The Paris Agreement celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2025. A decade after 196 nations gathered in France to sign what was widely described as the most consequential multilateral climate agreement in history, the evidence demands an honest reckoning.
Global warming projections over this century, based on full implementation of all current Nationally Determined Contributions, now stand at 2.3 to 2.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Under current policies alone, that trajectory reaches 2.8 degrees Celsius. The agreement’s central goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is not being achieved. Within the next decade, global temperatures will likely exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. US EPACA
Against this backdrop, 2025 and 2026 have brought three developments that have reshaped the Paris Agreement’s legal and political landscape more significantly than any developments since the treaty entered into force.
The International Court of Justice issued its landmark climate advisory opinion on July 23, 2025, clarifying with binding authority what states are actually obligated to do under international law on climate change. The United States formally withdrew from the Paris Agreement on January 27, 2026, marking the second time in a decade the world’s second-largest emitter has abandoned the treaty. And on May 20, 2026, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution by a vote of 141 to 8 formally endorsing the ICJ opinion and creating a multilateral framework to operationalize it, over fierce resistance from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
This guide provides a complete analysis of where the Paris Agreement stands in June 2026: what it legally requires, what the ICJ opinion changed, what COP30 delivered and failed to deliver, what the US withdrawals mean, what the emissions gap tells us, and what comes next.
The Paris Agreement’s Legal Architecture: What Is Actually Binding
Before analyzing its current status, the legal structure of the Paris Agreement requires clear understanding, because confusion about what is and is not legally binding under the treaty persists even among informed commentators.
The Paris Agreement, adopted on December 12, 2015 and entering into force on November 4, 2016, is a legally binding international treaty under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its architecture combines binding procedural obligations with nationally determined substantive commitments. This design was deliberate and, for a decade, deliberately misread by some major emitters as granting unlimited discretion over the content of their climate plans.
The temperature goal. Article 2 sets the central objective: holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This goal is legally binding on all parties as an objective.
Nationally Determined Contributions. Article 4 requires each party to prepare, communicate, and maintain a Nationally Determined Contribution setting out what it will do to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts. NDCs must be submitted every five years. Successive NDCs must represent a progression beyond the previous one and reflect the party’s highest possible ambition.
Climate finance. Developed country parties have binding obligations under Article 9 to provide financial resources to assist developing countries. The Baku-to-Belém roadmap, agreed at COP29 in 2024, committed developed countries to mobilizing at least 300 billion dollars per year by 2035.
Transparency. The Enhanced Transparency Framework, operational since 2024, requires all parties to regularly report on emissions, progress implementing NDCs, and climate finance flows through biennial transparency reports.
The binding and non-binding question. The procedural obligations are clearly binding. The substantive content of each NDC was treated by several major emitters as entirely discretionary. The ICJ opinion resolved that ambiguity permanently, as explained below.
The ICJ Opinion That Changed the Legal Landscape
The ICJ’s July 23, 2025 advisory opinion, which we analyzed in full in our dedicated ICJ 2025 climate advisory opinion breakdown, is the most consequential development in the history of the Paris Agreement’s legal interpretation.
NDCs Are Not Discretionary
The court’s most immediately consequential finding concerned the content of NDCs. The ICJ determined that the 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature target is legally binding under the Paris Agreement and that all states, in particular the largest emitters, must take ambitious mitigation measures in line with the best available science. Web-ecology
The court specifically rejected the argument that NDC content falls entirely within each state’s sovereign discretion. States must submit NDCs reflecting their highest possible ambition, and each successive NDC must be more demanding than the one before. An NDC is not adequate simply because it was submitted on time. It must be capable of making an adequate contribution to the achievement of the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal.
Implementation Is a Binding Obligation of Conduct
Beyond submitting NDCs, states have a substantive obligation to implement them through domestic legal and regulatory systems. This obligation requires stringent due diligence, including establishing robust legal frameworks, adopting effective enforcement mechanisms, and monitoring the behavior of private actors whose activities may undermine mitigation efforts. Submitting an NDC is necessary but not sufficient. States must act.
