The Paris Agreement (also called the Paris Accords or Paris Climate Accords) is an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. [3] The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement’s hybrid approach to the issues of prescriptiveness, legal form, and differentiation allowed it to achieve virtually universal acceptance and hence be global in scope. After years of often contentious negotiations, the consensus adoption of the Paris Agreement represented a considerable achievement. The Paris Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015 and came into force less than a year later, on 4 November 2016. Although the 1997 Kyoto Protocol also technically remains in force, the Paris Agreement has, in effect, superseded the Kyoto Protocol as the principal regulatory instrument governing the global response to climate change. The Paris Agreement seeks to find a middle ground – a “Goldilocks” solution – between the contrasting models of the Kyoto Protocol and the 2009 ... Today, 195 Parties (194 States plus the European Union) have joined the Paris Agreement. The Agreement includes commitments from all countries to reduce their emissions and work together to adapt...
