Delivering change in a complex world

Our recommendations for global climate action

The IES has a unique place in these discussions: we bring together researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to discuss environmental challenges and how we can solve them.

By listening to those voices, we have identified what we believe are the most important messages for COP30:

1. Fight for a better future, not just to survive
2. Facing complexity now makes the future simpler
3. Focus on better services to create more value
4. Do it the right way, don’t do it twice
5. Doing more costs less
6. Work together, share successes
7. Make it fair, make it just
8. Plans need to add up, to deliver our ambitions
9. Embrace an era of local climate leadership
10. Don’t stop until it’s done

These messages are aimed at everyone involved in climate action: policy makers at negotiations who set the direction of travel, NGOs and campaigners working to spread a positive message for climate action, and our own members, who provide the evidence that underpins action, then helps to deliver it on the ground.

They are intended to inform discussions and outline an approach that strikes a careful balance between evidence-led integration and urgent, effective action. 

Our policy team is actively working to support effective climate action and better delivery of climate policies, including through our Climate Action Community. For the latest information on COP30 and climate policy in the UK and globally, read our briefing on COP30. 

Background to the report

The call to move from ambition to delivery has never been stronger; yet outside forces are also placing ever greater pressure on the consensus for climate action.

The world stands on a tipping point between two futures: one where we deliver on the strong public mandate for climate action, or one where ambitions decline, setting us on track for 3+ degrees of warming.

While UN summits like COP30 have faced rising scrutiny for their failure to make change a reality, they have a pivotal role in setting the agenda. COP30 needed to reinforce the consensus and defend the pathway to a more sustainable world, which it succeeded in doing.

Despite that, ramping up efforts is more urgent every year. Earth has begun to fall past the ‘tipping points’, like increasingly acidic oceans, which may not be possible to return from.

Crossing 1.5 degrees of warming is an especially concerning threshold. Even if we only cross it temporarily, it will still increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events like flooding, heatwaves, storms, and droughts. COP30 is in Belém, Brazil, where the Amazon rainforest is on the front lines of many of these tipping points.

The wipeout of warm-water reefs is another sign that change has already arrived. If we want to control what the future looks like, we need to be ready to do more.

In the face of these risks, environmental science is an essential partner in the global dialogue on climate change.

To make the most of the short time we have to act, our messages need to be clear, actionable, and bring the world forwards, together.

To find out more about the topic, you can watch the 2025 Burntwood Lecture, 'The World after 1.5°C', read our recap on COP30, or find out what happened next at the Santa Marta Climate Conference. To support interdisciplinary climate action, join our Climate Action Community, and to support effective policy delivery, join our Environmental Policy Implementation Community (EPIC)

If you want to support the work of the IES, you can become an affiliate, or if you’re a professional in the environmental sector working with science, consider joining the IES.

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