Climate-fighting efforts have 'barely moved the needle,' UN report finds

Climate-fighting efforts have ‘barely moved the needle,’ UN report finds Science Nov 4, 2025 9:34 AM EST

All nations of the world had homework this year: submit new-and-improved plans to fight climate change. But the plans they handed in “have barely moved the needle” on reducing Earth’s future warming, a new United Nations report finds.

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And a good chunk of that progress is counteracted by the United States’ withdrawal from the effort, the report adds.

The newest climate-fighting plans — mandated every five years by the 2015 Paris Agreement — shaves about three tenths of a degree Celsius (nearly six tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) off a warming future compared with the projections