Environment groups hail ‘momentous occasion’ but warn governments need to cut carbon emissions more steeply to avoid dangerous global warming
The significance of the Paris agreement coming into force today is easy to miss: it may seem like an anti-climax, given the travails that led up to its signing last December.
But the moment is of huge importance. This is the first time that a legally-binding agreement, signed by all of the world’s functioning governments, has laid down a commitment to limit the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with the goal of preventing global warming exceeding 2C above pre-industrial levels.
