As the Carbon Trust marks 25 years of partnering with businesses, governments, financial institutions and philanthropies across the globe to advance the transition to a low carbon future, we're sharing the lessons we've learned to help accelerate the next phase of climate action. Not a retrospective on the past, but a practical perspective on the future: focused on the progress achieved to date, the challenges that remain, and the actions needed to mitigate climate risks, strengthen resilience and unlock long-term growth and prosperity.

The climate transition: From awareness to action

Twenty-five years ago, climate action was largely a specialist pursuit. Few organisations measured emissions consistently, renewable energy remained niche, and concepts such as Net Zero, science-based targets, transition planning and Scope 3 emissions had yet to be widely understood or applied. Standards were still emerging, reporting was mostly voluntary, and climate considerations were often treated as peripheral rather than strategic.

Today, climate considerations influence investment decisions, corporate strategy, supply chains and public policy across much of the world. Expectations have also significantly changed, with investors, regulators, industry bodies and customers requiring organisations to report, manage and mitigate climate-related risks and emissions.

This transformation has been shaped by advances in technology, evolving standards, policy intervention, growing market demand and a deeper understanding of climate risks and opportunities. The timeline below highlights some of the milestones that helped move climate action from the margins to the mainstream, as well as selected areas where the Carbon Trust has supported the transition.

Where we are today  

The milestones reflect a profound shift in the role climate action now plays in economies and societies. While the world is still off track to meet its climate goals, the commercial, technological and strategic case has strengthened considerably, laying the foundations to accelerate progress. A few examples:  

• Companies with science-based climate targets now represent more than 40% of global market capitalisation.  
• Economies representing 46% of global GDP have grown while reducing emissions.
• Since 2010, solar PV costs have fallen by 87% and battery storage costs by 93%.
• Ninety-one percent of newly commissioned renewable energy projects in 2024 delivered electricity at a lower cost than the cheapest new fossil fuel alternative.
• A shift towards domestically generated clean energy could reduce global fossil fuel imports by 70%, saving an estimated $1.3 trillion annually.

Together, these developments demonstrate that climate action is increasingly linked to energy security, resilience, competitiveness and economic opportunity. Many of the technologies needed to reduce emissions already exist, their costs have fallen significantly, and the systems supporting action are more mature than they were a generation ago.

Where the challenge remains

The past 25 years have demonstrated what is possible when innovation, investment and policy align, yet the climate transition is not moving at the scale or pace required. Even if current national climate commitments (NDCs) are fully implemented, global warming is projected to reach 2.3-2.5°C, well above the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal.  

Several persistent challenges continue to slow progress:

• Geopolitical tensions and policy uncertainty continue to disrupt long-term planning.
• Competing priorities and the pressure to demonstrate immediate returns and economic benefit make it difficult to translate climate ambition into near-term investment and action.  
• Scope 3 supply-chain emissions remain a major challenge, averaging 26 times higher than direct emissions.
• Climate-related disruption has become increasingly costly. In the EU, one-quarter of the €822 billion in climate-related losses since 1980 occurred between 2021 and 2024.
• Africa attracts just 3.3% of global energy investment, despite significant energy access needs and being home to around 20% of the world’s population.  

These challenges are closely interconnected. As energy systems, supply chains, financial markets, industries and communities become increasingly interdependent, progress in one area can accelerate change elsewhere, while disruption can have far-reaching consequences. Recent geopolitical events have further reinforced the links between climate action, energy security and economic resilience, underlining the need for a more integrated approach to the transition.

At the same time, millions of people still lack access to reliable and affordable energy, while many of the communities most vulnerable to climate impacts have contributed least to the problem. The challenge is therefore not only to scale solutions more rapidly, but also to ensure that economic and social benefits are experienced more broadly. 

What we’ve learned: Five key lessons that accelerate climate action  

While sectors and geographies face different challenges and opportunities, 25 years of experience highlights common factors that influence whether climate action succeeds. These five interconnected lessons offer practical levers for turning ambition into meaningful change at speed and scale.

1. A climate transition that fails people will fail full stop

Technologies, infrastructure and investment matter, but real-world progress depends on people. A pathway may be technically credible, yet it will struggle to endure if it overlooks livelihoods, affordability, local priorities or how costs and benefits are shared.  

Climate action is strongest when people are placed at the centre of the transition, particularly where change affects jobs, communities and local economies. The Carbon Trust’s work to support a just and equitable transition from coal to clean energy, highlights the importance of including social and economic considerations in climate planning. The Just Transition Planning Framework helps decision-makers consider job security, workers' rights and socioeconomic inequalities alongside emissions reduction, energy security and the future of individual coal plants. The framework recognises that the phasing out of coal is more likely to succeed when affected workers and communities see a credible future beyond coal.  

