By Christopher N. Fox, Ceres.

On Dec. 12, 2015, the world’s governments agreed to a universal, legally-binding agreement that sets out ambitious goals to tackle climate change, including:

Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C

Reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero in the second half of this century

While there are many challenges ahead to achieving these objectives, the Paris agreement provides a critical shot in the arm for clean energy investment globally. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted at the end of the climate talks, “Markets now have the clear signal they need to unleash the full force of human ingenuity and scale up investments that will generate low emissions and resilient growth.”