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Paris Agreement: All you Need to Know
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Climate change is now impossible to ignore. Heatwaves are becoming more frequent, extreme weather events more intense, and global temperatures continue to climb. At the heart of the international response to this crisis sits the Paris Agreement - a treaty often criticised for being too weak, too slow, or too symbolic. Yet, a decade after its adoption, it remains the main framework shaping global climate action. So what does the Paris Agreement actually commit countries to - and how close are we to delivering on its promises?
In this article, we’ll explore:
What the Paris Agreement is and why it was created
The key climate targets it sets
How the Paris Agreement differs from earlier treaties like the Kyoto Protocol
How the agreement works in practice, including NDCs and transparency requirements
What is expected of countries under the Paris Agreement
Whether the Paris Agreement has been successful so far and where its limits lie
What is the Paris Agreement?
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty dedicated entirely to tackling climate change. Its core purpose is to limit the rise in the Earth’s average surface temperature by reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
The Paris Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015 by 196 parties at COP21 in Paris. It was formally signed on 22 April 2016 and entered into force on 4 November 2016.
Since the United States later withdrew from the agreement, the number of parties has fallen to 195.
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How did the Paris Agreement evolve from the Kyoto Protocol?
The Kyoto Protocol
Before the Paris Agreement, global climate action was shaped by an earlier international treaty: the Kyoto Protocol.
Adopted in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the protocol was designed to curb rising carbon emissions by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. At its core, Kyoto focused on encouraging industrialized countries to take responsibility for cutting their emissions and putting concrete measures in place to do so.
Building on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol asked developed nations to align their emissions-reduction targets with broader environmental objectives. In doing so, it marked the first real attempt to translate climate science into binding international action.
While the Kyoto Protocol was never renewed, its legacy lives on. The principles it introduced helped shape later climate agreements and ultimately paved the way for the adoption of more comprehensive global treaties, including the Paris Agreement.
COP21 and the turning point in global climate action
The limitations of the Kyoto Protocol eventually became clear. While it marked an important first step, its narrow focus on developed nations and its lack of long-term momentum left gaps that could not be ignored.
That turning point came in 2015, when world leaders gathered in Paris for COP21 - the 21st Conference of the Parties. The summit marked a decisive moment in the global response to climate change.
At COP21, delegates adopted a new international climate agreement that would become known as the Paris Agreement, officially replacing the Kyoto Protocol and reshaping how the world approaches climate action.
How the Paris Agreement differs from the Kyoto Protocol
📜 The Kyoto Protocol
🌍 Adopted in 1997, it was the first international treaty to set binding emissions targets
🏭 Required only industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
⚖️ Reflected the idea that developed nations were primarily responsible for climate change
⏳ Limited in scope and ultimately not renewed
🧱 Laid the groundwork for future climate agreements
🌱 The Paris Agreement
📅 Adopted in 2015 at COP21 as a new global climate framework
🌐 Recognizes climate change as a global challenge requiring action from all countries
🤝 Asks every nation to contribute, regardless of development level
⚖️ Acknowledges that wealthier nations have a greater responsibility to support others
🌍 Designed to be more inclusive and better suited to a connected global economy
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How does the Paris Agreement work?
At first glance, coordinating climate action across nearly every country in the world might sound incredibly complex. In reality, the Paris Agreement relies on a relatively simple framework built around transparency, national planning, and regular progress reviews.
Enhanced transparency framework
Under the Paris Agreement, countries are required to report their climate progress through the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF).
Since 2024, the ETF has provided a common system for countries to report on their greenhouse gas emissions, emissions-reduction efforts, and broader climate actions. This allows international bodies and other countries to clearly track progress, compare efforts, and assess whether global action is aligned with the agreement’s goals.
The underlying idea is straightforward: countries are encouraged to reach a peak in their greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, so that emissions can then begin to decline rapidly through stronger climate policies and mitigation measures.
The agreement also recognizes that this is far easier for some countries than others. Industrialized nations typically have greater access to funding, infrastructure, and low-carbon technologies, allowing them to decarbonize more quickly.
Developing countries, by contrast, face the dual challenge of improving living standards, which often requires more energy, while simultaneously transitioning to a low-carbon economy. The Paris Agreement explicitly acknowledges these differences in capacity and responsibility.
Science-based action and the SBTi
The Paris Agreement also encourages climate action grounded in science and data, rather than political convenience alone. This has helped drive initiatives such as the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which supports governments and companies in setting emissions-reduction targets aligned with climate science.
