Paris Agreement
The international climate treaty adopted in 2015, establishing shared goals and a system of national climate plans.
Example
It aims to hold warming well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
The catch
Collective goals and individual national commitments have different legal roles.
Related terms
1.5°C goal, Carbon pricing, Carbon tax, Climate justice, Conference of the Parties, CSRD
In more depth
Paris Agreement, explained.
The Paris Agreement works through a repeating cycle designed to raise ambition over time. Each country sets its own nationally determined contribution, reports progress under common disclosure rules and faces a collective global stocktake before the next round. The agreement attaches no penalty to missing a national target, so its pressure comes from visibility and peer review.
Its goals reach beyond temperature. The treaty also aims to strengthen adaptation and to make finance flows consistent with low-emission, climate-resilient development. Its article on international cooperation sets rules for countries that trade emission reductions, with accounting adjustments meant to stop double counting. The label Paris-aligned has no single official test. Anyone using it should say which goal and which pathway they mean.