fossil fuel phase-out, scale finance, boost adaptation, and renew global cooperation to meet 1.5°C and protect the vulnerable.
Deliver a fair transition with ambitious climate targets
The world experienced 1.5°C warming throughout 2024, with devastating impacts from floods, fires, and droughts. This overshoot is a clear warning: without sharp emissions cuts, we risk breaching this limit permanently.
The only path forward is a rapid, fair transition away from fossil fuels, led by major historical emitters.
To align with 1.5°C, policymakers must:
- Submit enhanced and science-based Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) aligned with the 1.5°C limit, ahead of COP30. NDCs must reflect each country’s fair share, cover all sectors and gases, set accountability mechanisms, and include clear implementation plans.
- Commit to a time-bound, equitable phase-out of all fossil fuels, led by the most historically responsible nations, with no loopholes for “abated” fossil fuels or delays via carbon capture. The transition must be just and inclusive, safeguarding livelihoods, guaranteeing social protection, and fostering participation in decision-making processes.
- Invest in renewable energy at scale and support grid modernisation to integrate clean power efficiently. Simultaneously, natural carbon sinks (e.g., ocean, soil, forests) must be protected, restored, and sustainably managed. Wealthy nations must lead and provide the necessary means of implementation to ensure that all countries can meet their climate targets.
- Integrate climate considerations across all policy areas (e.g., economy, infrastructure, health), while regularly increasing ambition in line with the latest science and Global Stocktake outcomes. Transparency and reporting on emissions and climate action must also be strengthened to build trust and enable effective tracking.
Scale up and align finance with 1.5°C
Achieving the 1.5°C goal requires a massive and equitable scale-up of climate finance from wealthy nations, alongside reforms of financial systems.
Vulnerable countries cannot cut emissions, build resilience, and recover from climate disasters without the support they were promised.
To support a just transition, policymakers must:
- Ensure all public and private financial flows are fully consistent with a 1.5°C trajectory, particularly by ending investments and subsidies in fossil fuels and redirecting resources towards renewable energy and adaptation.
- Reform multilateral development banks to prioritise grants, concessional finance, and innovative mechanisms such as climate debt swaps that alleviate financial burdens on vulnerable countries. International taxation mechanisms must also be established to generate additional funding for climate action.
- Deliver a clear plan to implement the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T”, ensuring climate finance is predictable, equitable, and accessible to developing countries most in need of support.
- Provide substantial new contributions to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, with a particular responsibility on major historical emitters, enabling it to deliver grants to climate vulnerable countries already experiencing the consequences of a warming planet.
Accelerate adaptation to a warming world
Even if we succeed in limiting warming to 1.5°C, climate impacts will intensify in the coming years. For many countries that contributed least to the problem, adaptation is already a matter of survival.
Yet current efforts remain far below what is needed.
To build worldwide resilience, policymakers must:
- Develop and implement National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) to prepare for current and future climate risks. The most historically responsible nations bear a special responsibility to support the planning and implementation of NAPs in climate vulnerable countries.
- Incorporate nature-based solutions, early warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, and disaster risk reduction into adaptation strategies. Simultaneously, climate risks must be integrated across all national planning and budgeting processes.
- Invest in renewable energy at scale and support grid modernisation to integrate clean power efficiently. Simultaneously, natural carbon sinks (e.g., ocean, soil, forests) must be protected, restored, and sustainably managed. Wealthy nations must lead and provide the necessary means of implementation to ensure that all countries can meet their climate targets.
Foster international cooperation
Geopolitical tensions, attacks on science, rising human rights violations, and growing pressure on the aid sector are challenging the foundations of international cooperation. As the global community becomes increasingly distracted, the window for urgent climate action is narrowing, even as climate impacts intensify.
Yet climate change remains a systemic, borderless crisis that requires sustained, collective effort across sectors.
To revive global solidarity, policymakers should:
- Engage fully in all multilateral mechanisms, including climate, development, trade, finance, and health, to secure ambitious and equitable global commitments, recognising that climate change is a systemic, global challenge requiring sustained international cooperation and solidarity.
- Ensure all climate policies and actions respect, protect, and fulfil human rights obligations, with meaningful participation from Indigenous peoples, women, youth, and marginalised groups.
- Uphold the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) by ensuring the provision of means of implementation, including finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building, to enable all countries, especially those with limited resources, to meet their climate goals.
