Governments and corporations have been urged to commit to climate action in 2025, do more to cut emissions this year, prepare for climate change and protect nature.

Writing in the authoritative UK-based Climate Home News, which asked its subscribers what the top climate issues of 2025 are, reporter Joe Lo said that with climate destruction growing, the readers’ responses clearly indicate they want to see more ambition in tackling climate change.

The readers also want to see more honesty on how climate action is going. Climate Home analysed when, where and how we can judge whether the powers-that-be are stepping up to the challenge or falling short.

Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, all governments have to submit climate plans – known as Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) – to the United Nations (UN) every year.

The third round of these plans is due next year, ten years on from Paris. Most will add a 2035 emissions reduction aim onto their existing 2030 target and more long-term goals to reach net zero in 2050, 2060 or 2070.

Several Climate Home readers said NDCs would be a top climate issue for 2025. One said they should be “challenging but realistic” and another said they “must align with actionable policies.”

Last chance

They will certainly have to be more ambitious than the last round five years ago if the world is to stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or even 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, Lo wrote.

The UN said in October that, even if implemented in full, existing NDCs put the world on course for a catastrophic 2.6C of global warming.

While the final figures are not out yet, the World Meteorological Organisation has said that 2024 looks set to be the hottest year on record. It may also be the coolest we see for a while even if emissions peak as the world will keep getting hotter until we reach net zero emissions globally. As a result, governments must prepare for worsening climate change impacts.

Climate change worsened dozens of disasters in 2024 from extreme rain in Spain to a heatwave in West Africa and typhoons in the Philippines. The World Weather Attribution group of scientists found that 26 disasters linked to climate change this year killed over 3,700 people and displaced millions. We are likely to see more disasters in 2025.

One South American reader reported worries about drought, Amazon forest fires and rising temperatures while another said “extreme weather patterns demand immediate attention”. In this context, adapting to climate change is key.

At the COP30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil, set for November this year, governments are due to agree on a list of indicators to measure whether and how they are adapting to climate change in areas like water, food and health.

The big debate will be whether the provision of finance to developing countries to help them adapt will be one of those indicators.

For the destruction that can’t be adapted to, the new UN loss and damage fund is supposed to help. Its new director, Ibrahima Cheik Diong, hopes to start handing out money to climate victims by the end of 2025 and hire most of its staff in 2026.

Due partly to climate change, species are dying off at an alarming rate.

Last year’s biodiversity conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia, planned to address this. While it has had some successes, particularly in handing power to IPLCs (Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities) it ran out of how to agree on paying for nature protection.

With two years until COP17, governments have agreed to continue COP16 from February 25-27 in Rome.

“Securing adequate and predictable financing will be central to our efforts,” said COP16 president Susana Muhamad.

Responses to the Climate Home survey indicate its readers are concerned about nature, both on land and in the oceans where plastic pollution is a particular threat to nature. Talks to set up a UN treaty to tackle plastics failed in Busan, South Korea but will continue at some point in 2025

Misinformation

The readers also felt that the world needs less misinformation, accounting tricks and jargon.

With Donald Trump coming into power as president of the United States, there is concern about misinformation on climate change. Trump promised to pull his country out of the Paris Agreement, and his often-inaccurate criticisms of climate action are likely to influence the public conversation in the US and abroad in 2025.

The UN is trying to counter misinformation and climate change with a US$10-15 million fund for non-governmental organisations researching the issue and developing communication strategies and public awareness campaigns.

It’s not Trump’s claims that worry readers however, they also suspect that governments that do recognise climate change are overselling their climate action using accounting tricks.

Language barrier

A Canadian respondent pointed out that the emissions from international aviation are not included in nations’ greenhouse gas inventories and neither are those from forest fires, as these are considered natural and therefore not the government’s responsibility.

Meanwhile, Climate Home has highlighted how countries like Guyana use forest carbon accounting techniques to present themselves as carbon negative despite booming oil production.

Another reader criticised the “language barrier” caused by the jargon and acronyms that are common in climate policy.
“Bridging the gap between technical acronyms and the lived experiences of sceptics or reluctant individuals is vital,” they said.

Another said communicators should “avoid masking global warming’s mechanics with unclear terms” and “focus on transparency”.
Will scientists with the International Panel on Climate Change heed this advice as they start writing up a special report on climate change and cities this year?

The survey also revealed that the roll-out of green technology must quicken. Decarbonising the world is going to require a huge variety of technology, and the good news is that the roll-out of green solutions like solar panels and electric vehicles continues to pick up pace every year.

The readers highlighted technology like heat-pumps, micro-grids and the recycling of aluminium. Other solutions they proposed include city design which encourages walking and public transport, like Utrecht in the Netherlands, and tackling private plane use as “unnecessary luxury emissions”.