The international community, which included 195 countries, reached an agreement
at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which took place in Paris,
France, from November 30 to December 11, 2015. Participants and the media have
welcomed the agreement as a major policy turning point in the fight against
human-caused climate change.
The following is a brief critical analysis in which
I explain why the Paris Agreement makes no difference. I discuss how the
Agreement was obtained by omitting practically all fundamental problems related
to the causes of human-caused climate change and by providing no specific plans
of action. Instead of making significant reductions in carbon and greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions as soon as possible, the promisers objectives promise an
increase in damages and see worst-case scenarios as a 50:50 likelihood.
The
Paris Agreement represents a commitment to long-term economic expansion, risk
management over disaster prevention, and the role of future inventions and
technology as a saviour. The international community's principal commitment is
to maintain the current social and economic structure. As a result, there is a
scepticism that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is incompatible with long-term
economic growth.
The reality is that nation states and transnational businesses
are expanding fossil fuel energy exploration, extraction, and combustion, as
well as accompanying infrastructure for production and consumption, at an
unstoppable pace. The Paris Agreement's goals and pledges have little to do with
biophysical, social, or economic reality.
Introduction
The Paris Agreement as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of
the 2030 Development Agenda made 2015 a memorable year for the international
community. With 17 goals and 169 targets that apply to both developing and
developed countries, the SDGs aim to alter the world by assuring human
well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental protection at the same time
(United Nations General Assembly, 2015).
Similarly, the Paris Agreement unites
all nations, industrialised and developing, in a common cause to reduce global
warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius,
relative to pre-industrial levels (United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change, 2015). One of the most notable accomplishments is that it links
between development and climate change are clearly stated in each publication.
This decision was made in awareness of the fact that development and climate
change must be tackled concurrently in order to avoid adverse tradeoffs and high
costs, particularly for developing nations, as well as to maximise the benefits
of establishing these ties.
Many researchers, on the other hand, are concerned about the Paris agreement
possible incompatibility, particularly the incompatibility of socioeconomic
progress and environmental sustainability (International Council for Science and
International Social Science Council, 2015). Numerous studies, in particular,
have discussed the conflict between the SDGs' sustainability and growth goals (Hickel,
2019).
The SDGs, according to Gupta and Vegelin (2016), represent "tradeoffs in
favour of economic growth over social well-being and ecological viability." The
fact that some SDG metrics are highly connected with GNI per capita supports
these assertions.
There is tension among private sector for implementation of sayings of Paris
agreement and SDG. There are arguments like business is neither a superhero or a
"magic bullet" (McEwan, Mawdsley, Banks, & Scheyvens, 2017) that it can give
economic strength and climate control simultaneously. Developing countries still
have a long way to go before modernisation, they would face greater challenges
than developed countries if pursuing economic growth through various policy
measures, such as private sector development, inevitably leads to increased
energy demands and CO2 emissions (Han & Chatterjee, 1997).
The link between
economic growth, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions has been the subject of
several studies. Previous empirical research strongly suggest that economic
development plays a role in the nexus between economic growth and environmental
protection (Tiba & Omri, 2017). Implementing the Paris agreement would
necessitate compromise in terms of CO2 emissions mitigation if the Paris
agreement strongly incorporate growth ambitions, which ultimately lead to higher
CO2 emissions. In contrast, if too strict emission reduction measures are
implemented, poverty reduction may be slowed relative to the reference scenario.
To understand whether trade-off genuinely exists between overall SDG development
and CO2 emissions change for different nations are needed to understand.
However, almost no research of this nature has ever been done previously.
The article offers light on expectations for the countries in achieving the
Paris agreement success and reducing CO2 emissions at the same time and whether
it would be possible or not.
List of Abbreviations:
- UNFCCC - United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- The Convention - United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
- COP - Conference of Parties
- SDG - Sustainable Development Goals
- NDC - National Determined Contributions
Legal Framework
The 2015 Paris Agreement is described as a "legally enforceable international
pact on climate change" by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
However, the agreement has caused several famous experts to contend that the
Paris Agreement is not, in fact, a legally binding treaty.
