Climate Change - the Paris Agreement - Key Objectives

                                                                                                 Shutterstock

As the ongoing and often fractious debate over climate change and the environment swings to and fro, the Paris Agreement is usually cited emphasising the key target of limiting global temperature increases to no more than 1.5 C. This is an incorrect explanation as the phrasing in the agreement is more nuanced. The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015 at COP21 has three goals -

• to keep global temperature increase well below 2 degrees C with effort to limit it to 1.5C,
• to strengthen adaptation and resilience capacities
• to align financial flows with the other goals of the Agreement

The Paris Agreement is therefore aimed at preventing global temperatures increasing above 2 degrees C with a preference to limiting the increase to 1.5C. The actual upper temperature increase to be avoided is 2C not 1.5C.

The Agreement requires all countries both developed and developing, to submit "Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)". The NDCs are defined by each country and and an explanation provided as to what actions the country intends to take to respond to climate change. The implementation of actions is to be accompanied by an enhanced transparency regime.