While the SBTi is best known for its role in corporate climate targets, it reflects a broader principle embedded in the Paris Agreement: emissions reductions should be consistent with what science says is necessary to limit global warming.
Nationally determined contributions (NDCs)
A central pillar of the Paris Agreement is the requirement for every country to submit a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). An NDC outlines a country’s planned climate actions, including how it intends to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts.
Although many current NDCs are still not strong enough to keep global warming below 1.5°C, the agreement is designed to be iterative rather than static.
In practice, the Paris Agreement is about building momentum. Countries are expected to strengthen their climate commitments over time, rather than getting everything right immediately.
Information reported through the Enhanced Transparency Framework feeds into regular global assessments, which help inform future rounds of NDCs. Every five years, countries are expected to revisit and update their plans, ideally increasing ambition as technology improves and political will grows.
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What is required of each country under the Paris Agreement?
The Paris Agreement is close to universal: as of December 2025, there are 195 Parties to the treaty. That matters because it means climate action isn’t framed as “a few countries doing the hard work”, it’s designed as a shared global effort.
So what does that actually require in practice? In simple terms, the Paris Agreement asks countries to do three things: set a plan, report progress, and raise ambition over time.
1) Set a national plan (NDC)
Each country submits a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that outlines its climate priorities, including emissions cuts and adaptation plans, and updates it over time to reflect stronger action.
2) Report progress transparently (ETF)
Countries report emissions and climate action through the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF), using a shared structure that makes progress easier to track and compare internationally.
3) Raise ambition over time
The Paris Agreement is designed as a cycle: progress is reviewed regularly and countries are expected to come back with stronger plans over time - not weaker ones.
What about developing countries?
The Paris Agreement recognises a simple reality: not all countries start from the same place. While every nation is expected to contribute to the global effort to tackle climate change, developing countries often face greater constraints, from limited access to finance and technology to the pressing need to improve living standards and economic development.
For that reason, the agreement allows more flexibility for developing countries and encourages others to support their transition, rather than expecting identical timelines or pathways.
Support from developed nations
Support under the Paris Agreement can take many forms. It may be financial, technological, or involve capacity-building, helping governments develop the skills, institutions, and systems needed to plan and deliver effective climate action.
Climate finance plays a central role here. Cutting emissions at scale is extremely difficult, if not impossible, without investment. The Paris Agreement encourages industrialized countries to help mobilise funding so that developing countries can reduce emissions, build resilience, and adapt to climate impacts.
These investments are not one-sided. In the long term, they can benefit both developing and developed countries by accelerating the global transition to clean energy, reducing climate risks, and opening up new economic opportunities.
Access to technology is another key challenge. While many wealthier countries have begun investing in more advanced solutions (like carbon capture systems or large-scale renewable energy infrastructure), these technologies are often out of reach for lower-income countries due to cost, infrastructure requirements, or lack of technical expertise.
The Paris Agreement encourages financially established countries to help bridge this gap, whether by supporting the rollout of renewable energy, sharing technology, or investing in innovation that makes low-carbon solutions more affordable and accessible.
“Ultimately, the agreement is built on the idea that emissions reductions must be achieved collectively. Climate change does not respect borders, and progress in one region can easily be undermined by inaction elsewhere. Which raises the next question: has the Paris Agreement actually delivered results so far?”
Has the Paris Agreement been successful?
A mixed picture: progress, but not enough
If success is measured purely against its headline temperature targets, the answer is no. Global warming is still accelerating, and the world is not on track to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C - a reality acknowledged by the UN Secretary-General in late 2025. Even the 2°C threshold now looks increasingly difficult to stay within.
António Guterres
UN Secretary-General, at the opening of the World Leaders Climate Action Summit at COP30 in Belém, November 2025
To put this into context, limiting warming to 1.5°C would have required global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2025 at the latest and fall by around 43% by 2030. That has not happened. Global emissions have not yet reached a clear peak, let alone begun a rapid decline.
From that perspective, the Paris Agreement is not being fully respected.
But that doesn’t mean it has failed
Judging the Paris Agreement solely on whether it has “solved” climate change misses its purpose. The agreement was never designed as a silver bullet, and expecting it to single-handedly reverse decades of emissions was always unrealistic.
Where the Paris Agreement has made a tangible difference is in changing the global trajectory.
