COP 21 was the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris France in December 2015. The conference negotiated the Paris Accord, a global agreement representing the commitment of 196 countries to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change. The agreement would become legally binding if joined by at least 55 countries (representing 55% of global greenhouse emissions) and signed between Earth Day 2016 and April 2017. The Paris Agreement entered into force in November 2016. Originally this included the United States. However,  on June 1, 2017, United States President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would cease participation in the 2015 Paris Accord, citing that the withdrawal would help American businesses and workers, especially those in the fossil fuel industry, and that the withdrawal was in accordance with his "America First" policy. However, withdrawal can not be legally finalized until after the next presidential election. And fortunately, city, state, business, and civic leaders across the United States and around the world have been ramping up efforts to drive clean energy advances and other actions needed to meet the goals of the accord.