1.5 Degrees Celsius Is the Primary Legal Target
The ICJ opined that parties to the Paris Agreement, through their post-Paris decisions, legally changed the temperature goal from the composite goal of holding warming well below 2 degrees Celsius while pursuing 1.5 degrees Celsius, to the single goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius. This removes the argument that NDCs need only be consistent with a 2 degrees Celsius pathway. Earth Law Center
Fossil Fuels and State Obligations
The court found that states’ due diligence obligations extend to the fossil fuel sector. States should stop issuing new fossil fuel exploration licenses, stop granting development consents for new extraction projects, and adopt regulations to phase out fossil fuel production. Failure to do so may constitute an internationally wrongful act.
Reparations Are Required for Breach
Where states have breached their climate obligations and caused harm, they must provide full reparation through restitution, compensation, and satisfaction. Even a state that has formally withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, like the United States, still has legal obligations to protect humanity from the worsening impacts of climate change as confirmed by the ICJ in its landmark 2025 advisory opinion, because these obligations exist under customary international law independently of treaty membership. Foley Hoag
The UNGA Resolution: Operationalizing the ICJ Opinion
The most significant recent development, as of the date of publication, was the UN General Assembly vote of May 20, 2026.
On 20 May 2026, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/80/L.65 welcoming the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change. The draft, tabled by Vanuatu and a cross-regional Core Group, attracted 90 co-sponsors and was adopted by a recorded vote of 141 votes in favour to 8 against, with 28 abstentions. Theecologycenter
The eight states voting against were Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Yemen. The United States had sent diplomatic cables to UN member states urging them not to support the resolution. Saudi Arabia and Russia led efforts to dilute the text during negotiations.
The voting record speaks to both the normative ambition of the text and the fault lines that have defined the politics of climate responsibility since the ICJ rendered its opinion. The resolution represents the General Assembly’s endorsement in concrete, operative terms of the legal framework the Court established. It also creates a multilateral framework for addressing dimensions of climate harm that the advisory opinion itself left for political actors to take forward. Theecologycenter
The resolution calls on states to act with the stringent standard of due diligence the Court identified, to cooperate in good faith to prevent significant harm to the climate system, and to respect and ensure human rights by taking necessary climate measures. It acknowledges that breaches of states’ obligations may constitute internationally wrongful acts triggering duties of cessation, non-repetition, and full reparation. It affirms the continuity of statehood for small island states in the face of sea-level rise. US EPA
Early drafts of the resolution had envisioned a robust follow-up process to the ICJ opinion, but those provisions did not survive the negotiations. Critics noted that language limiting the Secretary-General’s role to assessing compliance “without implying any determination of responsibility” significantly weakened the accountability mechanism that climate-vulnerable states had sought. GreenMatch
Nevertheless, the 141 to 8 vote represents a commanding international majority affirming that climate action is a legal duty, not merely a political choice.
The US Withdrawal: What Actually Happened and What It Means
The Sequence of Events
President Trump signed an executive order on January 20, 2025, his first day in office, withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement for the second time. The withdrawal formally took effect on January 27, 2026, one year after notification to the UN Secretary-General.
The US went further than Paris Agreement withdrawal. On January 7, 2026, President Trump published a Presidential Memorandum directing the withdrawal of the United States from 66 international organizations, including the IPCC and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Signed by the US in June 1992 and ratified in October of that same year, the UNFCCC has served as the cornerstone of international climate governance for more than three decades. Washington State Department of Ecology
Withdrawal from the Convention alters the legal landscape for future administrations and, in the absence of clear precedent, it remains uncertain whether a future President could rejoin the UNFCCC, and ultimately the Paris Agreement, without re-ratification by the Senate. This uncertainty makes the second US withdrawal significantly more structurally damaging than the first. Washington State Department of Ecology
For the first time in the history of COPs, the US Government did not send a delegation to COP30. Friends of the Earth
What the US Withdrawal Does Not Change
Critically, the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement does not dissolve its climate obligations under international law. The ICJ Advisory Opinion confirms that all states have legal obligations under international human rights law and international environmental treaties, including the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, to make all efforts and take all necessary measures to protect the climate and safeguard a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as the basis for the enjoyment of human rights and intergenerational equity. Goodnet
These obligations exist under customary international law, which binds all states regardless of treaty membership. Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement changes a state’s procedural position within the UNFCCC process. It does not eliminate its substantive obligations under the no-harm rule, the principle of prevention, and international human rights law.
