Environment groups hail what they call a momentous occasion but warn governments need to cut carbon emissions more steeply to avoid dangerous global warming.

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The Paris agreement agreed at the COP 21 meeting in the French capital last year marks the first time that governments have agreed legally binding limits to global temperature rises.

The passage of the accord – the fruit of more than two decades of often tortuous international negotiations on combating climate change – was hailed by nations and observers around the world.

Under the agreement, all governments, now carry an obligation to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. That is what scientists regard as the limit of safety, beyond which climate change is likely to become catastrophic and irreversible.

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