Global climate governance navigates a turbulent 2025, experts say

For global climate governance, 2025 was a year of stark contradictions. It marked the 10th anniversary of the landmark Paris Agreement, yet the spirit of multilateral cooperation that birthed it faced its most severe test amid escalating geopolitical tensions.

Scientific data from last year revealed the earth reached several grim milestones, underscoring a warming planet that persisted despite humanity's response.

While 2025 itself may not reach 1.5 C above the preindustrial level set by the Paris climate accords, the average global temperature from 2023 to 2025 is projected to surpass this threshold, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. This would mark the first time a three-year period has been recorded breaching this critical limit.

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Up north, the Arctic experienced its warmest year from October 2024 to September 2025 since records began in 1900, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's December Arctic Report Card.

Record-breaking temperatures were accompanied by a surge in climate-related disasters. The beginning of 2025 saw devastating wildfires tear through the Los Angeles area, while Europe endured a summer of record-breaking heat-waves. Toward the end of the year, Southeast and South Asia grappled with the most severe flooding in recent years.

The Global Tipping Points Report 2025 points out that the world is facing a new reality, with global warming expected to exceed 1.5 C within a few years. The report, a collaboration involving over 160 researchers, warns that overshooting this limit places the world in a danger zone where further climate tipping points pose catastrophic risks.

Zhang Jian, vice-president of the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Tsinghua University, said that the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds with high confidence that as global average temperatures continue to rise, so will the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events.

Zhang said that climate change is a typical example of nontraditional security, closely linked to a wide range of economic and social sectors.

"Its impact extends beyond rising global average temperatures to encompass more frequent extreme weather events, ecosystem degradation, and increased resource pressure, leading to systemic shocks to economic stability and food security. These risks, compounding each other, pose significant challenges to economic development and social stability," he warned.

Momentum eroded

This escalating climate crisis demands immediate, coordinated global action, analysts said. However, the very multilateral cooperation needed is being undermined by rising geopolitical risks and weakening economic growth momentum.

The year 2025 began with a major setback when US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, a move he first initiated in 2017. Accompanying this formal exit was a rollback of environmental regulations and cuts to climate science funding.

Zhang noted that the US government's announcement of its second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement has put pressure on global climate governance and created uncertainty for financial and capacity-building support within international climate cooperation.

Ma Jun, founding director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, described the US retreat as a significant problem. "It directly reduces climate funding and affects the global emission reduction process, as the US is no longer bound by the Paris Agreement and will not implement related emission reduction requirements."

Ma also warned of longer-term damage caused by these moves to climate-related scientific research, which underpins the global consensus needed for joint action.

Apart from the U-turn of the US, experts noted a profound shift in the international community's attitude toward climate change since the Paris Agreement's adoption in 2015.

"Current geopolitical tensions have fragmented global governance, including on climate change, weakening or even collapsing mutual trust between countries," Ma said.

"In 2015, there was a belief that climate change was an existential threat facing humanity collectively, and there was hope to address it together through multilateral mechanisms," he explained. "But now, climate governance has become much more complex, involving not only development rights but also competition arising from the green economic transition process, among other aspects."

All these changes have weakened the impetus for climate governance from governments, according to Ma.

Sun Yixian, an associate professor of international development at the University of Bath, attributed recent backsliding in climate action of some Western countries to the problem of benefit allocation during the green transition.

These countries' policies more often reflect their interest group politics, Sun noted. "Similar phenomena also exist on a global scale. Countries that feel they don't gain enough from the green transition may try to delay or block it."

He also highlighted the negative effects of going against multilateralism demonstrated by the current US foreign policy on global climate governance. "For example, the tariff war the US has initiated aims to engage and negotiate with each country individually, which undermines the norms of multilateral international cooperation, significantly increases the cost of interstate coordination, and fuels zero-sum competition instead of collaboration."

Growing litigation

As climate action fell off some government agendas, citizens worldwide turned to the courts to demand accountability.

In a landmark case, hundreds of Japanese plaintiffs sued their government in December for "unconstitutional" climate inaction. Similar legal moves are underway globally, including in South Korea, where young environmental activists won the first such case in Asia in 2024. In Germany, climate targets were also ruled insufficient and unconstitutional in 2021.

"This rise in litigation is because the climate change situation is becoming more severe, and people are directly feeling the impacts of extreme weather," Ma observed. "At the same time, climate policies and actions in many countries are weakening, creating a stark contrast that pushes people to seek legal recourse when their voices are marginalized in the political process."

At the global level, the International Court of Justice in July delivered its advisory opinion on the legal obligations of states concerning climate change. The non-binding advisory opinion said that key climate treaties impose "binding obligations" on state parties.

"States have a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment by acting with due diligence … in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities," it said.

While experts welcomed its positive significance for maintaining and promoting international climate cooperation, they cautioned against over-reliance on litigation.

Climate litigation cannot and should not replace policy negotiations and international cooperation, said Zhang from Tsinghua University, warning that pushing climate action into "legal confrontation" could weaken consensus, intensify political opposition, and ultimately be detrimental to long-term cooperation.

Active forces

Despite the current turbulence and resistance faced by global climate governance, experts said that the momentum for climate action has not disappeared. Instead, non-state actors and market forces are playing a larger role.

Zhang pointed to COP30 as evidence. "Despite concerns about inconvenient transportation and rising participation costs before COP30, the scale of on-site participants during the conference remained high. This in itself is an important signal, indicating that the global cohesion of the climate issue remains undiminished," he said.

Zhang further noted that even without high-level federal representation from the US at COP30, a robust delegation of state governors, city mayors, and NGOs remained actively engaged. To Zhang, this demonstrated that shifts in national climate policy can no longer stall the momentum of global climate action, which is increasingly being driven by a more diverse set of actors.

"Climate action is not only a moral issue, but is increasingly driven by interest-based considerations,"Zhang highlighted, citing its close interconnection with energy security, industrial upgrading, and public health. "This fusion provides a new, pragmatic foundation for maintaining and deepening climate cooperation in a complex international landscape."

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Sun agreed, noting that while global climate governance began in 2025 with uncertainty due to Trump administration's withdrawal, the Paris Agreement and the scientific consensus on climate change have proved resilient and both remain widely supported.

Looking ahead, the key question is whether any nation can step up leading global climate efforts, Sun pointed out, adding that China is poised to take on a more active, even leading role, though its approach will undoubtedly differ from that of the US and Europe.

China's potential influence, experts suggest, may lie in demonstration. "China has played a role in leading by action in promoting the green transition of developing countries," Ma said.

"When China and other regions can prove that the green transition can simultaneously help achieve other goals, such as China cutting pollution and upgrading industrial capacity, this practice will be very attractive to the global community, especially countries in the Global South, driving more countries to embark on this path," Ma explained.

Xu Bihong and agencies contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at yangran1@chinadaily.com.cn