The Paris Agreement (french: Accord de Paris), often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
. Adopted in 2015, the agreement covers
climate change mitigation
Climate change mitigation is action to limit climate change by reducing Greenhouse gas emissions, emissions of greenhouse gases or Carbon sink, removing those gases from the atmosphere. The recent rise in global average temperature is mostly caus ...
,
adaptation
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
, and
finance
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by 196
parties
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature fo ...
at the
2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Conve ...
near
Paris, France
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. As of September 2022, 194 members of the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in th ...
(UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. Of the four UNFCCC member states which have not
ratified
Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties inte ...
the agreement, the only major emitter is Iran. The United States withdrew from the Agreement in 2020, but rejoined in 2021.
The Paris Agreement was opened for signature on 22 April 2016 (
Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 b ...
) at a ceremony in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. After the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
ratified the agreement, sufficient countries had ratified the Agreement responsible for enough of the
world's greenhouse gases for the Agreement to enter into force on 4 November 2016.
The Paris Agreement's long-term temperature goal is to keep the rise in mean global temperature to well below above pre-industrial levels, and preferably limit the increase to , recognizing that this would substantially reduce the
effects of climate change
The effects of climate change impact the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies. The environmental effects of climate change are broad and far-reaching. They affect the water cycle, oceans, sea and land ice (glaciers), sea level ...
. Emissions should be reduced as soon as possible and reach
net-zero by the middle of the 21st century. To stay below 1.5°C of global warming, emissions need to be cut by roughly 50% by 2030. This is an aggregate of each country's
nationally determined contribution
A nationally determined contribution (NDC) or intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) is a non-binding national plan highlighting climate change mitigation, including climate-related targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. These ...
s.
It aims to help countries adapt to climate change effects, and mobilise enough finance. Under the Agreement, each country must determine, plan, and
regularly report on its contributions. No mechanism forces a country to set specific
emissions target
A climate target, climate goal or climate pledge is a measurable commitment for climate policy and energy policy with the aim of limiting the climate change. Researchers within, among others, the UN climate panel have identified probable co ...
s, but each target should go beyond previous targets. In contrast to the 1997
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...
, the distinction between developed and developing countries is blurred, so that the latter also have to submit plans for emission reductions.
The Agreement was lauded by world leaders, but criticised as insufficiently binding by some environmentalists and analysts. There is debate about the effectiveness of the Agreement. While
current pledges under the Paris Agreement are insufficient for reaching the set temperature goals, there is a mechanism of
increased ambition. The Paris Agreement has been successfully used in
climate litigation forcing countries and an oil company to strengthen climate action. On 4 July 2022, the
Supreme Federal Court
The Supreme Federal Court ( pt, Supremo Tribunal Federal, , abbreviated STF) is the supreme court (court of last resort) of Brazil, serving primarily as the Constitutional Court of the country. It is the highest court of law in Brazil for consti ...
of
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
recognized the Paris agreement as a
human rights treaty.
Development
Lead-up
The
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the ...
(UNFCCC), adopted at the 1992
Earth Summit
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio Conference or the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to June 14, 1992.
Earth Su ...
is one of the first international treaties on the topic. It stipulates that parties should meet regularly to address climate change, at the
Conference of Parties
A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic.
Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main pu ...
or COP. It forms the foundation to future climate agreements.
The
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...
, adopted in 1997, regulated
greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...
reductions for a limited set of countries from 2008 to 2012. The protocol was extended until 2020 with the Doha Amendment in 2012. The United States decided not to ratify the Protocol, mainly because of its legally-binding nature. This, and distributional conflict, led to failures of subsequent international climate negotiations. The 2009 negotiations were intended to produce a successor treaty of Kyoto, but the negotiations collapsed and the resulting
Copenhagen Accord
The Copenhagen Accord is a document which delegates at the 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to "take note of" at the final plenary on 18 December 2009.
The Accor ...
was not legally binding and did not get adopted universally.
The Accord did lay the framework for bottom-up approach of the Paris Agreement.
Under the leadership of UNFCCC executive secretary
Christiana Figueres
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen (born 7 August 1956) is a Costa Rican diplomat who has led national, international and multilateral policy negotiations. She was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFC ...
, negotiation regained momentum after Copenhagen's failure. During the
2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference
The 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) was held in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 11 December 2011 to establish a new treaty to limit carbon emissions.
