What is the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement comes up in most conversations about climate change. For those who are just being introduced to climate change issues, the Paris Agreement is the binding agreement reached on climate change by United Nations (UN) member countries in 2015, in Paris, at the COP 21 conference. COP is the ‘Conference of the Parties,’ and it’s basically the annual meeting of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is the main UN organization overseeing the global response to the impact of climate change. The 2015 Paris conference remains consequential because there the international community agreed for the first time to a set of binding actions, geared toward addressing the effects of climate change. The agreement was signed by all United Nations member states except Libya, Iran and Yemen, and as the text of the agreement says, it was “recognizing the need for an effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge.”

At the Paris conference, the international community agreed to work collectively to increase the use of renewable energies and rely less on fossil fuels, in order to decrease the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere so as to avoid the world’s temperature from rising more than 1.5 Degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above the world’s average temperature before the Industrial Revolution (see, what is climate change?). Anything above a 1.5 Degree Celcius increase, the Paris Agreement argues, would jeopardize human life and the lives of other living things on the planet.

It was also agreed at the conference that individual countries should work toward making their countries more adaptable to the effects of climate change, and just as important, it was agreed that Developed Countries and private entities would assist Developing Countries with financing, the necessary technology and other resources as these poorer countries try to mitigate and adapt to the new climate situation.

The Paris Agreement requires countries to provide progress reports on a five-year basis, to the UN, describing the way they are restructuring their nations to address climate change: “Every five years each country is expected to submit an updated national climate action plan known as National Determined Contribution or NDC,” the Agreement says. The NDCs are to list real and projected cuts to carbon dioxide emissions as well as climate adaptation achievements and projections. Other progress reports, mainly on a two-year basis, are required about countries’ mitigation and adaptation programs, including information on the assistance Developed Countries and other entities are extending to Developing Countries.

The concept of countries achieving ‘net-zero’ emissions is mentioned often in climate change literature. The exact words ‘net-zero’ are not mentioned in the text of the Paris Agreement, but regarding this general concept, the agreement says, “In order to achieve the long-term temperature goals set out in Article 2, parties [countries] aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, recognizing that peaking will take longer for developing country parties, and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with the best available science, so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic [human-created] emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century.” Basically, what this means is that the agreement expects countries at some point to reach a certain threshold or ‘peak’ in greenhouse gas emissions, and after that, each country should seek to counter ‘balance’ new nationally produced carbon emissions with the removal of, at least, an equal amount of emissions from the environment. This is what is generally considered to be ‘net-zero’ emissions. The agreement requires nations to achieve this counterbalancing approach by 2050, and to achieve net-zero the text of the agreement recommends the use of “the best available science.” Fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas used in electricity generation, transportation and manufacturing create some of the main sources of greenhouse gases, so the Agreement recommends countries switch to alternative forms of energy, like solar, wind and hydropower, as much as possible and as quickly as possible. Carbon ‘sinks’ include the forests, which absorb and store a fair amount of carbon dioxide. The ocean and carbon capture techniques that trap and store carbon dioxide are considered to be additional forms of carbon sinks. The agreement requires nations to engage in the creation and preservation of sinks.

As the text shows, the Paris Agreement encourages member countries to work together, as much as possible, to combat climate change “in a coordinated and effective manner, including through, inter alia, mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology transfer and capacity-building, as appropriate.” The Agreement is aware, it seems, that competition among countries could be counterproductive to its overall goals. It also recognizes that some countries are more susceptible to the effects of climate change than others, it states, “Parties recognize the importance of support for and international cooperation on adaptation efforts and the importance of taking into account the needs of developing country parties, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.”

As mentioned before, countries are required by the agreement to share with one another expertise and knowledge on combating climate change, including in the area of technology transfer, for example, those used in ‘early warning systems’ for rainstorms and floods and those used in advanced ’emergency preparedness’ techniques. The Paris Agreement is particularly concerned about the fate of small, poor, vulnerable countries that, for many reasons, are in little or no position to sufficiently and independently adapt to climate change. It says, “Capacity-building under this agreement should enhance the capacity and ability of developing country parties, in particular countries with the least capacity, such as the least developed countries, and those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, such as small island developing states, to take effective climate change action.”

The COP conference was well aware that without adequate public knowledge of the danger climate change poses and the necessity of the Paris Agreement’s binding recommendations, governments’ policies would probably be very difficult to implement due to a possible lack of acceptance by citizens. Therefore, the text of the Agreement makes it compulsory that “parties shall cooperate in taking measures, as appropriate, to enhance climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation, and public access to information, recognizing the importance of these steps with respect to enhancing actions under the agreement”.

In order to build trust among countries and to show that all member states are working together in good faith to counter climate change, the Paris Agreement forms what is called “an enhanced transparency framework”. Because of this, all reports sent to the conference by countries could be made available, transparently, to all members. The Agreement also creates a special committee to monitor compliance with the proposals of the Agreement, which reports annually to COP. The special committee, it says, “shall be expert-based and facilitative in nature and function in a manner that is transparent, non-adversarial and non-punitive. The committee shall pay particular attention to the respective national capabilities and circumstances of Parties”. The Paris Agreement is legally binding but not legally enforceable, ultimately, its implementation rests on the will and capability of participating countries.