--> The Paris climate agreement: Some hesitations from a legal perspective – Jesse Reynolds / international & technology environmental policy
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by Jonathan Verschuuren and Jesse L. Reynolds

Originally published at the Tilburg University Environmental Law blog

Bringing the entire international community to agreement on a legally binding international environmental instrument is an extraordinary achievement. The primary achievement is not so much its substance, but the simple fact that there is a new agreement that offers a way forward that is endorsed by representatives of all countries. The Paris climate agreement establishes the contours of a future ongoing process for cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The next ten to twenty years will show whether this actually significantly reduces climate change. The drawback of such an agreement that is acceptable to every state is that it must be modest in its commitments. Indeed, many original elements had to be deleted or watered down considerably.

Can the agreement [PDF] achieve its goal, that of holding the increase in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius, and ideally even to 1.5 degrees Celsius? The unfortunate truth is that doing so seems to be unattainable unless we allow overshooting [PDF].  That means that we would initially go beyond atmospheric GHG concentrations that would lead to 2 degrees, but then later lower them. This would require the rollout of “negative emission technologies” that could remove carbon dioxide—the leading GHG—from the atmosphere. Article 4 implicitly endorses this, stating that in the second half of the century a balance should be achieved between anthropogenic (i.e.human-caused) GHG emissions and “removals by sinks.” Article 5 (as well as the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change [PDF]) call for “sinks and reservoirs” of GHGs to be enhanced as well, something which many negative emission technologies would strive to do. However, these techniques remain untested and potentially risky at such scales.

Furthermore, the agreement’s commitments with regard to GHG emission cuts (called “mitigation” in climate-speak) lack clear focus. States are to make voluntary pledges, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This bottom-up approach is not entirely new, as these were the outcome of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit. The pledges that have since been submitted are estimated to lead to a 2.7 to 3.7 degree temperature rise by the end of this century. Countries are to submit new, more ambitious commitments every five years. Although this seems tepid, it is arguably the best that could be expected from an agreement with global participation. For the most part, countries are simply unwilling to undertake costly major GHG emissions cuts while their economic competitors do not. At the same time, this system of stepwise “ratcheting up” might be able to provide decision makers with assurance that all other countries are also taking action.

The effectiveness of this instrument thus still needs to be proven. Several mechanisms are in place to at least monitor the implementation of the NDCs. In 2023, the first “global stocktaking” will be performed “to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of this Agreement and its long-term goals” (Art. 14). The outcome of this will merely “inform” countries in updating and enhancing their policies, “in a nationally determined manner” (Art. 14.3). The enforcement provision was diluted considerably as well. Article 15 now just states that there will be a committee of experts that will facilitate compliance, “in a manner that is (…) non-adversarial and non-punitive.” It is unfortunate that the expertise that was built up within the Kyoto Protocol’s Enforcement Branch will not be better utilized under the Paris Agreement. Without a proper enforcement mechanism it remains to be seen how effective the NDCs will be.

Without a collective emissions reduction target, and instead a rather vague (and unattainable) target, one might wonder how national authorities are to decide which targets they should each adopt. Mitigation policies are typically long-term ones that require a clear path for several decades, with associated planned measures and available funds. Fortunately, several countries have recognized this and have laws that do that. The United Kingdom is a prime example, with its 2008 Climate Change Act, which plans ahead until 2050, when an 80% emission cut is to be achieved (relative to 1990). The EU as a whole has set GHG emissions targets for 2020, 2030, and 2050 (20%, 40%, and 80% GHG emissions reduction, respectively, relative to 1990 levels). The Paris summit showed that the international community as a whole is not willing to adopting such commitments in a binding fashion.

Ultimately, the Paris Agreement does not bring much that is truly new. It mostly codifies what has been developed over the past years under the UN process. This is true not only for GHG emissions cuts, but also for other topics such as adaptation, finances, technology transfer, and loss & damage. The work that is already being done under the existing mechanisms, such as the Financial Mechanism, the Technology Mechanism, and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, is reaffirmed  in a binding legal document, albeit in rather soft language that often utilizes the verb “should” instead of “shall.” However, the proposal to codify the emerging scheme on “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” (REDD+) did not survive the Paris negotiations, nor did the proposal to set up a Climate Change Displacement Coordination Facility. Both of these topics are important and bound to return to the negotiating table in future years.

Although Paris means a step forward, the reality is that the international community is unwilling to do what is needed and justified in order to prevent dangerous climate change. To a large degree, this can be explained by the fact that climate change presents an extremely difficult—if not “wicked”—problem. Genuinely effective action would require that leaders take steps whose costs are borne in the short term by their constituents but whose benefits are shared by the whole world and experienced in the future. Such bold decision-making would likely come at a steep political price. In the meantime, voluntary but hopefully escalating commitments may be best that we—and future generations—can expect.

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