A treaty was not established, but the conference agreed to est ...
, the
Durban Platform was established to negotiate a legal instrument governing
climate change mitigation
Climate change mitigation is action to limit climate change by reducing Greenhouse gas emissions, emissions of greenhouse gases or Carbon sink, removing those gases from the atmosphere. The recent rise in global average temperature is mostly caus ...
measures from 2020. The platform had a mandate to be informed by the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC and the work of the subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC. The resulting agreement was to be adopted in 2015.
Negotiations and adoption
Negotiations in Paris took place over a two-week span, and continued throughout the three final nights. Various drafts and proposals had been debated and streamlined in the preceding year. According to one commentator two ways in which the French increased the likelihood of success were: firstly to ensure that INDCs were completed before the start of the negotiations, and secondly to invite leaders just for the beginning of the conference.
The negotiations almost failed because of a single word when the US legal team realised at the last minute that "shall" had been approved, rather than "should", meaning that developed countries would have been legally obliged to cut emissions: the French solved the problem by changing it as a "typographical error". At the conclusion of COP21 (the 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties), on 12 December 2015, the final wording of the Paris Agreement was adopted by consensus by the 195 UNFCCC participating member states and the European Union.
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
indicated they had wanted to object to the adoption as they denounced the weakness of the Agreement, but were not given a chance. In the Agreement the members promised to
reduce their carbon output "as soon as possible" and to do their best to keep global warming "
to well below 2 degrees C" (3.6 °F).
Signing and entry into force
The Paris Agreement was open for signature by states and regional economic integration organizations that are parties to the UNFCCC (the convention) from 22 April 2016 to 21 April 2017 at the UN Headquarters in New York. Signing of the Agreement is the first step towards
ratification
Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties inten ...
, but it is possible to
accede
Accession refers to the general idea of joining or adding to. It may also refer to:
*Accession (property law)
* Accession, the act of joining a treaty by a party that did not take part in its negotiations; see Vienna Convention on the Law of Treat ...
to the Agreement without signing.
It binds parties to not act in contravention of the goal of the treaty. On 1 April 2016, the United States and China, which represent almost 40% of global emissions confirmed they would sign the Paris Climate Agreement. The Agreement was signed by 175 parties (174 states and the European Union) on the first day it was opened for signature.
As of March 2021, 194 states and the European Union have signed the Agreement.
The Agreement would enter into force (and thus become fully effective) if 55 countries that produce at least 55% of
the world's greenhouse gas emissions (according to a list produced in 2015)
ratify or otherwise join the treaty.
Alternative ways to join the treaty are acceptance, approval or accession. The first two are typically used when a head of state is not necessary to bind a country to a treaty, whereas the latter typically happens when a country joins a treaty already in force. After ratification by the European Union, the Agreement obtained enough parties to enter into effect on 4 November 2016.
Both the EU and its member states are individually responsible for ratifying the Paris Agreement. A strong preference was reported that the EU and its 28 member states ratify at the same time to ensure that they do not engage themselves to fulfilling obligations that strictly belong to the other,
and there were fears by observers that disagreement over each member state's share of the EU-wide reduction target, as well as Britain's
vote to leave the EU might delay the Paris pact.
However, the EU deposited its instruments of ratification on 5 October 2016, along with seven EU member states.
Parties
The EU and 193 states, totalling over 98% of
anthropogenic emissions, have ratified or acceded to the Agreement.
["Paris climate deal: US and China formally join pact"]
, BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
, 3 September 2016 (page visited on 4 September 2016). The only countries which have not ratified are some
greenhouse gas emitters in the Middle East: Iran with 2% of the world total being the largest.
Eritrea
Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia ...
,
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
and
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
have also not ratified the agreement.
Iraq is the latest country to ratify the agreement, on 1 November 2021.
Article 28 enables parties to withdraw from the Agreement after sending a withdrawal notification to the
depositary
In international law, a depositary is a government or organization to which a multilateral treaty is entrusted. The principal functions of a depositary are codified in Article 77 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Belgium
Belgium's M ...
. Notice can be given no earlier than three years after the Agreement goes into force for the country. Withdrawal is effective one year after the depositary is notified.
United States withdrawal and readmittance
On 4 August 2017, the
Trump administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
delivered an official notice to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
that the United States, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, intended to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as it was eligible to do so.