The Emissions Impact
Methodological updates account for 0.1 degrees Celsius of the improvement in the 2025 warming projections from the previous year, and the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement will cancel another 0.1 degrees Celsius, meaning the new NDCs themselves have barely moved the needle. US EPA
G20 members, excluding the African Union, account for 77 percent of global emissions. G20 emissions rose by 0.7 percent in 2024, all pointing to the need for a massive ramp-up in action by the biggest emitters. US EPA
COP30 in Belém: What the Tenth Anniversary Summit Delivered
The Context
COP30 was held in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, marking the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. It took place against record heat, physical disruption at the venue, and what was reported as the largest-ever attendance by fossil fuel lobbyists relative to other delegations.
What COP30 Delivered
Adaptation finance. The approved decisions include a commitment to triple adaptation finance by 2035, emphasizing the need for developed countries to significantly boost climate finance for developing nations. British Ecological Society
NDC submissions. Over 122 countries submitted new or updated NDCs, described as a decisive step toward shaping a new climate economy. British Ecological Society
A historic overshoot acknowledgment. For the first time in a COP decision, negotiators acknowledged the likelihood of overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius and the need to limit both its magnitude and duration. This formal acknowledgment represents a threshold moment for the international climate regime. Earth Law Center
Just transition. A new Just Transition Mechanism was established to support a fair and equitable global shift to a green economy for workers and communities. Ecological Society
Global Implementation Accelerator and Belém Mission to 1.5. Two new voluntary initiatives were launched to support countries in implementing their NDCs and keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach. The Global Implementation Accelerator will hold open information sessions in June and November 2026 before delivering a report and high-level meeting at COP31. Environmental Law Institute
Forests and Indigenous rights. The Tropical Forests Forever Facility, a Brazil-led blended-finance mechanism, was established to provide long-term, performance-based payments to tropical forest nations for conservation efforts. Ecological Society
Climate disinformation. COP30 formally acknowledged the harmful impact of climate disinformation and called for information integrity in science-based policymaking. Ecological Society
What COP30 Failed to Deliver
No fossil fuel phase-out roadmap. More than 80 countries advocated for a global roadmap to guide the transition away from fossil fuels, but negotiators failed to include it in the final decision, stymied by opposition from major petrostates. Neither the Global Implementation Accelerator nor the Belém Mission to 1.5 directly mentions fossil fuels. Earth Law Center
Weak NDC outcome. One senior analyst described the thin NDC outcome as the true failure of COP30: the result clearly placed the interests of the BRICS above those of the progressive and vulnerable parties. Earth Law Center
No formal engagement with the ICJ opinion. Despite the ICJ’s July 2025 opinion being the most authoritative legal statement ever made about state climate obligations, fossil fuel producers blocked any reference to it in the formal COP30 outcome texts.
The Emissions Gap: The Numbers Behind the Crisis
The annual UNEP Emissions Gap Report is the most authoritative assessment of the distance between current commitments and what is scientifically required. The 2025 edition, titled “Off Target,” establishes the following picture.
Global warming projections over this century, based on full implementation of NDCs, are now 2.3 to 2.5 degrees Celsius. Under current policies, the trajectory is 2.8 degrees Celsius. Reductions to annual emissions of 35 percent and 55 percent compared with 2019 levels are needed in 2035 to align with the Paris Agreement 2 degrees Celsius and 1.5 degrees Celsius pathways respectively. US EPA
Full implementation of all NDCs would reduce expected global emissions in 2035 by about 15 percent compared with 2019 levels, although the US withdrawal will change these figures. US EPA
The implementation gap makes the picture worse still. Countries are not on track to meet even their current 2030 NDC targets, let alone the more ambitious 2035 targets now being submitted. Emissions in 2030 would have to fall 25 percent from 2019 levels for 2 degrees Celsius pathways, and 40 percent for 1.5 degrees Celsius pathways, with only five years left to achieve this goal. US EPA
What States Are Legally Obligated to Do in 2026
Drawing together the Paris Agreement text, the COP decisions that have developed it, the ICJ advisory opinion, and the UNGA resolution of May 2026, the legal obligations of Paris Agreement parties can now be stated with more precision than at any point in the agreement’s history.
