The 5 most important components of the Paris climate agreement

White bears costumed activists demonstrate near the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, Saturday, December 12, 2015 during the COP21, the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Image: Matt Dunham/Associated Press


The deal is a turning point for climate policy, since it brings the entire globe under the same policy framework, rather than only placing mandates on industrialized nations. It is also a triumph of the concept of multilateralism, and a demonstration that countries with wildly differing interests can in fact come together to address a common concern.

But the agreement alone will not solve global warming; it will not stem the rising tides nor cool the sizzlingly hot heat waves that are becoming more prevalent. Instead, it will send a signal that the world is moving away from fossil fuels, and toward renewable energy. It will be up to the activists, investors, inventors and future world leaders to ensure that this agreement translates into real progress.

The deal struck after three straight all-night sessions is complex and wide-ranging.

“This text, the one we have built together, our text is the best possible balance," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius when presenting the final draft on Saturday afternoon. "A balance which is powerful yet delicate which will enable each delegation, each group of countries to go back home with his head held high and having achieved something important."

France Agreement Passes

French President Francois Hollande, right, French Foreign Minister and president of the COP21 Laurent Fabius, second, right, United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres and United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon applaud after the final conference at the COP21, the United Nations conference on climate change, in Le Bourget, north of Paris, Saturday, December 12, 2015.

Image: Francois Mori/Associated Press

Here the agreement is broken down into 5 of its most important key components:

1. Temperature target

The new agreement sets a goal of limiting global warming to "well below 2 degrees Celsius", or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels and "to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius", or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels through 2100.

1.5-degree Text


The inclusion of the 1.5-degree target is a major victory for small island states and other vulnerable nations that face dire climate change-related impacts, such as sea level rise, if warming proceeds above 1.5 degrees Celsius. Their slogan, "1.5 to stay alive," was widely shared throughout the conference on social media, and the U.S., Canada, E.U. and others endorsed a 1.5-degree target as an aspirational goal.

A decision accompanying the agreement "invites" the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to provide a special report in 2018 on the impacts of global warming exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the pathways that emissions would need to follow to hold temperatures to that threshold.


The decision text acknowledges that the emissions reduction pledges to date are not nearly significant enough to achieve the temperature target. In fact, temperature are likely to warm to at least 3 degrees Celsius, or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels unless emissions are curtailed faster and more significantly than currently planned.

2. Ratchet mechanism

The agreement provides a timetable for countries to take stock of their emissions reduction commitments and make additional, more ambitious pledges. Such reviews would take place every five years starting in 2023, although an interim review would take place in 2018, before the agreement goes into effect in 2020.



The U.S., European Union and others sought the 2018 review since there is a need to quickly reduce emissions if global warming is to be limited to the temperature target in the agreement.

3. Financial assistance

Climate finance was a huge sore spot in the negotiations, since developed countries previously promised to provide $100 billion per year in climate aid to the developing world by the year 2020, and have not yet provided the full amount of money. The agreement deals with this by setting a floor of climate aid to developing nations at $100 billion, and calling for five-year review cycles of climate finance commitments.

The agreement also calls upon developing countries to make their own climate finance pledges if they are able to do so, on a voluntary basis.

4. Long-term goal




The agreement aims for a "global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible," but does not provide a target date for this to happen. The agreement therefore leaves plenty of room for some countries, such as India, to increase their emissions significantly, while others cut theirs in an effort to meet this target.

It also sets a long-term goal of what reads like a scientific definition of carbon neutrality, which is when carbon emissions are low enough to be canceled out by the amount of carbon being absorbed by forests and oceans around the world.

The agreement text states the long-term goal is "to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty."

5. Loss and damage

Going into these talks, the concept of having the industrialized nations that are responsible for most of global warming to-date compensate developing countries for damage from climate change-related impacts was a hotly contested issue. It predictably caused some friction at the talks, particularly between the U.S., which was against any language that would establish a system in which the country could be held legally liable for climate change-related damages, and poor countries.

However, the compromise that was worked out brings loss and damage into the agreement as its own section, which some thought was unlikely to happen, and it maintains this issue as a matter for further discussion going forward.

“I think it’s an important step forward on loss and damage," said Oxfam's climate change manager Heather Coleman.

Specifically, the agreement directs countries to create a process to address losses and damage from unavoidable climate impacts that cannot be adapted to, but an accompanying decision by the decision-making body at COP21 would specifically rule out liability or compensation for such losses or damages.

Load Comments

What's New

What's Rising

What's Hot