The notice of withdrawal could not be submitted until the Agreement was in force for three years for the US, on 4 November 2019. The U.S. government deposited the notification with the Secretary General of the United Nations and officially withdrew one year later on 4 November 2020.
President
Joe Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office, 20 January 2021, to re-admit the United States into the Paris Agreement. Following the 30-day period set by Article 21.3, the U.S. was readmitted to the Agreement.
United States Climate Envoy John Kerry took part in virtual events, saying that the US would "earn its way back" into legitimacy in the Paris process.
United Nations Secretary-General
The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
The role of the secretary-ge ...
António Guterres
António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres ( , ; born 30 April 1949) is a Portuguese politician and diplomat. Since 2017, he has served as secretary-general of the United Nations, the ninth person to hold this title. A member of the Portuguese Socia ...
welcomed the return of the United States as restoring the “missing link that weakened the whole".
Content
The Paris Agreement is a short agreement with 16 introductory paragraphs and 29 articles. It contains procedural (e.g. the criteria for entry into force) and operational articles (mitigation,
adaptation
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
and finance). It is a binding agreement, but many of its articles do not imply obligations or are there to facilitate international collaboration. It covers most greenhouse gas emissions, but does not apply to international aviation and shipping, which fall under the responsibility of the
International Civil Aviation Organization
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sc ...
and the
International Maritime Organization
The International Maritime Organization (IMO, French: ''Organisation maritime internationale'') is a specialised agency of the United Nations responsible for regulating shipping. The IMO was established following agreement at a UN conference ...
, respectively.
Aims
The aim of the agreement, as described in Article 2, is to have a stronger response to the danger of climate change; it seeks to enhance the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change through:
Countries furthermore aim to reach "global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible."
Nationally determined contributions
![Per Capita CO2 by Region](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Per_Capita_CO2_by_Region.svg)
Countries determine themselves what contributions they should make to achieve the aims of the treaty. As such, these plans are called ''
nationally determined contributions
A nationally determined contribution (NDC) or intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) is a non-binding national plan highlighting climate change mitigation, including climate-related targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. These ...
'' (NDCs).
[Article 3, Paris Agreement (2015)] Article 3 requires NDCs to be "ambitious efforts" towards "achieving the purpose of this Agreement" and to "represent a progression over time".
The contributions should be set every five years and are to be registered by the
UNFCCC Secretariat. Each further ambition should be more ambitious than the previous one, known as the principle of 'progression'. Countries can cooperate and pool their nationally determined contributions. The Intended Nationally Determined Contributions pledged during the
2015 Climate Change Conference
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Conve ...
are converted to NDCs when a country ratifies the Paris Agreement, unless they submit an update.
The Paris Agreement does not prescribe the exact nature of the NDCs. At a minimum, they should contain mitigation provisions, but they may also contain pledges on adaptation, finance,
technology transfer
Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform invent ...
,
capacity building
Capacity building (or capacity development, capacity strengthening) is the improvement in an individual's or organization's facility (or capability) "to produce, perform or deploy". The terms ''capacity building'' and ''capacity development'' ha ...
and transparency. Some of the pledges in the NDCs are unconditional, but others are conditional on outside factors such as getting finance and technical support, the ambition from other parties or the details of rules of the Paris Agreement that are yet to be set. Most NDCs have a conditional component.
While the NDCs themselves are not binding, the procedures surrounding them are. These procedures include the obligation to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs, set a new one every five years, and provide information about the implementation. There is no mechanism to force
a country to set a NDC target by a specific date, nor to meet their targets.
There will be only a
name and shame
To name and shame is to "publicly say that a person, group or business has done something wrong". It is a form of public shaming used to rally popular opinion against and in turn discourage certain kinds of behavior or enterprises. The practice o ...
system or as
János Pásztor
János Pásztor (1881–1945) was a renowned Hungarian academic art, academic sculptor in the first decades of the 20th century.
Early life
Pásztor learned sculptural arts in the School of Arts and Crafts (''Iparművészeti Iskola'', today Mo ...
, the former U.N. assistant secretary-general on climate change, stated, a "name and encourage" plan.
Global stocktake
Under the Paris Agreement, countries must increase their ambition every five years. To facilitate this, the Agreement established the
Global Stocktake The Global Stocktake is a fundamental component of the Paris Agreement which is used to monitor its implementation and evaluate the collective progress made in achieving the agreed goals. The Global Stocktake thus links implementation of Nationally ...