Before it was signed in 2015, global emissions trends pointed towards at least 4°C of warming by 2100 compared to pre-industrial levels. Today, based on current commitments, the world is instead on a path closer to +2.6°C. That remains well above the agreement’s targets, but it is still a meaningful shift.
A framework that shaped global action
The Paris Agreement has also succeeded in establishing clear reference points, particularly the 1.5°C and 2°C thresholds, which now underpin climate policy, corporate strategies, and public debate worldwide.
It has helped normalise long-term climate planning, emissions reporting, and the idea that climate action must be iterative, not one-off.
The limits of what an agreement can do
However, experts have long warned that fully meeting the Paris Agreement’s objectives would require changes that go far beyond policy frameworks, including profound economic, social, and behavioural shifts. A rapid, global transition away from fossil fuels will almost certainly involve significant disruption, something political systems have struggled to confront head-on.
As a result, while the Paris Agreement has created momentum, it has not and cannot force the scale of transformation needed on its own.
So where does that leave us?
The Paris Agreement has not delivered the outcomes it initially aimed for. But it has:
🌍
Shifted global expectations
It helped make climate action a shared baseline, not a niche policy topic - shaping what governments, investors, and businesses are now expected to plan for.
📉
Reduced worst-case trajectories
While we’re still off track for 1.5°C, the agreement helped move the world away from the highest warming pathways by pushing countries to commit and update action over time.
🎯
Created shared benchmarks
The 1.5°C and 2°C limits became common reference points that now underpin climate strategies, reporting, and long-term planning across sectors.
🔎
Embedded accountability
By normalizing reporting cycles and progress reviews, it made climate commitments harder to ignore, and easier to scrutinize in international decision-making.
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Paris Agreement FAQs
Is the Paris Agreement legally binding?
The Paris Agreement is legally binding in terms of process, but not in terms of outcomes. Countries are legally required to submit climate plans (NDCs), report progress transparently, and update their commitments over time. However, they are not legally penalized if they fail to meet their emissions-reduction targets. This design was intentional, as stricter enforcement could have discouraged widespread participation.
What happens if a country does not meet its Paris Agreement targets?
There are no formal sanctions if a country misses its targets. Instead, the Paris Agreement relies on transparency, peer pressure, and public accountability. Countries are expected to explain shortfalls through reporting mechanisms, and repeated failure can carry diplomatic, reputational, and political consequences, even if it does not trigger legal penalties.
Has any country achieved the Paris Agreement targets?
No country can yet be said to have fully met the Paris Agreement’s long-term objectives. While some countries have reduced emissions or expanded renewable energy significantly, none are currently on a trajectory fully aligned with limiting warming to 1.5°C. The agreement is designed as a collective framework rather than a pass–fail test for individual countries.
What is the difference between the Paris Agreement and net-zero targets?
The Paris Agreement sets global temperature goals, not net zero targets. Net zero commitments are national or organizational pledges that aim to align with those temperature limits. While many countries and companies have announced net zero goals, these are not the same as being on a Paris-aligned pathway, particularly if interim emissions reductions are insufficient or unclear.
How does the Paris Agreement affect businesses?
Although the Paris Agreement applies to countries, its influence extends well beyond governments. It has shaped national climate laws, reporting requirements, carbon pricing mechanisms, and expectations around corporate climate disclosure. As a result, many businesses now face indirect obligations linked to Paris-aligned policies, as well as growing pressure from investors and regulators to demonstrate credible emissions reductions.
What role does the IPCC play in the Paris Agreement?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does not enforce the Paris Agreement, but it plays a crucial scientific role. Its assessment reports provide the evidence base that informs temperature targets, emissions pathways, and policy decisions. In practice, IPCC findings strongly influence how progress under the Paris Agreement is interpreted and debated.
Can the Paris Agreement still be updated or strengthened?
Yes. The Paris Agreement was designed to evolve. Through regular review cycles, global stocktakes, and updated NDCs, countries are expected to increase ambition over time. While the agreement itself is unlikely to be rewritten, its effectiveness ultimately depends on how strongly countries choose to act within its existing framework.
Why does the Paris Agreement still matter today?
Despite falling short of its original ambitions, the Paris Agreement remains the central reference point for global climate action. It shapes expectations, influences policy and finance, and provides a common language for addressing climate change. In a fragmented geopolitical landscape, it continues to offer a shared foundation, even as the scale of the challenge grows.
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