Welcome to the United Nations
The Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the first time brings all nations together for a common cause. With its adoption and rapid entry-into-force, the world has taken decisive steps towards a low carbon, climate resilient and sustainable world. The Paris Agreement for the first time brings all nations into a common cause based on their historic, current and future responsibilities. The universal agreement’s main aim is to keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability to deal with the impacts of climate change.
Together, the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development increase momentum towards a transition from aspiration to implementation. With these landmark agreements now in place, countries have entered a new implementation-focused phase, where climate action contributes to the broader goal of sustainable development at the national level. Central to the implementation of the Paris Agreement are countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs),1 which, along with the process to formulate and implement national adaptation plans (NAPs),2 have been developed by many countries alongside, or integrated with, national implementation plans for the 2030 Agenda. NAPs and NDCs express national climate-related strategies, policies and actions, which show countries’ efforts not just on climate action, but also on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda more broadly. This approach to implementation should ensure that countries can learn from and support each other, leaving no-one behind...
