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Paris Agreement
Practical Law Glossary Item w-032-4441 (Approx. 3 pages)
Glossary
Paris Agreement
An international treaty adopted in Paris on December 12, 2015 at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (UNFCCC). The nations that are signatories have agreed to limit global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels or ideally to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Key elements of the Paris Agreement include:
- Requiring countries to submit plans on how they intend to meet their carbon emission goals. Each nation must submit its own nationally determined contribution (NDC) ahead of the conference, setting out a national climate action plan and outlining the steps it intends to take to curb its emissions. The NDCs must be as ambitious as possible and reviewed and tightened every five years.
- Monitoring, verifying, and reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
- Helping developing nations list sources of emissions and track their goals.
The Paris Agreement went into effect on November 4, 2016, after it was ratified by 55 countries that accounted for at least 55% of global emissions, including the US. The US withdrew from the Paris Agreement during the Trump Administration, on November 4, 2020 (see Legal Update, US Sends Formal Notice to UN to Withdraw from Paris Climate Agreement). In January 2021, President Joe Biden signed a letter to re-enter the US into the agreement. Under the terms of the Paris Agreement, the re-entry was effective on February 19, 2021. For more information, see Practice Note, Biden Administration Energy and Climate Change Policies and Regulations: 2021 Tracker: Paris Climate Agreement and Climate Change Leadership.
Hundreds of companies have also pledged to reduce their GHG emissions to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement (see, for example, The Climate Pledge) by:
- Investing in renewable energy projects or meeting their electricity needs using renewable sources, mostly wind and solar.
- Using carbon credits or carbon offsets to reduce the amount of GHG emissions they cannot eliminate from their operations.
For more information on the Paris Agreement, see Practice Note, UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.