Submit NDCs reflecting highest possible ambition. An NDC is not adequate simply because it was submitted. It must be capable of making an adequate contribution to the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal and must be justifiable against the best available science and the party’s capabilities.
Ensure progressive ambition. Each successive NDC must be more demanding than the one before. Regression is prohibited. A party that submits a less ambitious NDC than its prior commitment breaches its obligations under Article 4.
Implement NDCs through domestic law. Submitting an NDC is necessary but not sufficient. States must translate commitments into enforceable domestic legal obligations: statutes, regulations, enforcement systems, and monitoring frameworks.
Regulate private actors. The ICJ’s due diligence standard requires states to regulate corporations and other private actors whose activities contribute to emissions. A state that licenses unlimited fossil fuel expansion while claiming Paris Agreement compliance is in breach.
Provide climate finance. Developed country parties must provide developing nations with financial support for mitigation and adaptation at a level that allows achievement of Paris Agreement goals. The voluntary loss and damage fund does not substitute for the legal obligation of reparation where harm has been caused.
Cooperate in good faith. The UNGA resolution calls on all states, including those that voted against it, to cooperate in good faith to prevent significant harm to the climate system.
What happens when states breach these obligations. The ICJ confirmed that breach constitutes an internationally wrongful act requiring restitution, compensation, and satisfaction. Any state, not only those directly harmed, can invoke responsibility for breaches under customary international law.
A Summary of the Key Developments in 2025 and 2026
| Development | Date | Significance |
| ICJ climate advisory opinion | July 23, 2025 | Confirmed 1.5C as primary legal target, NDCs are constrained by due diligence, fossil fuel regulation required |
| UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025 | November 4, 2025 | Current NDCs lead to 2.3-2.5C warming; new NDCs barely moved the needle |
| COP30 Belém Package | November 10-21, 2025 | Tripled adaptation finance, acknowledged 1.5C overshoot likely, failed on fossil fuel roadmap |
| US formal Paris Agreement withdrawal | January 27, 2026 | Second US departure; also withdrew from UNFCCC and IPCC |
| UNGA resolution endorsing ICJ opinion | May 20, 2026 | 141-8 vote operationalizing ICJ findings, affirming climate action as legal duty |
What the Paris Agreement Means for Businesses, Investors, and Advocates in 2026
For Businesses
The legal obligations confirmed by the ICJ and operationalized through the UNGA resolution tighten the regulatory environment in which corporations operate. States that are legally bound to implement their NDCs must regulate private sector emissions, creating progressive tightening of carbon pricing, disclosure, and sectoral regulations globally.
Companies in high-emitting sectors face the convergence of three legal pressures simultaneously: domestic regulatory tightening driven by Paris Agreement obligations, greenwashing enforcement under consumer protection law as covered in our greenwashing law guide, and the advancing framework of ecocide law that could criminalize the most severe forms of ecological destruction. Executives who authorize activities causing severe and widespread environmental harm face potential personal criminal liability, not merely corporate regulatory fines.
For Investors
The ICJ opinion and UNGA resolution create a more legally certain environment in which carbon-intensive asset risk can be assessed. Development banks, Equator Principles institutions, and ESG-aligned investors are incorporating the ICJ’s findings into their climate due diligence frameworks. Assets in sectors dependent on continued fossil fuel expansion face a progressively more legally challenged operating environment, as states are obligated to phase out new licensing regardless of political cycles.
For Climate Advocates and Affected Communities
The UNGA resolution’s acknowledgment that breaches of climate obligations may constitute internationally wrongful acts triggering full reparation is a direct legal foundation for the loss and damage claims that climate-vulnerable communities, particularly small island states, have been advancing for years. Vanuatu’s minister for climate change described the vote as a victory for “communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis.” “Today the international community affirmed that climate change is not only a political and economic challenge, but a matter of law, justice, and human rights.” US EPA
For communities navigating the practical mechanics of enforcing environmental rights domestically, our guide on how to file an environmental complaint in the US covers the available legal channels.
