Representatives of 196 countries gathered in Paris at the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference on December 12, 2015.

The summit brought them together to draft an agreement on sustainability for the planet.

The main long-term goal: turning back the clock on global warming by limiting temperatures to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

But as no mechanism forces a country to set a specific emissions target by a specific date, is the Paris agreement succeeding, five years on?

Patricia Espinosa, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, talks to Al Jazeera.