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| Photo: Flickr.com/UNclimatechange |
On November 4, 2016, the world’s first binding,
universal global climate change agreement became
international
law.
The Paris Agreement has
officially entered into force after achieving its threshold conditions: more
than fifty-five countries that together account for at least an estimated fifty-five
percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions have become parties. According to
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s web page, 100 parties have so far ratified
the Agreement as of November 6, while another ninety-seven have yet to take such actions. Countries
that have ratified the Paris Agreement and who have thus pledged to take
substantial measures to combat climate change are some of the world’s biggest
greenhouse gas emitters, including the United
States and China.
Initially adopted
on December 12, 2015, during the twenty-first session of the Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris
Agreement aims to combat climate change
and its effects internationally through concerted
efforts to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts. Accordingly, the
Agreement
aims to hold the future increase in the global average temperature below 2
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as well as to make efforts to
limit the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial
levels during the twenty-first century. It also aims to bolster
countries’ abilities to manage the impacts that will likely result
from future climate change, in part through the strengthening and financing of
climate resilience and development involving low greenhouse gas emissions.
However, exactly how the international community and individual countries implement
the Paris Agreement remains to be seen. Governments have to submit
their own action plans detailing how they will mitigate and manage the impacts
of climate change nationally, as well as their efforts to reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases. Each government’s plan to combat climate change nationally
will then be augmented over time, and will be replaced by more aggressive
measures every five
years. Country representatives will gather at the COP22
climate change meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco from November
7-18 to discuss details regarding the Paris Agreement’s
implementation.
While many in the scientific community
have praised
the speed with which the Paris Agreement has come into force (previous
projections gave 2020
as the year it would likely take effect), the United Nations Environmental
Program (UNEP) has expressed continued
concern for the future of the global climate. UNEP believes that the
international community will need to decrease yearly greenhouse gas emissions
by twelve to fourteen billion metric tons before 2030 for limiting climate
change to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to be feasible. Even
taking account of the promised reductions included in the Paris Agreement, the
planet will likely still experience 2.9
to 3.4 degrees Celsius of warming, well above the desired figures.
Time will tell how effective the Paris
Agreement will truly be in achieving its goals as countries develop and
implement their own plans for reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and for
fighting climate change more generally. What is clear now is that the Paris
Agreement marks a positive and unprecedented historical initiative in the
global effort to combat climate change and to protect the world’s people and
environments from its effects. More broadly, it may pave the way for a more
coordinated and united international political and legal community—one that is
ready and prepared to tackle the world’s challenges as they arise.
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