Implementation of the agreement by all Member States will be evaluated every five years, with the first evaluation in 2023. The result will be used as an input for new national contributions from Member States. [30] The inventory will not be national contributions/achievements, but a collective analysis of what has been achieved and what remains to be done. Risks are increasing because, historically, these agreements only become ambitious over time. In other words, the Paris framework is a starting point, no matter how bad, it is not an end point. And the exit from the agreement protects the United States from future violations of U.S. sovereignty and from any future massive legal liability. Believe me, we have a massive legal responsibility if we continue to do so. Currently, 197 countries – every nation on earth, the last signatory is war-torn Syria – have adopted the Paris Agreement. 179 of them have consolidated their climate proposals with official approval, including, for the time being, the United States. The only major emitters that have yet to formally accede to the agreement are Russia, Turkey and Iran.
In an effort to “significantly reduce the risks and effects of climate change,” the agreement calls for the average increase in global temperature over this century to be well below 2 degrees Celsius, while continuing efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. It also calls on countries to commit as quickly as possible to comparing global greenhouse gas emissions and to become carbon neutral by the second half of this century. To achieve these goals, 186 countries – responsible for more than 90% of global emissions – presented CO2 reduction targets prior to the Paris conference, known as “determined national contributions” (INDC). These targets set out the commitments made by each country to reduce emissions until 2025 or 2030, including macroeconomic targets for co2 reduction and individual commitments of some 2,250 cities and 2,025 companies. The Kyoto Protocol, a pioneering environmental treaty adopted at COP3 in Japan in 1997, is the first time nations have agreed on country-by-country emission reduction targets.