Putting people at the heart of the transition is not a constraint on progress, but a condition for it. Solutions that expand opportunity, share benefits more equitably and strengthen livelihoods are more likely to gain support and succeed at scale.

2. Strategy turns ambition into investment and action

Commitments and targets have helped raise ambition and signal direction, but targets alone do not deliver change. Progress happens when long-term goals are translated into practical plans, investment decisions and measurable action.

Effective strategies identify where emissions and climate risks sit, prioritise the interventions that can make the greatest difference, assign accountability and align capital and operational decisions. They connect long-term direction with near-term milestones, giving decision makers a credible basis for investment and implementation.

Recent work with IFC and partners on Net Zero pathways for copper and nickel mining demonstrates how strategy can turn a complex ambition into a practical action plan. The resulting roadmap combined analysis of technology pathways with financial mechanisms, innovation policy, just transition considerations and input from more than 80 experts across the value chain. This created a clear pathway for an industry that must reduce its emissions while responding to rising demand for the minerals needed by clean-energy technologies.

More broadly, it reinforces an important lesson: strategy is not an exercise that sits between ambition and delivery, but the bridge that connects them.

3. Solutions exist – it’s about scaling and adapting at pace  

Many of the technologies and approaches needed to reduce emissions are already being deployed. Renewable power, energy efficiency, electric transport, low-carbon manufacturing and distributed energy systems have moved from theory to practice. The priority now is to finance, integrate and replicate proven solutions at the scale and speed required.  

Innovation is opening further possibilities. Satellites and sensors can improve the monitoring of drought and deforestation, two-way charging can help electric vehicles and other batteries support more flexible electricity grids, and advances in soil restoration and lower-energy desalination can strengthen food and water security.  

The UK’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio illustrates how accelerating climate progress increasingly depends on moving promising solutions from demonstration to deployment. By supporting the testing, validation and commercialisation of low-carbon technologies, the programme helps bridge the gap between innovation and real-world adoption. This reflects a broader reality of the transition that many of the technologies needed already exist. The challenge is now scaling them rapidly and adapting them to meet the needs of different geographies, systems and contexts.  

4. Emerging economies will shape the next chapter of global growth

The next wave of infrastructure, industry, food systems and finance is being built across Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa. Malaysia’s data centre expansion, Indonesia’s coal transition, Chile’s copper mines, Mexico’s municipal energy programmes and Kenya’s distributed renewables are as decisive for the global transition as decisions taken in London, Brussels or Washington.  

Across Southeast Asia, the rapid expansion of data centres and AI infrastructure is creating new demand for renewable energy and accelerating investment in cleaner electricity systems. This highlights a broader shift in the global transition that emerging economies are not only decarbonising existing industries, but increasingly determining how future industries develop and grow.

These markets face significant climate and development challenges but also represent some of the world's greatest opportunities for innovation, investment and sustainable growth. Supporting emerging economies to develop in ways that are resilient, competitive and low-carbon will be critical to the climate transition and to achieving global prosperity.  

5. Working together makes the impossible possible

The largest transformations rarely happen through individual organisations acting alone. Progress accelerates when businesses, governments, investors, researchers and communities tackle barriers together, from infrastructure and data gaps to fragmented standards and technology risks.

The Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) demonstrates the value of pre-competitive collaboration alongside government support and early-stage funding. The OWA comprised seventeen developers sharing the costs and risks of research while continuing to compete commercially. The innovations supported through the programme contributed to an estimated 15% reduction in the cost of offshore wind energy in Europe during its first decade, saving the industry an estimated £34 billion against 2030 build-out targets.

This collaborative approach has since been applied in initiatives such as the Food and Agriculture Systems Technology Accelerator (FASTA), the Coal Asset Transition Accelerator (CATA) and Greenprint demonstrating how collective action can accelerate progress across sectors and regions.  

The next chapter

The last 25 years have shown that climate action is neither simple nor linear. Political priorities can shift, economic pressures can change and geopolitical events can alter the pace and direction of the transition.

Nevertheless, the starting point for the next phase is stronger than it was a generation ago. Technologies have matured, costs have fallen, data and standards have improved, and collaboration has shown that industries and markets can change. The links between climate action, competitiveness, energy security and resilience have never been clearer.

The key lesson of the past 25 years is that meaningful change is possible. Not inevitable, not easy, but possible. The opportunity now is to apply what experience has taught us: put people at the heart of the transition, turn ambition into investable action, scale and adapt proven solutions, support emerging economies and work together on shared challenges and goals.  

The next chapter will not be defined by what we know, but by what we do with that insight and experience.