From pledges to action: The global struggle for carbon neutrality

Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences

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Bridging the Carbon Neutrality Implementation Gap: A Global Assessment. This framework illustrates the multi-dimensional assessment of global carbon neutrality progress, encompassing policy, action, target setting, and effectiveness. The study highlights an implementation gap, with disparities in renewable energy deployment and financial commitments. The right panel presents a case study on renewable energy expansion, showcasing varying growth trajectories across countries, from explosive to slow growth, emphasizing the urgent need for stronger policy enforcement and international collaboration.

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Credit: Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

The global race toward carbon neutrality has gained momentum, yet the gap between promises and execution remains stark. A groundbreaking study assessing 197 countries finds that while 151 nations have pledged carbon neutrality, only 72 have implemented comprehensive policy frameworks. At the current pace, global renewable energy capacity will only reach 2.7 times its 2022 level by 2030—falling short of below the tripling target. This shortfall underscores the urgent need for stronger international cooperation, increased investment, and accelerated technology diffusion to bridge the implementation gap.

Addressing climate change has become a defining global challenge, with the Paris Agreement urging nations to limit temperature rise well below 2°C. By 2024, 151 countries had pledged carbon neutrality, and all 198 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change had adopted climate laws. Yet, disparities in economic resources, technological capabilities, and policy execution remain major roadblocks. Renewable energy adoption lags behind targets, while climate finance and global collaboration remain insufficient. Against this backdrop, a comprehensive assessment of carbon neutrality efforts is critical to identifying shortcomings and accelerating progress.

Published (DOI: 10.1016/j.ese.2025.100546) in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology on March 3, 2025, a pioneering study led by Tsinghua University researchers provides a detailed evaluation of global carbon neutrality progress. The study assesses 197 countries across four key dimensions—targets, policies, actions, and effectiveness—revealing that while commitments are widespread, implementation is highly uneven. Significant gaps in policy execution and technological adoption continue to hinder progress toward carbon neutrality.

The study reports that 151 countries have pledged carbon neutrality, with 120 incorporating these commitments into legal frameworks. However, only 72 nations have developed comprehensive policies to drive tangible action. Renewable energy deployment remains a major concern, with projections showing that global capacity will only expand to 2.7 times its 2022 level by 2030—below the tripling goal. The study also highlights stark regional disparities: while China, the United States, and the European Union lead in renewable energy expansion, many developing nations struggle due to inadequate financial and technological support. These findings underscore the urgent need for stronger international collaboration, increased investment, and fewer barriers to technology diffusion to close the implementation gap.

"While global commitments to carbon neutrality are growing, the real challenge lies in turning these pledges into actionable policies and measurable progress," says Prof. Wenjia Cai, a lead author of the study. "Our findings highlight the urgent need for deeper international cooperation and increased financial support, particularly for developing countries, to ensure that ambitious carbon neutrality targets translate into real-world outcomes."

The study’s findings have far-reaching implications for global climate policy. It calls for stronger efforts in transparency, financing, and international collaboration to accelerate the transition to carbon neutrality. Developing nations, in particular, require substantial support to overcome financial and technological barriers. The research also stresses the need for customized strategies tailored to each country's unique resource availability and development stage. By addressing these challenges, the global community can move closer to achieving carbon neutrality and mitigating the effects of climate change.

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References

DOI

10.1016/j.ese.2025.100546

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ese.2025.100546

Funding information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72140002, 72348001 and 72204137).

About Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (ISSN 2666-4984) is an international, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal published by Elsevier. The journal publishes significant views and research across the full spectrum of ecology and environmental sciences, such as climate change, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, environment & health, green catalysis/processing for pollution control, and AI-driven environmental engineering. The latest impact factor of ESE is 14, according to the Journal Citation ReportTM 2024.