The Road to COP31 and Beyond
COP31 will take place in Turkey, with Australia as President of Negotiations. The Global Implementation Accelerator and Belém Mission to 1.5 will hold information sessions in June and November 2026 before reporting at COP31. Environmental Law Institute
The Bonn intersessional climate talks, scheduled for June 8 to 18, 2026, will address outstanding technical issues from COP30, including the finalization of Global Goal on Adaptation indicators. A Colombian summit on fossil fuel phase-out, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, is informing the COP30 Presidency roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The UNGA resolution requires the UN Secretary-General to report on advancing compliance with the ICJ opinion. Though the follow-up mechanism was weakened during negotiations, the obligation to report creates a regular accountability process that did not exist before May 20, 2026.
The pattern emerging from this sequence of legal and diplomatic developments is one of progressive legal consolidation around climate accountability, punctuated by fierce resistance from major emitters and fossil fuel interests. The ICJ’s unanimous opinion, the UNGA’s 141-nation endorsement, and the first formal COP acknowledgment of 1.5 degrees Celsius overshoot all point in the same direction, even as the emissions gap and the US withdrawal point in the other.
The Paris Agreement Through the Lens of Ecological Law
The Paris Agreement is the most sophisticated instrument of international environmental law on climate change. For scholars and advocates working in the field of ecological law, it is also a clear illustration of the structural limitations of environmental law as traditionally conceived.
The agreement’s architecture allows states to determine the content of their own climate obligations. The ICJ has constrained that discretion significantly, but a treaty framework in which major emitters can exit, reenter, and exit again based on domestic political cycles reflects a system built around state sovereignty rather than ecological necessity.
The difference between environmental law and ecological law is precisely visible in this architecture. Environmental law creates obligations between states. Ecological law asks a different question: what does the climate system, as a rights-bearing natural entity, require for its integrity? The rights of nature frameworks being advanced globally point toward an answer: if the atmosphere and climate system had legal standing, the question of whether states choose to protect them would be replaced by the question of whether states are legally required to do so by the system’s own rights.
The ICJ opinion moves meaningfully in this direction by recognizing the environment as the “foundation for human life” and treating climate protection as a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights. It does not yet grant the climate system independent legal rights. But the legal trajectory, from treaty obligation to customary law to human rights law to ecological rights, is one that ecocide law, rights of nature frameworks, and the top environmental laws being tested in courts worldwide are collectively advancing.
The Consortium for Ecological Law, based in New York and engaged with UN processes, works at this frontier: advancing Earth-centered legal frameworks within which the Paris Agreement operates not as the ceiling of climate ambition but as one instrument within a broader system of ecological accountability.
Final Thoughts: Legal Clarity Meets Political Resistance
The Paris Agreement in 2026 exists in a paradox. The legal framework governing climate obligations has never been clearer or more authoritatively stated. The ICJ’s unanimous opinion, confirmed by 141 nations in the UNGA, establishes that climate action is a binding legal duty, that NDCs must reflect genuine ambition, that fossil fuel regulation is required, and that breach carries real legal consequences including reparations.
At the same time, the world’s second-largest emitter has withdrawn from the treaty for the second time. Global emissions grew in 2024. Current policies lead toward 2.8 degrees Celsius of warming. The first formal COP acknowledgment that 1.5 degrees Celsius will likely be exceeded came a decade after the agreement set that as its primary goal.
What the legal clarity does is remove the argument that inaction is permissible. States, corporations, and investors can no longer credibly claim that climate obligations are political aspirations subject entirely to domestic discretion. The ICJ said otherwise, unanimously, and 141 nations voted to make that finding operational.
What the political resistance demonstrates is that legal clarity and political will are not the same thing. Closing the gap between them is the defining challenge of the next decade of climate governance.
That gap is exactly where the top environmental laws of the last fifty years have consistently fallen short, and it is precisely the gap that rights of nature frameworks, ecocide law, and the broader framework of ecological law are working to close. The Consortium for Ecological Law, based in New York and active in UN forums, is part of that work: advancing Earth-centered legal frameworks in which the climate system is protected not merely as a political objective but as the ecological foundation on which all law, and all life, depends.
