An open ledger · Updated regularly
The year everyone promised something.
Net zero. Artificial general intelligence. Universal access to clean water. A million Teslas a quarter. Somewhere between 2015 and 2021, the world quietly agreed that 2030 was when it would all come due. We are keeping the receipts.
—days
—hours
—minutes
—seconds
194
countries committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals
$11T
in corporate net-zero pledges with a 2030 milestone
17
global goals, 169 targets, one deadline
~30%
of SDG targets on track as of the last UN review
The Promises
Real, public commitments — sourced from annual reports, press releases, and keynote stages. Status reflects publicly available progress, not marketing.
The Progress
Five numbers worth watching between now and the deadline.
Facts to carry around
Small, true things that put the deadline in perspective.
- The deadline isn't arbitrary. The UN's 2030 Agenda was adopted in September 2015 — 15 years was meant to be ambitious but achievable. A decade in, the math has gotten harder.
- "Net zero by 2030" usually isn't. Most corporate "2030" pledges cover Scope 1 and 2 emissions — direct operations and purchased energy. Scope 3 (the supply chain, often the majority) typically has a 2040 or 2050 date.
- Saudi Arabia has its own 2030. Vision 2030, launched in 2016, aims to make oil less than half of state revenue. As of the latest budget, oil is still well over half.
- The original Tesla 2030 number was 20 million. That's annual vehicle production. In 2024 Tesla delivered around 1.8M. The target has not been formally retired.
- AGI is now a 2030 promise too. Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, and Dario Amodei have all publicly placed "transformative" or "general" AI inside this decade. Definitions vary; deadlines do not.
- India's 2030 grid is wild. 500 GW of non-fossil capacity by 2030 — roughly the entire current installed capacity of Japan, added in six years.
What people think
Pulled from interviews, op-eds, and street-level conversations. The deadline reads very differently depending on where you stand.
"2030 used to feel like science fiction. Now it feels like a Tuesday."
"Every quarterly call, someone asks about our 2030 number. Nobody asks if the number is the right one."
"I was eight when the SDGs were announced. I'll be 23 when they're due. It is the most adult deadline I have ever inherited."
"The pledges are not the problem. The interim milestones are the problem. Or rather, the missing ones."
"If AGI shows up before the climate targets are due, the climate targets are someone else's problem. That's not a good plan."
"In my village we don't talk about 2030. We talk about whether the well holds till August."