1.1 Is the Climate Action Tracker a United Nations body?

No. The Climate Action Tracker is a database from a coalition of research organizations, not a UN agency, IPCC wing, or UNFCCC committee.

Countries write their own climate pledges. A group of governments cannot easily mark its own homework. So outside researchers do the grading.

The short name is the CAT. This lesson uses CAT from here on.

1.2 Who runs it?

Climate Analytics and the NewClimate Institute, two independent, non-profit research institutes rooted in Germany, produce it.

Climate Analytics is a non-profit institute. It works from offices in several countries. NewClimate Institute is an independent non-profit company registered in Germany, with offices in Cologne and Berlin.

Two other groups helped in the early years. Ecofys was a member from 2009 to 2019. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research helped from 2009 to 2016.

So the pair running it today are not its only founders. Quiz questions that say “founded by” should be read with care.

1.3 What does it measure?

It tracks government climate pledges and policies, checking them against the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal.

The full goal has two parts. Governments agreed to hold warming well below 2°C. They also agreed to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

The CAT quantifies each government’s targets, policies and actions. Then it asks one plain question. Do these add up to the Paris goal?

1.4 How many countries does it cover?

The CAT covers all the biggest emitters. It also covers a sample of smaller ones. Together they account for around 85 percent of global emissions and around 70 percent of the world’s population.

The country count has changed over time. An older version of this page said this:

“It tracks 32 countries, covering roughly 80 percent of global emissions, including every major emitter.”

Its old glance box said this:

“Tracked, covering roughly 80% of global emissions.”

Those figures are out of date. The Tracker’s About page now says 34 countries and the EU. Its country menu lists about 40 governments.

For exams, remember the idea. It covers every major emitter. Do not memorise one exact count.

1.5 Since when has it existed?

It has provided this independent analysis to policymakers since 2009, well before the Paris Agreement itself existed.

2.1 How does the Tracker sort countries?

The Tracker doesn’t just describe a country’s climate policy in words. It sorts every country into one of five fixed rating bands.

Each band says how close a country is to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit. A country gets an overall rating. It also gets ratings on separate parts of its effort.

2.2 What do the five bands mean?

• Critically Insufficient, consistent with more than 4°C of warming.
• Highly Insufficient, consistent with 3 to 4°C of warming.
• Insufficient, consistent with 2 to 3°C of warming.
• Almost Sufficient, consistent with warming held below 2°C, but not well below it.
• 1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible, the top band.

Read the warming numbers as a thought experiment. They ask what would happen if every country copied the rated country’s approach.

2.3 Does the warming range apply to the overall rating?

Not quite. The ranges attach to the separate ratings for targets and action. The overall rating combines several elements. So the Tracker gives it no warming range.

The elements are policies and action, the national target, fair share, and climate finance. Fair share asks if a country does its fair part compared with others.

2.4 Where do the big emitters sit?

Check the overall ratings on the country pages. China, India, Russia and Brazil are rated Highly Insufficient or worse. The United States and Indonesia are Critically Insufficient. The EU, Japan and the United Kingdom are Insufficient.

Almost Sufficient ratings go to smaller emitters. Examples are Kenya, Nepal, Norway and the Philippines.

3.1 What is the model behind the temperature numbers?

It aggregates every tracked country’s action up to a global level, then estimates the likely 21st-century temperature rise using a climate model called MAGICC.

MAGICC stands for Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change. It is a simple climate and carbon-cycle model. IPCC assessments have used it.

The model gives a spread of outcomes, not one number. The headline number is the median. It means a 50 percent chance warming ends higher and a 50 percent chance it ends lower.

3.2 What exactly gets rated for each country?

Each country gets rated on more than one measure at once. These include its current policies and action, and its national target.

Some country pages, such as India’s, rate an unconditional NDC target and a conditional NDC target. An unconditional target needs no outside help. A conditional target depends on foreign support.

3.3 What did the November 2025 report say?

The Warming Projections Global Update of November 2025 was released at COP30 in Belem, Brazil. It reported four separate temperature tracks, not just one.

• Warming under current policies actually being carried out: about 2.6°C.
• Warming under countries’ 2030/2035 NDC targets: also about 2.6°C, essentially unchanged from the year before.
• Warming under all pledges and targets, including long-term net-zero promises: about 2.2°C.
• Warming under a fully-implemented optimistic scenario, if every announced net-zero target were actually met: about 1.9°C.

3.4 Was there any good news?

Yes, some. In 2015 the Tracker’s current-policies estimate was about 3.6°C. Ten years later it is about 2.6°C. That is a fall of roughly 1°C.

The Tracker credits the Paris Agreement for pushing investment and reforms. But progress has flattened. The NDC track has stayed at 2.6°C, the same as the year before.