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Journal

Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

DOI

10.1016/j.ese.2025.100546 

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Global readiness for carbon neutrality: From targets to action

 

Rainfall and drought linked to childhood growth outcomes in Uganda

Environmental factors in a region before and during pregnancy predicted future child malnutrition, researchers report

Penn State

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HERSHEY, Pa. — Rainfall and long-term water availability in a region before a woman becomes pregnant and during pregnancy predicted future growth outcomes of children in Uganda, according to new research led by a team from the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and the Penn State College of Medicine. Women living in an area that did not receive adequate rainfall or experienced drought were more likely to give birth to children who don’t grow at the expected rate for their age between birth and age five. Children who are under-nourished and behind in their growth are more susceptible to infections and may experience cognitive, physical and metabolic developmental impairments.

These environmental factors, like rainfall, influence the availability of food, the researchers said, which, in turn, can affect a woman’s nutritional status before and during pregnancy. If a mother doesn’t eat enough or is under-nourished, the effect can be passed on to her child — the child may be born at a low birth weight or experience growth faltering.

The findings, published today (March 19) in the journal JAMA Network Open, could help inform the design of precision public health programs to improve women’s nutrition and improve children’s nutritional outcomes at birth and later in life.

“This is the first paper to tease out longer-term weather dynamics and how they may affect child nutrition status,” said Paddy Ssentongo, infectious disease fellow, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and lead author of the study. “If a child is born within a specific time period, in a specific environment and under specific conditions, we are able to predict whether or not they would be malnourished.”

Children who falter in their growth — those who experience stunting, where their height is significantly below the average for their age, or wasting, where they were too thin for their height — often begins at or shortly after birth. Stunting, the researchers explained, is a long-term response to poor dietary intake or repeated illness while wasting can be an acute response to undernutrition.

Previous research on risk factors for malnutrition have focused on economic status and food availability, the researchers explained. However, few studies have looked at why people in countries like Uganda, which have environments conducive to agriculture, experience under-nutrition. Did environmental factors such as rainfall, drought, temperature and the land’s topography — factors that sustain agriculture production — influence the risk of malnutrition in children?

The team set out to understand the prevalence of malnutrition among children in Uganda and how environmental factors affected the risk of malnutrition. Ssentongo explained that Uganda served as a good representative for Sub-Saharan Africa as well as for low- and middle-income countries. It also served as an example of areas within high-income countries where food isn’t easily accessible.

Using the 2016 Ugandan Demographic and Health Survey, they analyzed data on weight and length or height, depending on the child’s age, for over 5,200 children between birth and just under five years old. The researchers assessed each child according to growth curves from the World Health Organization to determine how each child compared to the average for their age.

They found that more than 30% of children had stunting, which translates to an estimated 2.2 million of the 7.2 million children under the age of five. Over 12% of children were underweight, and nearly 4% had wasting, indicating a failure to gain weight or severe weight loss. The incidence of stunting was particularly high in the northeastern and western regions of the country, where 40% of children under five years old were short for their age.

The team then examined the relationship between meteorological and environmental factors and childhood malnutrition outcomes. Using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, they looked at factors such as rainfall, temperature and drought at a village level, from 12 months before the child’s birth to when they were born.

“With this data, we were able to look at the long-term effect of weather and capture periods of drought, not just whether it rained today,” Ssentongo, said.

The team mapped the children to their geographical location, down to a one kilometer by one kilometer scale. They found that if a mother lived in a location with higher rainfall 11 months before birth — or up to two months before conception — her child had a lower risk of being malnourished. Conversely, if a mother lived in a location that experienced drought three months before birth, her child had a higher risk of malnutrition.

The researchers also noted that they expected to find that areas of higher poverty were associated with poor growth outcomes, but they didn’t find such a link.

“It’s often assumed that socioeconomic status is a primary driver of malnutrition due to limited access to nutritious food, but our analysis suggests that there are other actionable factors at play,” Ssentongo said.

Understanding how these environmental factors influence nutrition and growth outcomes in children and the spatial distribution of these outcomes can help inform the design of more cost-effective and precise public health programs, the researchers explained. In addition to sending food aid to regions of a country that have the highest burden of malnutrition, public health official could also identify areas that are struggling with water availability.

