Introduction. Major sources of international climate change law include the Paris Agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the decisions made by the UNFCCC in implementing these treaties.
What is the purpose of the secretariat? The UNFCCC secretariat (UN Climate Change) is the United Nations entity tasked with supporting the global response to the threat of climate change. UNFCCC stands for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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 to the impacts of climate change, and calls on countries to strengthen their commitments over time.
Climate change is a global problem which needs a global response. The 2015 Paris Agreement frames that response by setting a long-term global temperature goal and requiring bottom-up Nationally-Determined contributions from each country that reflect their responsibilities and capabilities.
The Paris Agreement's central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
What is the Paris Agreement? The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015.
The Los Angeles County 2045 Climate Action Plan (2045 CAP) was adopted by the Board of Supervisors and took effect on June 25, 2024. The 2045 CAP is the County of Los Angeles' plan for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the unincorporated areas of the county.
The UNFCCC is a multilateral treaty adopted in 1992 – shortly after the first assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990 – to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations "at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system.”
The Paris Agreement was the first legally-binding global treaty on climate change. It was agreed in 2015 and was implemented from 2016. It sets a long-term temperature target of keeping global warming 'well-below' 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and 'pursuing efforts' to keep it below 1.5°C.