The “pledges and targets” track rose from 2.1°C to 2.2°C. The main reason was the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which cancelled its targets.

4.1 Why was the United States downgraded?

The United States was downgraded to Critically Insufficient in September 2025, after it withdrew from the Paris Agreement and dropped its earlier 2030, 2035, and 2050 targets.

The Tracker called it the most aggressive, comprehensive and consequential rollback it has ever analysed.

Policy changes also matter. A US law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, ended federal tax incentives for wind, solar and electric vehicles. The Tracker expects US emissions to fall by only 19 to 30 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels. The earlier path was on track for 29 to 39 percent. These figures leave out land use and forests.

4.2 How is China rated?

China’s climate action earns mixed ratings depending on the measure used. Its formal target rates Highly Insufficient against a modelled domestic pathway, while its actual policies rate Insufficient.

The overall rating is Highly Insufficient. The Tracker notes good news too. China’s emissions may have peaked in 2025, and electric vehicles passed half of car sales that year.

But 291 GW of new coal capacity is still in the pipeline. That risks locking in emissions.

4.3 How is the European Union rated?

The European Union’s net-zero-by-2050 target is rated Acceptable for comprehensiveness. In March 2026, the EU Council adopted a binding interim goal of cutting net emissions 90% below 1990 levels by 2040.

The Council acted on 5 March 2026. The law lets up to 5 percent of cuts come from international carbon credits after 2035. The Tracker says that cuts the effective home target to about 85 percent.

The EU’s overall rating is Insufficient. The Tracker also lists recent weakening of some EU policies.

4.4 How do the four compare at a glance?

5.1 What did India pledge in 2035?

India submitted a new climate pledge, its 2035 NDC, in April 2026. It targets cutting emissions intensity of GDP by 47% below 2005 levels and reaching 60% non-fossil power capacity by 2035.

The Union Cabinet approved the pledge on 25 March 2026. India also promised a bigger forest and tree carbon sink of 3.5 to 4 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent by 2035. Its net-zero year is 2070.

Emissions intensity means emissions per unit of GDP. It can fall even while total emissions rise.

5.2 Did the pledge improve India's rating?

• Despite the new pledge, the Tracker’s overall rating for India stayed at Highly Insufficient.
• The stated reason: the new target does not require India to do anything beyond what current policy is already on track to deliver. It doesn’t raise ambition.
• Because of that, the gap between India’s target and a 1.5°C-compatible path roughly doubled, growing from about 1.9 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2030 to about 3.9 billion tonnes by 2035.

The gap is measured against a modelled 1.5°C-compatible domestic pathway. Think of it as a distance between where India is heading and where the Paris limit needs it to be.

5.3 If India is building so much clean power, why is the rating low?

India is rapidly expanding renewable energy. But demand for electricity is rising fast too. Coal and gas still meet peak demand. So emissions keep climbing.

Fossil fuels are still about 75 percent of India’s primary energy. The Tracker wants clean power to replace fossil fuels, not only to sit beside them.

5.4 Is the new target too easy?

The Tracker thinks so. India beat its 2030 goal of 50 percent non-fossil capacity in 2025. It is also on track for its 45 percent intensity cut by 2030.

The Tracker said India could meet the 60 percent capacity target by 2030, or even before. So the new target looks easy to reach.

6.1 Why do we need an outside checker?

Countries submit their own climate pledges under the Paris Agreement. Independent trackers like this one check whether those pledges actually add up to the stated global goal.

A pledge is a promise. A tracker turns it into a number you can compare. That makes weak plans easier to spot.

6.2 Who sees the ratings?

The November 2025 update came out at COP30.

The CAT says its aim is to make pledges transparent. It also hopes to push governments to raise their ambition.

6.3 Is it really independent if foundations and governments pay for it?

The Tracker says it is made possible by support from foundations and governments. Funders include the German Federal Government through its International Climate Initiative. Others include the European Climate Foundation and the IKEA Foundation.

Independent here means the analysis is not run by the governments it rates. It does not mean the work has no funders. This is a good point to remember for exam statements.

6.4 Are there other tools like it?

Other metrics, like the Common Carbon Metric for buildings, follow the same broader pattern of standardized climate accountability tools.

That metric is supported by the UN Environment Programme. It gives a common way to measure energy use and report greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. So it is a UN-backed tool, unlike the Tracker.

7.1 What could be asked?

• Which institutes produce it, and is it a UN body?
• Which temperature goal does it measure pledges against?
• Which rating band is the lowest, and which is the top?
• What did a recent update say about warming under current policies?
• How is a named country, such as India or the United States, rated?

7.2 Quick Q&A