“We can prevent kids from being malnourished from day one or even before they are born,” Ssentongo said. “We can make water available through irrigation or provide ‘smart seeds,’ which can still grow in harsh and water-poor environments. By doing this even before the babies are born, we are setting up mothers for success, pregnancies for success and these babies will be born healthy.”

Other Penn State authors on the paper include Jessica Erison, associate professor of pediatrics; Helen Greatrex, assistant professor of geography and statistics; and Steven Greybush, associate professor of meteorology. Laila Al-Shaar was an assistant professor at the Penn State College of Medicine during the time of the research.

Other authors on the paper include Claudio Fronterre at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom; Ming Wang at Case Western Reserve University; Philip Omadi, Joseph Muvawala, Pamela Mbabazi and Abraham Muwanguzi at the National Planning Authority in Uganda; Laura Murray-Kolb at Purdue University; and Steven Schiff at Yale University.

Funding from the National Institutes of Health supported this work.

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.1122 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Preconception and Prenatal Environment and Growth Faltering Among Children in Uganda

Article Publication Date

19-Mar-2025

 

Community-based participatory research study with Osage Nation emphasizes value of braiding cultural food values with nutrition education to promote healthy eating

A recent study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior highlights the integration of cultural values and community input to promote healthy eating among the Osage Nation community

Elsevier

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Co-lead authors Tara L. Maudrie, PhD, MSPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Indigenous Health, and Cassandra J. Nguyen, PhD, University of California Davis, discuss findings from the Go Healthy Indigenous-supported agriculture randomized control trial. The study emphasizes the importance of involving local Osage Nation voices to develop sustainable health solutions rooted in community worldviews and values. This initiative aims to strengthen food sovereignty while promoting well-being.

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Credit: Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

Philadelphia, March 19, 2025 – A recent study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier, accentuates the value of integrating Indigenous knowledge and community perspectives into health interventions. The research addresses challenges in defining healthy eating in a culturally specific context. The study emphasizes the importance of involving local voices to develop sustainable health solutions rooted in community worldviews and values. By tailoring health education to the Osage community's specific cultural food values and context, this initiative aims to strengthen food sovereignty while promoting well-being.

Researchers employed a robust mixed methods approach to engage Osage community members in defining healthy eating. The study combined group concept mapping methodology with focus group discussions, gathering insights from 54 participants in the Go Healthy Indigenous-supported agriculture randomized control trial. These methods provided a rich understanding of the community’s healthy eating priorities, from local food access to intergenerational connectedness through food. These insights were used to develop an eight-module healthy eating curriculum that integrates practical nutrition education and cultural eating values. This framework demonstrates the power of community-based participatory research to achieve meaningful results.

The study identified five key concepts crucial to healthy eating in the Osage Nation, including food accessibility, community food values, and intergenerational connectedness through food practices. For example, participants highlighted the importance of reducing dependence on external food sources and prioritizing traditional foods grown locally. The curriculum incorporates these concepts into educational modules that blend nutrition science with Indigenous traditions, values, and worldviews to inspire sustained engagement with healthy eating.

Co-first author Tara L. Maudrie, PhD, MSPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Indigenous Health, said, “Healthy eating is deeply tied to cultural practices and values. Through this curriculum, we aim to empower the Osage community to integrate traditional foodways into their daily lives.”

Key findings underline the need for long-term strategies that combine nutrition education with tangible resources like local food distribution. By pairing education with access to fresh produce, the curriculum provides a practical pathway to improving dietary habits in a sustainable, culturally relevant way. The study's emphasis on community involvement also offers a replicable model for other historically underserved populations to define health and well-being with ideas and values that reflect their worldviews and practices. This intervention serves as a blueprint for health programs seeking to integrate cultural identity and community-driven goals into their health promotion strategies.

Dr. Maudrie further noted, “This approach not only fosters individual health but also strengthens community ties and cultural resilience.”

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Journal

Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

DOI

10.1016/j.jneb.2024.10.003 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Community-Engaged Development of a Nutrition Curriculum: The Go Healthy Indigenous-Supported Agriculture Study

 

EPA regulations cut power sector emissions but miss opportunities for deeper reductions

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN UNDER TRUMP

Princeton University, Engineering School

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A new Princeton study has highlighted the likely emissions and energy system impacts of EPA regulations on power plants.

