The Paris Agreement: One step forward to the future, but still many steps to go

By Seulbee Jung, UNA-NCA Fellow

This week, UNA-NCA Fellows discussed Climate Change & its impact on Climate Refugees.

Even though climate change has become a major topic in international negotiations, most international negotiations on climate change have failed because climate change is not only an environmental problem but also a political and economic problem. Since various actors’ interests are involved in climate change problems, the international community has ignored the seriousness of the problems and it has been hard to agree on solutions and implement them.

Against its historical background, the Paris Agreement shows substantial progress in dealing with global environmental problems. Compared to past agreements, the most noticeable change is the increased political will of great powers. The U.S. and China agreed not only on committing to reducing CO2 emissions but also cooperating to achieve the common goals of the agreement. COP-21 also succeeded in establishing transparency and monitoring mechanisms, such as the Capacity-Building Initiative for Transparency, extending time-scale for actions, providing financing support with a $100 billion climate fund for climate change adaptation and mitigation, and strengthening multilateralism.

However, there are still to in the Paris Agreement. Compared to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Paris Agreement is weak in terms of accountability. The agreement is dependent on voluntary commitments without a common metric to evaluate a state’s performance and an objective standard. This makes it difficult to monitor self-assessed reports of 193 countries and shows that without the will of great powers to follow the agreement, the goals of the agreement will not be achieved. Furthermore, there are few legal binding mechanisms to achieve the targets. Since climate change actions are highly influenced by a state’s stakes and will, states are reluctant to add strong words that have legal binding power.  For example, even though countries have to submit new emission reduction targets every five years to check whether they achieve their goals and technical expert review, there is no requirement for them to achieve the numerical targets they have set.

Another key element for the success in the Paris Agreement is fundraising. Despite the fact that developed countries reaffirmed a $100 billion pledge and promised to increase financial support by 2025, this promise is not legally binding. Lastly, there is a concern about global environmental governance. Due to increased concerns about climate change, the role of the UN is becoming more significant in environmental governance. However, the UN system is highly fragmented and there are numerous international actors whose mandate includes reducing climate change. For example, the United Nation Environmental Program (UNEP), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the World Bank work on climate change with their own specific lens. The Word Bank also provides their own plan, the Climate Change Action Plan, to help countries meet the agreement. Since there are various policies and programs about climate change, overlapping mandates among the actors may undermine the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement.

Despite these several shortcomings, the Paris Agreement is a stepping stone in developing a collaborative behavior. Through the Paris Agreement, the world can share a single perspective on climate change and can get one step closer to resolving climate change. The agreement provided global actors with a place where they can debate the global problem as well as a forum to discuss international cooperation as a crucial element to resolving climate change problems. Now it is time for the world to walk into the future and make the Paris deal real.