Negotiations and agreement

One of the main sticking points of the negotiations was the issue of transferring funds from developed countries to LDCs, because developed countries did not want to be the only ones paying the costs. Moreover, even if the commitments of the countries were fulfilled, it was unlikely that temperatures would be limited to an increase of 2 °C (3.6 °F). Many countries, especially the island states threatened by rising sea levels, wanted to restrict warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).

After nearly two weeks of difficult negotiations that sometimes lasted through the night, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who presided over the talks, announced on December 12 the adoption of the Paris Agreement. He noted that the accord aimed to hold the increase of global temperatures “to well below 2 °C above preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.” To achieve this objective, he announced that the parties should “aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible…and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter.” The goal was to achieve a balance after 2050 between atmospheric inputs of greenhouse gases by emission sources (such as electrical power plants and engines that burn fossil fuels for energy) and removal into sinks (forests, oceans, and soil, which could be combined with technologies to extract and sequester carbon dioxide from power plants). The agreement also recognized the need of LDCs to improve their economies and reduce poverty, which made immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions difficult. As a result, it called on developing countries to enhance their mitigation efforts and move toward emission reduction or limitation targets, while it underscored the need for developed countries to continue to meet their emission reduction targets.

The Paris Agreement specified no new funding targets but noted that developed countries should provide financial resources to help LDCs “in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention,” such as the COP16 commitment of $100 billion per year from developed countries by 2020. (Approximately $10.3 billion had been raised by May 2018.) That funding was to support both mitigation and adaptation efforts. Funding from developed countries would come from a number of different mechanisms, presumably to include grants, equipment, and technical expertise.

The text of the Paris Agreement emphasized cooperation, transparency, flexibility, and regular reporting of progress in achieving the INDCs. There was no mechanism to enforce compliance with the accord’s provisions, but there was to be one to “promote compliance.” That aspect would be achieved via a committee that would function so as to be “transparent, non-adversarial and non-punitive.” The committee would report annually to the COP, and each party was asked to update its INDC every five years. The Paris Agreement was open for signature at United Nations headquarters in New York City from April 22, 2016, to April 21, 2017, and entered into force on November 4, 2016, when 55 parties accounting for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions had ratified it.

After ratification

By early 2017 the only sovereign countries that had not signed were Nicaragua and Syria, but that year changes in U.S. climate policy made by Pres. Donald Trump resulted in the country’s formal exit from the agreement on November 4, 2020. The United States’ absence was short-lived, however. On the first day of his term, on January 20, 2021, Pres. Joe Biden reentered the agreement on behalf of the United States, which opened the way for the country’s formal reinstatement in February 2021. By January 2021, 195 countries had signed and 190 countries had ratified the agreement.

Since the agreement entered into force, progress toward emission targets has been mixed. Chinese authorities announced that they were making great strides in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, noting that China had met its 2020 commitments in 2017. In contrast, European Union officials announced in 2018 that all member states had fallen behind on reaching their targets; Sweden, Portugal, and France had made the most progress, reaching 77 percent, 66 percent, and 65 percent of their 2020 targets by 2018, respectively. U.S. progress was less clear. Some reports noted that changes in U.S. climate policy were keeping the country from meeting its climate goals, whereas others argued that many individual U.S. cities and states had enacted more stringent greenhouse gas regulations that allowed the country as a whole to remain on track.

Despite such reports, a number of international research organizations noted that carbon emissions continued to increase. The Rhodium Group noted that U.S. emissions had increased 3.4 percent in 2018. The Global Carbon Project (GCP) reported that carbon emissions worldwide, which were largely flat from 2014 to 2016, had increased by 1.6 percent and by 2.7 percent in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The Rhodium Group and the GCP also recorded a decline in carbon emissions by nearly 5 percent in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic as industrial activity slowed; however, emissions increased by roughly the same amount in 2021 with the pandemic’s subsidence and the pace of industrial activity returned to pre-pandemic levels.