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Credit: Bumper DeJesus / Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment

Regulations finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2024 could cut emissions from fossil fuel power generators but leave additional cost-effective emissions reductions on the table, according to new Princeton research.

The analysis, published March 12 in One Earth, evaluates the impacts of the EPA power plant regulations on the U.S. electricity system at a time of uncertainty for the rules, which the researchers expect to be rolled back under the current Trump administration. The power plant regulations set carbon dioxide limits for new gas-fired combustion turbines and provide guidelines for existing coal, oil, and gas-fired steam generating units.

The Princeton study demonstrates that the regulations could roughly double emissions reductions from the power sector in 2040, falling 51% from 2022 levels if the rules are maintained, compared to only 26% without the rules.

The vast majority of emissions reductions would come from the accelerated retirement of coal-fired power plants, which would likely choose to retire before 2039 under the regulations rather than install costly equipment to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions.

The researchers also warned that the rules could lead to a less efficient energy system by inadvertently extending the life of existing natural gas plants.

“The current EPA rules apply emissions limits to new gas power plants, but the agency punted on finalizing rules for existing gas generators,” said research leader Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. “This sets up an uneven playing field that encourages greater use of less efficient existing gas plants, which undermines some of the emissions reductions achieved by the rules.”

The research team assessed several options for additional regulations aimed at existing gas plants. They found that applying the same emissions limits to all gas generators, regardless of age, could cut emissions up to 88% below 2022 levels at an even lower average cost than the existing regulations.

The modeling results were also part of a recent study published in Science, which compared analyses from nine different power systems models to quantify the emissions impacts of the EPA regulations.

“Our work moves beyond simply quantifying the uncertainty of these emissions impacts to actually identify which aspects of the regulations are most effective in driving down emissions and where there is room for improvement,” said first author Qian Luo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

Coal retirements drive the bulk of emissions reductions

In their analysis, Luo and Jenkins found that the rules’ guidelines regarding coal were the most significant in driving emissions reductions, accounting for nearly 70% of the regulations’ overall cuts.

The guidelines for coal depend on a plant’s scheduled retirement date. If a plant is scheduled to retire after 2039, then beginning in 2032, it must be equipped with a technology that can capture at least 90% of its carbon dioxide emissions. If a plant will retire before 2039, then beginning in 2030, it must demonstrate emissions reductions achievable by co-firing coal with at least 40% natural gas.

In their model, the team found the coal regulations led to large emissions reductions because they spurred the early retirement of coal plants that might otherwise operate well past 2039. In fact, in their model, out of the 28.3 gigawatts of operational coal capacity in 2035, only 0.3 gigawatts were projected to be equipped with carbon capture technology. The remaining 28 gigawatts would instead choose to co-fire with natural gas before retiring by 2039.

“Coal-fired power plants have been steadily retiring for the past decade, but without emissions limits, over a hundred gigawatts of coal-fired capacity could still be running into the 2040s,” Jenkins said. “Eliminating emissions from these highly polluting power plants is a high priority and one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.”

Natural gas rules have unintended consequences

While the regulations for coal plants are largely successful at driving cost-efficient emissions reductions, the researchers warned that the rules for natural gas, in their current form, achieve emissions reductions at higher costs and could even lead to a less efficient energy system.

According to the regulations, if a new natural gas plant serves as a baseload energy source — operating over 40% of the time — then beginning in 2032 it must capture at least 90% of its carbon emissions. Plants that operate less than 40% of the time must meet certain performance standards (below 1,150 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour) or avoid high-emitting fuels such as diesel, depending on their usage.

However, the finalized regulations only target new natural gas plants — not existing plants. As a result, the researchers found the gas rules achieve modest additional emissions reductions at the expense of overall system efficiency.

