Ten years ago, the world celebrated a remarkable diplomatic achievement: the Paris Agreement united virtually every nation behind a shared climate goal. Yet this same year — 2025 — also marks another anniversary, one that receives far less fanfare but reveals a troubling truth about how we govern climate risks.
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, adopted just three months before Paris in March 2015, set out a comprehensive pathway to prevent and reduce disaster risks. Both frameworks target 2030. Both recognize that climate change is reshaping risk globally. Both claim to protect vulnerable communities.
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This institutional fragmentation explains why climate-related disasters continue to exact devastating tolls despite a decade of Paris commitments. Paris succeeded in bending the emissions trajectory and accelerating clean technology. But it hasn’t succeeded in building the anticipatory, risk-informed governance systems that prevent climate hazards from becoming catastrophes.
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Climate success over the next decade will depend less on ratcheting NDC ambition and more on building the governance machinery that can actually implement them. That machinery includes functional early warning systems, risk-informed development planning, anticipatory finance, and disaster-prepared institutions.