Paris Agreement turns 10: Delivering promises with energy technology
- Esther Finidori
- 26 Sep 2025
- 3 min
“The path ahead to net zero is steep, for society and industry alike. At Schneider Electric, we’re responding with energy technology: the convergence of electrification, automation, and digital intelligence to close the gap between climate ambition and delivery.”
- Esther Finidori, Chief Sustainability Officer
Ten years ago, in a conference room some 20 kilometers from the Seine, a small green gavel fell — and 196 nations did the unthinkable: they agreed to tackle climate change together.
As we gather in New York for Climate Week 2025, the Paris Agreement's anniversary arrives as both a celebration and reckoning. While we recognize the historic agreement, the champagne toasts of 2015 have given way to harder truths: we've already breached the 1.5°C threshold we swore to defend.
The path ahead is steep, for society and industry alike. At Schneider Electric, we’re responding with energy technology: the convergence of electrification, automation, and digital intelligence to close the gap between climate ambition and delivery.
I remember the energy back then; it felt like Paris represented a sea change. For the first time, almost every nation acknowledged climate change as an existential threat requiring a coordinated response. The Agreement's genius lay not in its mandates but in its architecture. It created a system of nationally determined contributions that would strengthen every five years, transforming climate action from a one-time commitment into an ongoing conversation.
The business world responded with vigor. Climate discussions suddenly dominated boardrooms. The threat of climate change became a core pillar of strategy, risk management, and competitive opportunity. We saw this firsthand as our customers increasingly demanded both efficiency and resilience, seeking partners in their decarbonization journeys.
Despite the diplomatic triumph of Paris, Earth’s atmosphere remains unimpressed. Global emissions hit record highs in 2023. Methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, continues to rise. At current rates, the carbon budget to stay within 1.5°C — just 130 gigatons of CO₂ — will be exhausted within three years.
The human cost is mounting. Droughts, scorch fields and storms erase decades of development in hours. Floods that once came once a century now arrive every year. And the burden isn’t shared equally.
Vulnerable nations — those least responsible for this crisis — are the most exposed to its consequences. Adaptation finance continues to fall short. The Loss and Damage Fund remain underfunded. Meanwhile, policy volatility in major economies — withdrawals, re-entries, wavering commitments — has eroded the mutual trust Paris was built on.
Despite setbacks, the work must continue. Schneider Electric has committed to bold science-based targets. These include cutting 25% of absolute carbon emissions across our entire value chain (as well as Scope 3 emissions) by 2030, and reaching net zero by 2050. These goals are validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, and tracked through our Schneider Sustainability Impact program.
Because climate success comes not from grand gestures, but systemic change. When Maryland’s Brookville Bus Depot faced grid vulnerabilities from extreme weather, we helped the county build a 6.5 MW solar-and-battery microgrid. It keeps buses running during outages and turns the facility into a community resilience hub, supporting student transport, emergency response, and local decarbonization goals. Brookville is a case study in how resilience and decarbonization go hand-in-hand.
Incremental steps are no longer enough. We need to electrify manufacturing processes, deploy carbon capture and green hydrogen at scale, and fortify our infrastructure. This is Paris in motion – the same spirit of global coordination, now focused on implementation. There is no alternative.
Electrification alone could eliminate gigatons of emissions. Every industrial motor that switches to clean electricity, every process that replaces combustion with electric heating, every fleet that trades diesel for batteries — these are measurable, scalable wins.
- 79%reduction in our own emissions from 2017 to 2024
- >700Mtof CO2 saved or avoided by our customers
- >40%of emissions cut from our top 1,000 suppliers’ operations
Within our operations, we have already reduced our own emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 79% from 2017 to 2024 — a progress that reflects the massive adoption of low-carbon electricity, electric vehicles, and heat pumps across our sites. The technologies exist. What we need is faster deployment.
Embracing digital transparency will prove equally critical. When every kilowatt-hour is tracked, every supply chain mapped, every emission accounted for in real-time, optimization becomes achievable. We've seen facilities reduce energy consumption simply by giving operators the data to make better decisions minute by minute.
Yet technology without partnership achieves little. Schneider Electric has built an ecosystem of innovation. Since 2021, we’ve helped customers save or avoid over 700 million tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of annual emissions from over 94 million homes. And in our supply chain, we’ve cut more than 40% of emissions from our top 1,000 suppliers’ operations.
For these reasons I feel neither despair nor complacent. Yes, the world has fallen short of our ambitions. Yes, the challenges ahead are demanding. But we've seen that rapid transformation remains possible when urgency meets innovation.
The clock that started in Paris can be heard ticking in New York. At Schneider Electric, we believe the companies that thrive in the next 10 years will be those that help the world decarbonize and adapt simultaneously. The decade ahead must be about proof, partnership, and progress.
Because Climate Week isn’t just a forum. It’s a race against time. And the world is watching to see who’s ahead, and who’s lagging behind.
At Climate Week, we are collaborating with global leaders to shape solutions that empower communities and industries to thrive in a rapidly evolving energy landscape. Learn more.
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