It has been a week since COP21 ended and I finally have time to finish this serie. For recap, some of the best moments are summarised in this ten-minute video by UNFCCC:
The closing remarks were all emotional and optimistic - a historic agreement to combat climate change and promote sustainable development has been reached by 195 nations (click here for full text). Its main objectives are described in Article 2:
“a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;
b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production;
c)Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate- resilient development. “
Moreover, in Article 4, it resolves to “reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible” and, after 2050, anthropogenic emissions should be balanced by “removals by sinks”.
The Paris agreement is the first universal agreement on climate, for its predecessor the Kyoto Protocol, which had been extended to 2020, contains binding emissions reduction targets for industrialised countries (Annex I countries) only. It is also an ambitious agreement, as it aims for limiting global warming to well below 2 °C, or even below 1.5 °C and reaching climate neutrality by the second half of this century.
The fact that there is an agreement is already a triumph, and it is a collective triumph of the past several COPs. However, it is still too early to celebrate.
First of all, the Paris agreement is not yet legally binding. It will be if at least 55 countries which together represent 55% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions ratify it during a one year period starting 22 April, 2016. Even if the agreement becomes legally binding, there are no legally binding emissions reduction targets per se, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, only Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). This relates back to COP15 in 2009 in Copenhagen, which failed because of the attempt of imposing legally binding targets were strongly objected by some parties (BBC, 2015). Also there will be no enforcement mechanisms: a country is not enforced to communicate its INDCs by a specific date, nor will it be sanctioned when failed to comply. Furthermore, even if all parties fully implement their current pledges and policies of similar strength were adopted after 2030, we are still far from reaching the below-2 °C target, let alone below-1.5 °C. Climate Action Tracker (2015) predicted a median warming of 2.7 °C (range: 2.2-3.4 °C) by 2100.
Source: Climate Action Tracker, 2015.
On the good side, the agreement does announce that the first global stocktake of the implementation will take place in 2023 and every five years thereafter (Article 14) and successive plans ought to be more ambitious than the previous one (Article 3).
In a word, the Paris Agreement itself does not solve global warming, but it sets the ground floor for higher ambition. And we, as citizens, should urge politicians to comply their current and future INDCs. Some of my readers have raised the question of whether China will be able to achieve its INDCs. S join me next time, as I will finally study China’s energy policies.
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