The Paris Agreement (French: l'accord de Paris) is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), dealing with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance, signed in 2016. The agreement's language was negotiated by representatives of 196 state parties at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Le Bourget, near Paris, France, and adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015. As of January 2021, 190 members of the UNFCCC are parties to the agreement. Of the seven UNFCCC member states which have never ratified the agreement, the only major emitters are Iran, Turkey and Iraq.
Under the Paris Agreement, each country must determine, plan, and regularly report on the contribution that it undertakes to mitigate global warming. No mechanism forces a country to set a specific emissions target by a specific date, but each target should go beyond previously set targets.
A running list of Biden’s announcements and reported picks as the incoming administration begins to take shape.
Biden has vowed to re-open schools after his first 100 days in office and it appears his secretary of education nominee, Miguel Cardona, will be a willing...