agreement

Ten years ago, the Paris Agreement entered into force, binding nearly every country to a shared goal: to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C (2.7F).

A decade on, the deal has helped drive stronger climate policies and a rapid expansion of clean energy. But emissions remain near record highs, temperatures keep climbing and countries are still far from the cuts needed to keep a 1.5C limit within reach.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera looks at what the Paris Agreement set out to do, how far global temperatures have risen since and which countries are driving emissions.

What is the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding climate treaty adopted by 196 parties at the United Nations climate summit in Paris, also known as COP21, on December 12, 2015. It entered into force on November 4, 2016.

The United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China, has joined and left the agreement twice. President Donald Trump ordered both withdrawals. The first took effect in November 2020, and President Joe Biden rejoined in February 2021. The US left again in January this year, 12 months after Trump ordered its exit for a second time.

Today, 194 parties, 193 countries and the European Union, belong to the agreement.

Rather than imposing the same cuts on everyone, the agreement asks each government to set its own targets through nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, outlining how it will cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

Countries submit a new, more ambitious NDC every five years, and a Global Stocktake assesses collective progress on the same cycle. The agreement also covers reporting, climate finance and support for developing countries.

The agreement does not force countries to meet their targets. It relies on transparency and international pressure to raise ambition.

How close is the world to breaking the 1.5C limit?

Temperatures have kept rising since the deal was adopted.

In 2024, the planet was more than 1.5C warmer than preindustrial levels across a full calendar year for the first time.

The past three years, 2023 to 2025, were the hottest on record and the first three-year period to average more than 1.5C of warming.

The long-term warming average now stands at about 1.4C, and scientists expect it to surpass 1.5C around the end of this decade.

In October, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the chance of keeping warming to 1.5C without overshooting it has been lost.

“Every additional fraction of a degree and additional year of warming above 1.5C increases climate impacts and risks, such as the deadly floods, heatwaves and wildfires that have plagued many nations this year,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said.

Still, the outlook is less bleak than it was in 2015.

When the Paris Agreement was signed, existing policies put the world on course for about 3.6C of warming by 2100. According to the Climate Action Tracker, that projection has since fallen to about 2.6C as countries adopted climate policies and clean energy expanded.

Progress has stalled since 2021, however, and current policies still point to far more warming than the agreement promised.

Which countries emit the most?

Carbon dioxide, the main driver of warming, comes mostly from burning coal, oil and natural gas while deforestation removes trees that once absorbed it.

China, the US and India now produce more than half of the world’s annual emissions. China alone emits more than the US, India, Russia and Japan combined although the US has released the most carbon emissions historically.

Investments in clean energy are now almost double those in fossil fuels, but emission cuts have been too slow to keep 1.5C within reach.

The graphic below ranks the biggest emitters in 2024 and shows how their emissions have changed since the agreement took effect in 2016.

China remains by far the largest polluter, and its emissions have kept rising alongside those of India and Indonesia as these fast-growing economies burn more coal to meet soaring power demand. Indonesia has climbed into the top 10, replacing Canada.

Germany, Japan and the US have cut their emissions, largely by replacing coal with renewables and gas. But growth elsewhere has outweighed those cuts, and global emissions are 9 percent higher than in 2016.

Citing lingering concerns about the potential misuse of police license plate readers, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to delay an agreement that would enable the deployment of hundreds of the controversial devices until officials are satisfied that the technology will be wielded responsibly.

By a 10-4 vote, the council opted to overrule approval of the 10-year, $235-million contract between the Los Angeles Police Department and Axon Enterprise, halting a deal that had previously been signed off on by the Board of Police Commissioners.

Axon is seeking to outfit hundreds of LAPD patrol squads with plate scanners, which track the movements of vehicles around the city. Under the agreement, the company would also replace thousands of body-worn cameras, supply new Tasers, provide cloud video storage, and roll out a program that uses artificial intelligence to assist officers in writing police reports.

In addition, Axon is seeking to launch a pilot program that would attach plate scanners to streetlights around Los Angeles, offering the LAPD a souped-up version of its current systems by using AI to identify vehicles, license plates, pedestrians and objects that appear on streets and sidewalks.

The council’s decision — which was preceded by several fiery comments from members of the public who oppose the use of license plate readers — sends the contract back to the Police Commission for reconsideration.

A commission spokesperson said that the board’s members weren’t immediately available for comment.

Several council members voiced unease about proceeding without a better sense of the LAPD’s internal policy on license plate reader use. Delaying the contract, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez said, would give the public and city leaders more time to review the safeguards and policies written into the LAPD’s proposed memorandum of understanding with Axon.

Councilmember Traci Park, a staunch supporter of plate reader technology, said there is an urgent need to get the devices “up and running.”

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez shot back that it would be irresponsible to deploy the technology, citing news reports about officers misusing plate readers to stalk romantic partners and track women seeking reproductive health services.

Earlier this year, the LAPD allowed its agreement with one of Axon’s chief competitors, Flock Safety, to lapse over concerns that the Trump administration is using the data it collects to locate immigrants targeted for deportation. Police officials say they no longer have access to the company’s cameras, many of which are owned by homeowners associations and other private groups.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell and other department leaders have pushed to expand the use of license plate readers, saying they are a valuable tool for solving crimes, enabling investigators to more easily locate stolen vehicles and fugitives.

Hernandez noted that other police technologies, such as a robot dog used in situations involving barricaded suspects, had quietly moved from a pilot to a full-fledged program without input from the council.

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said he still had privacy concerns about license plate readers, while noting that their deployment along the Figueroa corridor had assisted in the rescue of dozens of juvenile sex trafficking victims.

“Now having said that, if I’m honest I don’t know what else the cameras are doing,” he said.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said that as the license plate reader technology is adopted by other, non-police agencies such as sanitation and street services, the city needs a universal policy governing its use.

The matter will next be heard by the public safety committee — likely at its Oct. 20 meeting — before being taken up by the full council later that week.

In a presentation to the Police Commission last month, the LAPD’s technology czar, Dean Gialamas, said that the department understood the privacy and civil liberty concerns raised about companies such as Flock. This summer, the department announced it was pausing its relationship with the Atlanta-based firm, but police officials have said they are still hopeful to negotiate a new deal with the company that would include more data-sharing safeguards.

Much like the initial debate over the use of forensic DNA testing, Gialamas said, the answer wasn’t to abandon the technology but to create safeguards to “ensure responsible and trusted use.”

Gialamas told commissioners that Axon had agreed to terms that would give the LAPD complete ownership of the data captured and bar the sharing of data with federal authorities. The proposed deal, he said, would also limit the use of plate readers to criminal investigations, missing persons cases and other “serious public safety matters.” Investigators, for instance, would not be able to conduct searches based solely on protests or other 1st Amendment-protected activities, he said.

Under the proposed contract, investigators would no longer be given “unfettered access” to license plate data and the retention period would be significantly cut down, he said. The department would also be permitted to conduct regular audits to flag officers who use the system frequently or conduct unusual searches.

A report issued last month by the LAPD inspector general’s office found numerous “limitations” in the department’s existing agreements with its three plate reader vendors — Flock, Axon and Motorola — including a lack of clear language about how long data are retained and how they are shared with third parties or other law enforcement agencies.

The inspector general recommended that the department update its current license plate reader contracts to address data security and privacy concerns, conduct regular audits and develop standardized rules for traffic stops based on plate reader hits.