 “The issue is that it is expensive to invest in carbon capture technology, while it is very easy to lower the capacity factor of a plant below 40%,” said Luo. “And without similar regulations for existing plants, the most cost-effective solution becomes operating newer, more efficient natural gas at lower capacities while ramping up generation from existing, less efficient plants.”

This projected push toward new natural gas plants that operate less than 40% of the time could result in significant overbuilding of natural gas plants, the study found. More natural gas capacity would be added to the energy system, but this new capacity would be used less frequently, raising the cost of electricity from new natural gas plants and increasing the system’s reliance on existing and less efficient generators.

Highlighting opportunities for greater emissions cuts

After identifying potential shortcomings of the current EPA power plant regulations, Luo and Jenkins provided suggested modifications that could improve the rules for natural gas plants.

A near-term priority, they said, would be to set equal standards for new and existing natural gas plants. By simply extending the current rules for new natural gas plants to existing ones, an updated set of regulations could lower emissions by 62% below 2022 levels as more new gas plants are installed with carbon capture technology and incentives to run older gas plants more intensively are eliminated.

“The most important step for cutting emissions is to retire older and less efficient plants, both coal and natural gas,” Luo said. “Not only do newer natural gas plants generate fewer emissions, but they also have capabilities, such as the ability to co-fire with greater amounts of hydrogen, that could pave the way for future emissions reductions.”

To cut emissions even further, the researchers explored extending carbon capture requirements for both new and existing natural gas plants to any generator operating greater than 20% of the time (compared to 40% in the finalized EPA regulations). The proposed change would see even more natural gas plants being installed with carbon capture, cutting emissions by 81% over 2022 levels.

The researchers went one step further, showing that emissions reductions up to 88% over 2022 levels were possible if there was an additional requirement for natural gas generators operating below 20% of the time to co-fire with at least 30% hydrogen.

According to the analysis, these proposed rules would both achieve lower total emissions and would be more efficient, in terms of dollars per ton of carbon dioxide abated, than the 2024 EPA regulations. However, Jenkins pointed out that while the additional rules may be most cost-effective from a regulatory perspective, they would entail significantly greater investments from power plant developers that could make the rules even more contentious than they are at present.

“The current administration has plans to roll back these EPA power plant regulations and replace them with weaker standards, which makes this independent analysis extremely timely,” Jenkins said. “This work helps identify the likely effects of current regulations, highlights the impact of potential repeal on U.S. emissions, and quantifies the overall efficiency of emissions reductions achieved by the current rules.”

Luo added that the analysis also “points the way for future administrations to improve the efficacy of these regulations to achieve deeper and more cost-effective emissions reductions from the U.S. power sector.”

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The paper, “US EPA’s power plant rules reduce CO2 emissions but can achieve more cost-efficient and deeper reduction by regulating existing gas-fired plants,” was published March 12 in One Earth. The work was supported by the Princeton Zero-carbon Technology Consortium, which is funded by unrestricted gifts from Google and Breakthrough Energy.

The paper, “Impacts of EPA’s finalized power plant greenhouse gas standards,” was published January 9, 2025 in Science. The lead author is John Bistline of EPRI. In addition to Luo and Jenkins, co-authors include Aaron Bergman, Dallas Burtraw, Maya Domeshek, Kevin Rennert, Molly Robertson, Nicholas Roy, Ethan Russell, and Daniel Shawhan of RFF; Geoffrey Blanford and Aranya Venkatesh of EPRI; Maxwell Brown of Colorado School of Mines; Allen Fawcett and Gokul Iyer of University of Maryland, College Park; Anne Hamilton and Daniel Steinberg of National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Ben King, Hannah Kolus, and Anna van Brummen of Rhodium Group; Amanda Levin of National Resources Defense Council; Grace Van Horn of the Center for Applied Environmental Law and Policy; John Weyant of Stanford University; Ryan Wider of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Alicia Zhao of the Center for Global Sustainability.

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Journal

One Earth

DOI

10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101230 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

US EPA’s power plant rules reduce CO2 emissions but can achieve more cost-efficient and deeper reduction by regulating existing gas-fired plants

Article Publication Date

18-Mar-2025