In Depth: Global Climate Summit Ends in Disarray as U.S. Absence Upends Talks

(Belém, Brazil) — A decade ago, a landmark joint statement on climate change by the U.S. and China in Beijing paved the way for the historic Paris Agreement. The 2015 accord united 178 nations around a goal of holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 C.