Paris agreement

In December 2015, the Paris Agreement was adopted at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This instrument replaced the Kyoto protocol which was in effect before. Attempts were made to avoid disadvantages of the protocol which prevented it from succeeding to the full extent.

The agreement aims at keeping a global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

For this to be done, finance will we assigned, new technologies developed, and all available tools used. Special attention will be paid to support of developing countries and those that are more than others are vulnerable in respect of technology, economy or environment. The Agreement must ensure highest transparency of all activities.

The procedure for implementing of the new climate agreement was determined at the 22nd Conference of the Parties which took place on 7.11.2016 in Marrakesh, Morocco.

Participation of the parties will be in the form of nationally determined contributions (NDC). All the parties should regularly report on volumes of greenhouse gas emissions and activities taken to avoid them.

Interim results of the implementation of the Paris Agreement will be reviewed every five years.

On 30.09.2016, the special session of the Environment Council of the European Union agreed to speed up ratification of the agreement. USA and China, two largest greenhouse gas emitters, ratified it on 3.09.2016. Later, the US President, D. Trump, announced US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. But the procedure does not allow it until 2019.

The Paris Agreement came into force on 4.11.2016.

As of September 2018, it was ratified by 179 countries and the European Union. The Russian Federation has not ratified the Paris Agreement yet.