The Paris Agreement is an environmental agreement that was adopted by almost all nations in 2015 to combat climate change and its negative effects. The agreement aims to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels this century, while continuing to pursue ways to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees. The agreement provides for the commitment of all major emitters to reduce their pollution from climate change and to strengthen these commitments over time. It provides developed countries with a means to assist developing countries in their mitigation and adaptation efforts and establishes a framework for monitoring, reporting and strengthening countries` individual and collective climate goals. The global inventory will begin in 2018 with a „facilitation dialogue.“ At this convening, the parties will assess how their NDCs stack up to the short-term goal of the highest global emissions and the long-term goal of achieving zero net emissions by the second half of this century. [29] [must be updated] The negotiators of the agreement stated that the INDCs presented at the time of the Paris conference are insufficient and found that „the estimates of aggregate greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 and 2030 resulting from planned contributions at the national level are not covered by the least expensive scenarios of 2oC , but will reach a projected level of 55 gigatonnes by 2030.“ and acknowledges that „much greater efforts to reduce emissions will be required to keep the global average temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius, reducing emissions to 40 gigatonnes or 1.5 degrees Celsius.“ [25] Although the United States and Turkey are not parties to the agreement, since countries have not indicated their intention to withdraw from the 1992 UNFCCC, , they will continue to be required, as a UNFCCC Schedule 1 country, to end national communications and establish an annual inventory of greenhouse gases. [91] Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which set legally binding emission reduction targets (and penalties only for non-compliance) for industrialized countries alone, the Paris Agreement requires all countries – rich, poor, developed and developing – to take their share and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, the Paris Agreement provides for greater flexibility: commitments that countries should make are not included, countries can voluntarily set their emissions targets and countries will not be penalized if they do not meet their proposed targets. But what the Paris agreement requires is to monitor, report and reassess, over time, the objectives of individual and collective countries, in order to bring the world closer to the broader objectives of the agreement.
And the agreement stipulates that countries must announce their next round of targets every five years, contrary to the Kyoto Protocol, which was aimed at this target but which contained no specific requirements to achieve this goal. In terms of employment, the clean energy sector already employs more than 3 million Americans – about 14 times the number of people employed in the coal, gas, oil and other fossil fuel industries – and has the potential to invest more in energy efficiency, renewable energy and grid upgrades to replace aging coal infrastructure.