, which assesses progress, with the first evaluation in 2023. The outcome is to be used as input for new nationally determined contributions of parties. The
Talanoa Dialogue
The Talanoa Dialogue was a process designed to help countries implement and enhance their Nationally Determined Contributions by 2020. The Dialogue was mandated by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change to ta ...
in 2018 was seen as an example for the global stocktake. After a year of discussion, a report was published and there was a call for action, but countries did not increase ambition afterwards.
The stocktake works as part of the Paris Agreement's effort to create a "ratcheting up" of ambition in emissions cuts. Because analysts agreed in 2014 that the NDCs would not limit rising temperatures below 2 °C, the global stocktake reconvenes parties to assess how their new NDCs must evolve so that they continually reflect a country's "highest possible ambition".
While ratcheting up the ambition of NDCs is a major aim of the global stocktake, it assesses efforts beyond mitigation. The 5-year reviews will also evaluate adaptation,
climate finance
Climate finance is "finance that aims at reducing emissions, and enhancing sinks of greenhouse gases and aims at reducing vulnerability of, and maintaining and increasing the resilience of, human and ecological systems to negative climate change i ...
provisions, and technology development and transfer.
Structure
The Paris Agreement has been described as having a bottom-up structure, as its core
pledge and review
Pledge and review is a method for facilitating international action against climate change. It involves nations each making a self-determined pledge relating to actions they expect to take in response to global warming, which they submit to the Uni ...
mechanism allows nations to set their own NDCs, rather than having targets imposed top down.
Unlike its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, which sets commitment targets that have legal force, the Paris Agreement, with its emphasis on
consensus building, allows for voluntary and nationally determined targets.
The specific climate goals are thus politically encouraged, rather than legally bound. Only the processes governing the reporting and review of these goals are mandated under
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
. This structure is especially notable for the United States—because there are no legal mitigation or finance targets, the Agreement is considered an "executive agreement rather than a treaty". Because the UNFCCC treaty of 1992 received the consent of the US Senate, this new agreement does not require further legislation.
Another key difference between the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol is their scope. The Kyoto Protocol differentiated between
Annex-I, richer countries with a historical responsibility for climate change, and non-Annex-I countries, but this division is blurred in the Paris Agreement as all parties are required to submit emissions reduction plans.
The Paris Agreement still emphasises the principle of
Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capabilities—the acknowledgement that different nations have different capacities and duties to climate action—but it does not provide a specific division between developed and developing nations.
Mitigation provisions and carbon markets
Article 6 has been flagged as containing some of the key provisions of the Paris Agreement.
Broadly, it outlines the
cooperative approaches that parties can take in achieving their nationally determined carbon emissions reductions. In doing so, it helps establish the Paris Agreement as a framework for a global carbon market.
Article 6 is the only important part of the Agreement yet to be resolved;
negotiations in 2019 did not produce a result.
The topic is now expected to be settled during the
2021 negotiations in Glasgow.
Linkage of carbon trading systems and ITMOs
Paragraphs 6.2 and 6.3 establish a framework to govern the
international transfer of mitigation outcomes (ITMOs). The Agreement recognises the rights of parties to use emissions reductions outside of their own borders toward their NDC, in a system of carbon accounting and trading.
This provision requires the "linkage" of carbon emissions trading systems—because measured emissions reductions must avoid "double counting", transferred mitigation outcomes must be recorded as a gain of emission units for one party and a reduction of emission units for the other,
a so called "corresponding adjustment". Because the NDCs, and domestic carbon trading schemes, are heterogeneous, the ITMOs will provide a format for global linkage under the auspices of the UNFCCC.
The provision thus also creates a pressure for countries to adopt emissions management systems—if a country wants to use more cost-effective cooperative approaches to achieve their NDCs, they will have to monitor carbon units for their economies.
So far, as the only country who wants to buy ITMOs, Switzerland has signed deals regarding ITMO tradings with Peru, Ghana, Senegal, Georgia, Dominica, Vanuatu, Thailand and Ukraine.
Sustainable Development Mechanism
Paragraphs 6.4-6.7 establish a mechanism "to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gases and support sustainable development". Though there is no official name for the mechanism as yet, it has been referred to as the Sustainable Development Mechanism or SDM.
