• The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement on January 27, 2026, the United Nations said after Washington formally notified Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of President Donald Trump’s decision to quit.
• On January 20, President Trump signed an executive order directing the US to again withdraw from the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change.
• The move places the US alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries in the world outside the 2015 pact.
• Trump withdrew the US from the Paris deal during his first term in office, though the process took years and was immediately reversed by the Biden presidency in 2021.
What is the Paris Agreement?
• Climate change is a global emergency that goes beyond national borders. It is an issue that requires international cooperation and coordinated solutions at all levels.
• The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris on December 12, 2015. It entered into force on November 4, 2016.
• The Agreement is a legally binding international treaty.
• Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
• However, in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.
• That’s because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.
• To limit global warming to 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43 per cent by 2030.
• The Paris Agreement is a landmark in the multilateral climate change process because, for the first time, a binding agreement brings all nations together to combat climate change and adapt to its effects.
• It mobilised global collective action to pursue efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, and to act to adapt to the already existing effects of climate change.
• The agreement asks countries to review commitments every five years, provide financing to developing countries to mitigate climate change, strengthen resilience and enhance abilities to adapt to climate impacts.
How does the Paris Agreement work?
• Implementation of the Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation, based on the best available science.
• The Paris Agreement works on a five-year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by countries.
• Every five years, each country is expected to submit an updated national climate action plan known as Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).
• Since 2020, countries have been submitting their NDCs.
• In their NDCs, countries communicate actions they will take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. Countries also communicate in their NDCs actions they will take to build resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
• Each successive NDC is meant to reflect an increasingly higher degree of ambition compared to the previous version.
• The Paris Agreement provides a framework for financial, technical and capacity building support to those countries who need it.
• It reaffirms that developed countries should take the lead in providing financial assistance to countries that are less endowed and more vulnerable, while for the first time also encouraging voluntary contributions by other Parties.
• Climate finance is needed for mitigation, because large-scale investments are required to significantly reduce emissions. Climate finance is equally important for adaptation, as significant financial resources are needed to adapt to the adverse effects and reduce the impacts of a changing climate.
• Not all developing countries have sufficient capacities to deal with many of the challenges brought by climate change.
• As a result, the Paris Agreement places great emphasis on climate-related capacity-building for developing countries and requests all developed countries to enhance support for capacity-building actions in developing countries.
• Although climate change action needs to be massively increased to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, the years since its entry into force have already sparked low-carbon solutions and new markets.
• More and more countries, regions, cities and companies are establishing carbon neutrality targets. Zero-carbon solutions are becoming competitive across economic sectors representing 25 per cent of emissions.
• This trend is most noticeable in the power and transport sectors and has created many new business opportunities for early movers.
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