Reported by Al Jazeera
Nearly 200 countries pledged to limit warming to 1.5C. We look at who has delivered and who has fallen short.
Ten years ago, the Paris Agreement entered into force, binding nearly every country to a shared goal: to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C (2.7F).
A decade on, the deal has helped drive stronger climate policies and a rapid expansion of clean energy. But emissions remain near record highs, temperatures keep climbing and countries are still far from the cuts needed to keep a 1.5C limit within reach.
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In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera looks at what the Paris Agreement set out to do, how far global temperatures have risen since and which countries are driving emissions.
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding climate treaty adopted by 196 parties at the United Nations climate summit in Paris, also known as COP21, on December 12, 2015. It entered into force on November 4, 2016.
The United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China, has joined and left the agreement twice. President Donald Trump ordered both withdrawals. The first took effect in November 2020, and President Joe Biden rejoined in February 2021. The US left again in January this year, 12 months after Trump ordered its exit for a second time.
Today, 194 parties, 193 countries and the European Union, belong to the agreement.
Rather than imposing the same cuts on everyone, the agreement asks each government to set its own targets through nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, outlining how it will cut emissions and adapt to climate change.
Countries submit a new, more ambitious NDC every five years, and a Global Stocktake assesses collective progress on the same cycle. The agreement also covers reporting, climate finance and support for developing countries.
The agreement does not force countries to meet their targets. It relies on transparency and international pressure to raise ambition.
In 2024, the planet was more than 1.5C warmer than preindustrial levels across a full calendar year for the first time.