The SDM is considered to be the successor to the
Clean Development Mechanism
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a United Nations-run carbon offset scheme allowing countries to fund greenhouse gas emissions-reducing projects in other countries and claim the saved emissions as part of their own efforts to meet internati ...
, a mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol by which parties could collaboratively pursue emissions reductions.
The SDM is set to largely resemble the Clean Development Mechanism, with the dual goal of contributing to global GHG emissions reductions and supporting sustainable development. Though the structure and processes governing the SDM are not yet determined, certain similarities and differences from the Clean Development Mechanisms have become clear. A key difference is that the SDM will be available to all parties as opposed to only
Annex-I parties, making it much wider in scope.
The Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol was criticised for failing to produce either meaningful emissions reductions or sustainable development benefits in most instances. and for its complexity. It is possible that the SDM will see difficulties.
Climate change adaptation provisions
Climate change adaptation
Climate change adaptation is the process of adjusting to current or expected effects of climate change.IPCC, 2022Annex II: Glossary öller, V., R. van Diemen, J.B.R. Matthews, C. Méndez, S. Semenov, J.S. Fuglestvedt, A. Reisinger (eds.) InClimat ...
received more focus in Paris negotiations than in previous climate treaties. Collective, long-term adaptation goals are included in the Agreement, and countries must report on their adaptation actions, making it a parallel component with mitigation.
The adaptation goals focus on enhancing
adaptive capacity Adaptive capacity relates to the capacity of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to respond to consequences. In the context of ecosystems, adaptive capacity is deter ...
, increasing
resilience, and limiting vulnerability.
Ensuring finance
![GCF Signed Pledges 2018](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/GCF_Signed_Pledges_2018.svg)
Developed countries reaffirmed the commitment to mobilise $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020, and agreed to continue mobilising finance at this level until 2025. The money is for supporting mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.
It includes finance for the
Green Climate Fund
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a fund established within the framework of the UNFCCC as an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism to assist developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change. The GCF is ba ...
, which is a part of the UNFCCC, but also for a variety of other public and private pledges. The Paris Agreement states that a new commitment of at least $100 billion per year has to be agreed before 2025.
Though both mitigation and adaptation require increased climate financing, adaptation has typically received lower levels of support and has mobilized less action from the private sector.
A report by the OECD found that 16% of global climate finance was directed toward climate adaptation in 2013–2014, compared to 77% for mitigation. The Paris Agreement called for a balance of climate finance between adaptation and mitigation, and specifically increasing adaptation support for parties most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including
Least developed countries and
Small Island Developing States
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a group of developing countries that are small island countries which tend to share similar sustainable development challenges. These include small but growing populations, limited resources, remoteness, ...
. The Agreement also reminds parties of the importance of public grants, because adaptation measures receive less investment from the public sector.
In 2015, twenty Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and members of the International Development Finance Club introduced five principles to maintain widespread climate action in their investments: commitment to climate strategies, managing climate risks, promoting climate smart objectives, improving climate performance and accounting for their own actions. As of January 2020, the number of members abiding by these principles grew to 44.
Some specific outcomes of the elevated attention to adaptation financing in Paris include the
G7 countries
The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member". It is official ...
' announcement to provide US$420 million for
climate risk insurance
Climate risk insurance is a type of insurance designed to mitigate the financial and other risk associated with climate change, especially phenomena like extreme weather. The insurance is often treated as a type of insurance needed for improving ...
, and the launching of a Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) Initiative. The largest donors to multilateral climate funds, which includes the Green Climate Fund, are the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France and Sweden.
Loss and damage
It is not possible to adapt to all effects of climate change: even in the case of optimal adaptation, severe damage may still occur. The Paris Agreement recognises
loss and damage
In the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, loss and damage is the harm caused by anthropogenic (human-generated) climate change.
The appropriate response to loss and damage has been disputed since the UNFC ...
of this kind.
Loss and damage can stem from
extreme weather events
Extreme weather or extreme climate events includes unexpected, unusual, severe weather, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Often, extreme events are b ...
, or from slow-onset events such as the loss of land to
sea level rise
Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...
for low-lying islands.
Previous climate agreements classified loss and damage as a subset of adaptation.
The push to address loss and damage as a distinct issue in the Paris Agreement came from the
Alliance of Small Island States
Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is an intergovernmental organization of low-lying coastal and small island countries. AOSIS was established in 1990, ahead of the Second World Climate Conference. The main purpose of the alliance is to con ...
and the Least Developed Countries, whose economies and livelihoods are most vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change.
