Paris Agreement and the 1.5°C Threshold
The Paris Agreement, adopted at COP21 in Paris on 12 December 2015, is a legally binding international climate treaty under the UNFCCC framework. It entered into force on 4 November 2016 and has been ratified by 195+ countries including India.
- Article 2 of the Paris Agreement commits nations to limiting global average temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
- The 1.5°C target is not a safety threshold but a risk-reduction goal — at 1.5°C, 950 million people in drylands face water stress, heat stress, and desertification; the share of the global population exposed to flooding rises by 24%.
- 2024 was the first year to breach this 1.5°C threshold in terms of annual average, though the Paris Agreement's threshold refers to long-term averages, not a single year.
- NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) are national climate plans submitted under Paris Agreement Article 4; they must be progressively more ambitious.
- India's updated NDC (August 2022): 45% emissions intensity reduction from 2005 GDP levels by 2030; 50% installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030.
● Tracked since March 11, 2026 · last seen May 28, 2026 · updates as the daily brief publishes
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