Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change adopted by almost all the countries of the world at the climate conference in Paris in December 2015, known as COP21. Its central goal is to keep the rise in global average temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees. Each country sets its own targets, called nationally determined contributions, which are reviewed and meant to become more ambitious every five years. Wealthier countries also agreed to provide climate finance to developing ones. The agreement entered into force in November 2016. It has no strong enforcement mechanism, and the United States has changed its position on it more than once.

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