Full Title: Issue Brief: The Paris Agreement on Climate Change
Author(s): Han Chen
Publisher(s): Natural Resources Defense Council
Publication Date: November 1, 2017
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The Paris Agreement requires all countries—developed and developing—to make significant commitments to address climate change. Countries responsible for 97 percent of global emissions have already pledged their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for how they will address climate change. Countries will revisit their current pledges by 2020 and, ideally, strengthen their emissions reduction targets for 2030. The Paris Agreement includes a stronger transparency and accountability system for all countries—requiring reporting on greenhouse gas inventories and projections that are subject to a technical expert review and a multilateral examination. Countries will continue to provide climate finance to help the most vulnerable adapt to climate change and build low-carbon economies. While the Paris Agreement does not “solve” climate change, it allows us to start the next wave of global climate actions, creating a virtuous cycle for more aggressive action in the decades to come.