Commentary. Climate policy is entering a credibility crisis. The latest assessment from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development finds that national mitigation effort increased sharply over the past decade, but growth slowed to just 1% in 2025, while some governments began removing policies rather than strengthening them. That is not evidence that climate action has failed. It is evidence that too much of it remains politically fragile.
The distinction matters. The world is not choosing between climate policy and no economic consequences. It is choosing between planned, transparent adjustment and more disruptive adjustment imposed by heat, floods, fires, damaged infrastructure and volatile energy markets. Our view is that governments should maintain ambitious climate goals—but redesign policies that are needlessly opaque, regressive or inattentive to local economic realities.
The retreat is real, but so is the progress
The OECD reports that global climate-policy adoption and the number of high-stringency measures both increased since 2015. It also identifies encouraging trends: emissions growth has slowed, more countries are recording falling emissions, renewable deployment continues, and economies are becoming less emissions-intensive. Those gains deserve recognition, especially because public support depends on seeing that policy can produce practical results.
Yet the same report describes slowing momentum and growing uncertainty. Canada has repealed its federal consumer carbon-pricing scheme, while the United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, according to the OECD’s country assessment. Such reversals send a costly signal to households and companies: long-term rules may disappear after one election.
Critics of stronger climate action have legitimate objections. Carbon prices can burden people who cannot readily replace a car, retrofit a home or move away from an emissions-intensive job. Regulation can create paperwork without delivering proportionate cuts. European measures such as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism may reduce carbon leakage, but they also risk provoking trade disputes and imposing new compliance costs on poorer exporters. A policy that ignores these concerns will not last.
Durability should be the test
That is why climate policy should be judged less by its rhetorical ambition than by three tests: does it cut emissions, does it distribute costs fairly, and can it survive a change of government?
The first requires measurable milestones rather than distant promises. The second means directing revenues and investment toward lower-income households, public transport, efficient housing and communities whose industries are changing. The third means building agreements across parties, regions and sectors. Businesses need confidence that rules will be stable; workers need confidence that transition plans include them; voters need proof that sacrifice is not being demanded only from those with the fewest choices.
This approach does not answer every objection. Some industries will still face higher costs. Some technologies will disappoint. Public spending will have to compete with health, housing and security. Governments should therefore publish what policies cost, who pays and what alternatives were rejected. Transparency is not an accessory to climate action; it is part of its legitimacy.
The counterargument is that gradualism risks becoming another name for delay. That warning is justified. The OECD says current policies remain insufficient for global mitigation objectives, and the World Economic Forum’s summary of the latest United Nations Environment Programme assessment reports that existing policies could put the world on track for about 2.8°C of warming this century. Waiting for perfect political conditions is not prudence. It is a decision to accept larger future risks.
A serious politics of implementation
The answer is neither retreat nor indiscriminate acceleration. It is implementation: faster clean-energy deployment, stronger grids, credible efficiency standards, adaptation spending and assistance for workers and countries with fewer resources. At the same time, governments should repeal measures that are ineffective, simplify compliance for small firms and compensate households transparently rather than pretending every transition is painless.
As COP31 approaches in Antalya, the central question is not whether leaders can announce another target. It is whether they can make climate action ordinary, understandable and dependable. Our editorial position is clear: retreat is the wrong response to political difficulty. But climate ambition without fairness and competence will produce the backlash that opponents predict. Durable action must earn consent—and then deliver.