The
Warsaw Mechanism
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP19 or CMP9 was held in Warsaw, Poland from 11 to 23 November 2013. This is the 19th yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 19) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Cli ...
, established two years earlier during COP19 and set to expire in 2016, categorises loss and damage as a subset of adaptation, which was unpopular with many countries. It is recognized as a separate pillar of the Paris Agreement. The United States argued against this, possibly worried that classifying the issue as separate from adaptation would create yet another climate finance provision.
In the end, the Agreement calls for "averting, minimizing, and addressing loss and damage"
but specifies that it cannot be used as the basis for liability. The Agreement adopts the Warsaw Mechanism, an institution that will attempt to address questions about how to classify, address, and share responsibility for loss.
Transparency
The parties are legally bound to have their progress tracked by technical expert review to assess achievement toward the NDC and to determine ways to strengthen ambition.
Article 13 of the Paris Agreement articulates an "enhanced transparency framework for action and support" that establishes harmonized
monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) requirements. Both developed and developing nations must report every two years on their mitigation efforts, and all parties will be subject to technical and peer review.
While the enhanced transparency framework is universal, the framework is meant to provide "built-in flexibility" to distinguish between developed and developing countries' capacities. The Paris Agreement has provisions for an enhanced framework for capacity building, recognises the varying circumstances of countries, and notes that the technical expert review for each country consider that country's specific capacity for reporting.
Parties to the Agreement send their first Biennial Transparency Report (BTR), and
greenhouse gas inventory
Greenhouse gas inventories are emission inventories of greenhouse gas emissions that are developed for a variety of reasons. Scientists use inventories of natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions as tools when developing atmospheric m ...
figures to the UNFCCC by 2024 and every two years after that. Developed countries submit their first BTR in 2022 and inventories annually from that year. The Agreement also develops a Capacity-Building Initiative for Transparency to assist developing countries in building the necessary
institution
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s and processes for compliance.
Flexibility can be incorporated into the enhanced transparency framework via the scope, level of detail, or frequency of reporting, tiered based on a country's capacity. The requirement for in-country technical reviews could be lifted for some less developed or small island developing countries. Ways to assess capacity include financial and human resources in a country necessary for NDC review.
Implementation and effectiveness
The Paris Agreement is implemented via national policy. It would involve improvements to
energy efficiency
Energy efficiency may refer to:
* Energy efficiency (physics), the ratio between the useful output and input of an energy conversion process
** Electrical efficiency, useful power output per electrical power consumed
** Mechanical efficiency, a ra ...
to decrease the
energy intensity
Energy intensity is a measure of the energy inefficiency of an economy. It is calculated as units of energy per unit of GDP.
* High energy intensities indicate a high price or cost of converting energy into GDP.
* Low energy intensity indicate ...
of the global economy. Implementation also requires fossil fuel burning to be cut back and the share of
sustainable energy
Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as greenh ...
to grow rapidly. Emissions are being reduced rapidly in the electricity sector, but not in the building, transport and heating sector. Some industries are difficult to decarbonise, and for those
carbon dioxide removal
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR), also known as negative emissions, is a process in which carbon dioxide gas () is removed from the atmosphere and sequestered for long periods of time. Similarly, greenhouse gas removal (GGR) or negative greenho ...
may be necessary to achieve
net-zero emissions
Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal (often through carbon offsetting) or by eliminating emissions from society (the transition to the "p ...
.
In a report released in 2022 the IPCC promotes the need for innovation and technological changes in combination with consumption and production behavioral changes to meet Paris Agreement objectives.
To stay below 1.5°C of global warming, emissions need to be cut by roughly 50% by 2030. This is an aggregate of each country's
nationally determined contribution
A nationally determined contribution (NDC) or intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) is a non-binding national plan highlighting climate change mitigation, including climate-related targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. These ...
s. By mid-century, emissions would need to be cut to zero, and total greenhouse gases would net to be net-zero just after mid-century.
There are barriers to implementing the Agreement. Some countries struggle to attract the finance necessary for investments in decarbonisation. Climate finance is fragmented, further complicating investments. Another issue is the lack of capabilities in government and other institutions to implement policy.
