US President Donald Trump sent shockwaves through the international community in June 2017 when he announced that he would back out of a global agreement to tackle climate change.

The Paris Agreement was hailed as a landmark international deal when 194 countries, including the EU and China, signed up to sweeping pledges on the environment at a UN meeting in the French capital in late 2015.

The US is the second biggest polluter behind China and its exit raised questions over whether the goals set by the Paris Agreement could still be met.

But what exactly does the agreement entail?

Limit global warming to 'well below' 2°C, or 1.5°C if possible

The agreement aims to limit the increase in global average temperatures to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” – the level beyond which scientists say we will see the worst extremes of global warming.

It also aims to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.

In order to actually limit warming to that level, the aim is to “achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century” – in other words, net carbon emissions to be zero.