Paris Climate Agreement Comes Into Effect

The Paris Agreement comes into effect on Friday. It is the first universal and legally binding agreement on climate change involving every country in the world. The deal was reached at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 21st session (COP21) in the French capital last December. Over 160 countries signed the deal in April at a special event in New York, with the number of endorsers having since risen to 193, of which 97 have sofar also ratified the paper.

The rise in global average temperatures is set to be limited to 1.5C - which is half a degree more it needs to be kept down than the 2C target that had been discussed previously. To reach this goal greenhouse gases such as CO2 need to be limited. As our infographic shows China, the USA and India are the top emitters of this gas. The next round of talks COP22 open in Morocco on Monday.