Clean technology
Clean technology, in short cleantech, is any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental protection activities. Cle ...
and
knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
is often not transferred to countries or places that need it.
In December 2020, the former chair of the COP 21,
Laurent Fabius
Laurent Fabius (; born 20 August 1946) is a French politician serving as President of the Constitutional Council since 8 March 2016. A member of the Socialist Party, he previously served as Prime Minister of France from 17 July 1984 to 20 Marc ...
, argued that the implementation of the Paris Agreement could be bolstered by the adoption of a
Global Pact for the Environment
The Global Pact for the Environment project was launched in 2017 by a network of experts known as the "International Group of Experts for the Pact" (IGEP). The group is made up of more than a hundred legal experts in environmental law and is chair ...
. The latter would define the environmental rights and duties of states, individuals and businesses.
Effectiveness of mitigation
![Greenhouse gas emission scenarios 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Greenhouse_gas_emission_scenarios_01.svg)
The effectiveness of the Paris Agreement to reach its climate goals is under debate, with most experts saying it is insufficient for its more ambitious goal of keeping global temperature rise under 1.5 °C.
Many of the exact provisions of the Paris Agreement have yet to be straightened out, so that it may be too early to judge effectiveness.
According to the 2020 United Nations Environment Programme (
UNEP
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...
), with the current climate commitments of the Paris Agreement, global mean temperatures will likely rise by more than 3 °C by the end of the 21st century. Newer net-zero commitments were not included in the NDCs, and may bring down temperatures a further 0.5 °C.
With initial pledges by countries inadequate, faster and more expensive future mitigation would be needed to still reach the targets. Furthermore, there is a gap between pledges by countries in their NDCs and implementation of these pledges; one third of the emission gap between the lowest-costs and actual reductions in emissions would be closed by implementing existing pledges.
[ Minor grammatical amendments were made.] A pair of studies in ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
'' found that as of 2017 none of the major industrialized nations were implementing the policies they had pledged, and none met their pledged emission reduction targets,
and even if they had, the sum of all member pledges (as of 2016) would not keep global temperature rise "well below 2 °C".
In 2021, a study using a
probabilistic
Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...
model concluded that the rates of emissions reductions would have to increase by 80% beyond
NDCs to likely meet the 2°C upper target of the Paris Agreement, that the probabilities of major emitters meeting their NDCs without such an increase is very low. It estimated that with current trends the probability of staying below 2 °C of warming is 5% – and 26% if NDCs were met and continued post-2030 by all signatories.
[ ]
Available under CC BY 4.0
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...
.
Effectiveness of capacity building and adaptation
, there is little scientific literature on the topics of the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement on
capacity building
Capacity building (or capacity development, capacity strengthening) is the improvement in an individual's or organization's facility (or capability) "to produce, perform or deploy". The terms ''capacity building'' and ''capacity development'' ha ...
and adaptation, even though they feature prominently in the Paris Agreement. The literature available is mostly mixed in its conclusions about loss and damage, and adaptation.
International response
The Agreement was lauded by French President
François Hollande
François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...
, UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Minister ...
and
Christiana Figueres
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen (born 7 August 1956) is a Costa Rican diplomat who has led national, international and multilateral policy negotiations. She was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFC ...
, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC.
The president of Brazil,
Dilma Rousseff
Dilma Vana Rousseff (; born 14 December 1947) is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th president of Brazil, holding the position from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She is the first w ...
, called the Agreement "balanced and long-lasting", and India's prime minister
Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
commended the Agreement's
climate justice
Climate justice is a concept that addresses the just division, fair sharing, and equitable distribution of the burdens of climate change and its mitigation and responsibilities to deal with climate change. "Justice", "fairness", and "equity" ar ...
. When the Agreement achieved the required signatures in October 2016, US President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
said that "Even if we meet every target, we will only get to part of where we need to go."
He also stated "this agreement will help delay or avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change
ndwill help other nations ratchet down their emissions over time."
Some
environmentalist
An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...
s and analysts reacted cautiously, acknowledging the "spirit of Paris" in bringing together countries, but expressing less optimism about the pace of climate mitigation and how much the Agreement could do for poorer countries.
James Hansen
James Edward Hansen (born March 29, 1942) is an American adjunct professor directing the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is best known for his research in climatology, his 1 ...
, a former NASA scientist and leading climate change expert, voiced anger that most of the Agreement consists of "promises" or aims and not firm commitments and called the Paris talks a fraud with "no action, just promises".
