| By Aaron Rutkoff Thousands of diplomats, scientists, executives and climate watchdogs of every stripe will be joined in Azerbaijan's capital Tuesday by dozens of world leaders as the annual United Nations climate summit kicks into high gear. If there's a dark subtext to the usual let's-fix-this vibe at COP29, it comes from the unmistakable mismatch between what's needed and what the nearly 200 nations here are actually doing. The major deliverables expected from this two-week summit underscore this gap. Negotiators are supposed to come up with trillions of dollars in additional funding to help poorer nations slash their emissions and protect themselves from the brunt of rising temperatures. National delegations are supposed to prepare more aggressive goals for decarbonizing their economies in the next decade. In both cases, past performance is not an indicator of future success. Efforts to summon gigantic pools of climate finance have been marred by chronic shortfalls, and nations are often tardy or timid (or both) on their climate ambitions. This problem — where there's progress, it's rarely enough — is found at almost every level of the climate fight. That's why the team at Bloomberg Green decided to mark the start of COP29 by taking a closer look at where the world is supposed to be by 2030. We're halfway through a decade that's meant to mark the first giant step towards net zero. But economies and industries have fallen far behind many of their self-imposed targets. Even where things are good, they're not sufficient. Take a look at the global commitment to triple the amount of renewable energy by 2030. It was the signature achievement of last year's COP28 summit in Dubai, and the rollout of wind and especially solar energy over the last two decades has exceeded even the most optimistic forecasts. But the rate of progress would need to speed up significantly to hit the tripling target on time. Switch over to the deforestation target for 2030, and things appear far more dire. More than 130 nations accounting for more than 90% of the world's forests agreed in 2021 to reverse deforestation by the end of the decade. Last year's rate of deforestation remains 45% higher than what would be required for the end-of-decade target, according to the Forest Declaration Assessment. Rather than halting deforestation, it's been increasing. Click the index below to see how much faster things need to go from here, across bellwether indicators from Big Tech and banking to fast fashion and electric vehicles. As part of Bloomberg Green's coverage of COP29, this special data project is free to read for everyone. So is all of our reporting on the ground from the UN climate summit in Baku for the next two weeks. Read the full article online for free. To get unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe. | 
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