The Paris Understanding's power is based on a fluid pact about the repercussions
of breaking an international agreement that isn't fully defined.
The Paris Agreement, the 27-page agreement that set the parameters for the
climate talks at COP26, has been dogged by one question for a long time: Is it
legally enforceable?
The 2015 Paris Agreement is described as a "legally enforceable international
pact on climate change" by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
However, the treaty itself has limited legal enforce. It does not impose
penalties for parties who break its provisions, such as fees or embargo, and
there is no international court or regulating authority to ensure compliance. As
a result, some famous experts have argued that the Paris Agreement is not, in
fact, a legally enforceable instrument.
Arizona State University law professor Daniel Brodansky disagrees. He noted in
Receil, an environmental legal journal, in 2016 that the binary argument
obscures a more nuanced fact. While nations (and other jurisdictions) can
establish clear norms about the legal authority of contacts within their
borders, international law is less clear. Agreements enforceability is based on
a shared understanding of what a legal bond signifies in the global community.
Is there any part of the Paris Agreement that is genuinely legally binding?
The subject of how legal and enforceable the Paris Agreement may be was hotly
disputed when it was being drafted by global delegates from potential member
countries. The US, for example, could not be held responsible for specific
results if it backed the deal. If it had, former President Barack Obama would
have needed the support of two-thirds of the US Senate, which was dominated at
the time by Republican members opposed to the pact.
Instead, treaty negotiators made an ingenious concession: they chose to make the
treaty's required processes legally enforceable rather than the responsibility
to fulfil predetermined goals. That is, the agreement legally binds countries to
develop and revise nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the collective
effort to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and keep global warming below 2
degrees Celsius, for example. It also requires that they meet and report on
their progress at international conferences like as COP26.
Analysis
- The Good: Climate change policy is making a comeback.
The time leading up to the signing of the Paris Agreement gave the multilateral
process of creating a worldwide approach to climate change mitigation and
adaptation a much-needed boost. At the start of the summit, unprecedented
participation by world leaders, including President Barack Obama, Chinese
President Xi Jinping, and other heads of state, helped set the tone, allowing
national delegations to make the necessary compromises.
As a result, the text now includes a new collective goal of "keeping global
average temperature increases well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and
pursuing efforts to restrict temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial
levels" (Article 2).
The Paris Agreement's near-universal involvement and acceptance of
responsibility is a big positive. This is a significant improvement from the
1997 Kyoto Protocol, which only demanded mitigation action from a small number
of industrial countries that accounted for the majority of historical emissions.
- The bad: Uncontrollable and erratic
The Paris Agreement established a new, and largely concerning, form of
government voluntary "nationally decided contributions." Many of the outcomes
are predicted to be driven by market forces and yet to be commercialized
innovative technologies, with international leaders cheering the transformation
on.
Many significant players, including the United States, China, and India, are
interested in this new form of voluntary national actions for various reasons.
However, it places the future schedule for actual emission reductions in the
hands of the world's biggest polluters, with no collective framework in place to
ensure that individual countries fulfil specific targets.
The system's success is overly reliant on the good will of international
leaders. Many national politicians who spent political capital in making the
Paris Agreement a reality are no longer in government to oversee even initial
implementation - for example, US President Barack Obama is not in office to do
so. It is difficult to predict the sustained interest of those who have replaced
them.
- Which countries are responsible for climate change?
Developing countries contend that, over time, affluent countries have released
more greenhouse gases. They argue that because they were allowed to grow their
economies without restraint, these wealthy countries should now shoulder a
greater share of the responsibility. Indeed, the US has produced the greatest
emissions of all time, followed by the European Union (EU).
China and India, along with the United States, are now among the world's top
annual emitters. Developed countries have argued that they must act sooner
rather than later to combat climate change.
Major climate agreements have evolved in how they target carbon reductions in
the midst of this discussion. Only rich countries were expected to reduce
emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, whereas the Paris Agreement recognised
climate change as a global issue and compelled all countries to establish
emissions targets.
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