Criticism on the Agreement from those arguing against climate action has been diffuse, which may be due to the weakness of the Agreement. This type of criticism typically focusses on national sovereignty and ineffectiveness of international action.
Litigation
The Paris Agreement has become a focal point of climate change litigation. One of the first major cases in this area was ''
State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation
''State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation'' (Dutch: ''De Staat der Nederlanden v. Stichting Urgenda'') was a court case heard by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands in 2019 related to government efforts to curtail carbon dioxide emissions. ...
'', which was raised against the Netherlands' government after it had reduced its planned emissions reductions goal for 2030 prior to the Paris Agreement. After an initial ruling against the government in 2015 that required it to maintain its planned reduction, the decision was upheld on appeals through the
Supreme Court of the Netherlands
The Supreme Court of the Netherlands ( nl, Hoge Raad der Nederlanden or simply ''Hoge Raad''), officially the High Council of the Netherlands, is the final court of appeal in civil, criminal and tax cases in the Netherlands, including Curaçao ...
in 2019, ruling that the Dutch government failed to uphold human rights under Dutch law and the
European Convention on Human Rights
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...
by lowering its emission targets. The 2°C temperature target of the Paris Agreement provided part of the judgement's legal basis. The Agreement, whose goals are enshrined in German law, also formed part of the argumentation in ''
Neubauer et al. v. Germany Neubauer or Neubaur is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Adolf Neubauer, Rabbinical scholar
*Alfred Neubauer, Mercedes Grand Prix racing manager
*Chuck Neubauer, Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist
* Dagmar Neubauer, Germa ...
,'' where the court ordered Germany to reconsider its climate targets.
In May 2021, the district court of
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
ruled against oil company
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
in ''
Milieudefensie et al v Royal Dutch Shell
''Milieudefensie et al v Royal Dutch Shell'' was a case heard by the district court of The Hague in the Netherlands in 2021 related to efforts by multinational corporations to curtail carbon dioxide emissions. In May 2021, the court ordered Roya ...
''. The court ruled that it must cut its global emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030, as it was in violation of human rights. This lawsuit was considered the first major application of the Paris Agreement towards a corporation.
Paris agreement as a human rights issue
On 4 July 2022, the
Supreme Federal Court
The Supreme Federal Court ( pt, Supremo Tribunal Federal, , abbreviated STF) is the supreme court (court of last resort) of Brazil, serving primarily as the Constitutional Court of the country. It is the highest court of law in Brazil for consti ...
of
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
recognized the Paris agreement as a "
humans right treaty". According to the ruling of the court in Brazil it should "supersede national law".
In the same month the
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...
in a resolution "(A/HRC/50/L.10/Rev.1) on Human rights and climate change, adopted without a vote" called to ratify and implement the agreement and emphasised the link between stopping climate change and the right to food.
The
officially recognized that "Climate change threatens the effective enjoyment of a range of human rights including those to life, water and sanitation, food, health, housing, self-determination, culture and development."
See also
*
2020s in environmental history
This is an environmental history of the 2020s. Environmental history refers to events and trends related to the natural environment and human interactions with it. Examples of human-induced events include biodiversity loss, climate change and holo ...
*
Air pollution
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...
*
*
Climate debt
Climate debt is the debt said to be owed to developing countries by developed countries for the damage caused by their disproportionately large contributions to climate change. Historical global greenhouse gas emissions, largely by developed countr ...
*
*
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the sixth in a series of reports which assess scientific, technical, and socio-economic information concerning climate change. Three ...
*
Kigali Amendment
The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol is an international agreement to gradually reduce the consumption and production of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). It is a legally binding agreement designed to create rights and obligations in internatio ...
*
Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is an outcome of the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference. Its tentative title had been the "Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework". The GBF was adopted by the 15th Conference of Part ...
*
Politics of climate change
The politics of climate change results from different perspectives on how to respond to climate change. Global warming is driven largely by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human economic activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, ...
*
Science diplomacy
Science diplomacy is the use of scientific collaborations among nations to address common problems and to build constructive international partnerships. Science diplomacy is a form of new diplomacy and has become an umbrella term to describe a n ...
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
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International human rights instruments are the treaties and other international texts that serve as legal sources for international human rights law and the protection of human rights in general. There are many varying types, but most can be clas ...
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