The Paris Agreement was a momentous achievement for international politics, the global economy and the environment. The culmination of almost five years of multilateral negotiating delivered an ambitious, universal climate agreement signed by all 196 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This was the largest signing of a binding international agreement and the biggest gathering of leaders in history. It will come into effect in 2020 and replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as the international law instrument for global emissions reduction.

The Paris Agreement sets the future framework for global ‘collective action’ on climate change. It is significant because it introduces a new approach to the UNFCCC that is more inclusive and drives self-determined state action. It also sends a major market signal to the global economy to shift towards a low emissions economy. The aim is to encourage ‘political peer pressure’ and motivate states to set ambitious targets. Yet the shift away from binding commitments and compliance suggests its efficacy will be determined by a system based on accountability, review and flexibility. The failure to get these processes right could be catastrophic for the planet’s future, particularly for the most vulnerable states and their people.

What can we take away from the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement is a concise, efficient document that sets a framework for action, but provides little guidance or obligations for how to achieve it. There are five key outcomes from the Paris Agreement:

Future direction sets a goal for individual commitments: A long term goal to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius, aiming for 1.5 degrees Celsius, by the end of the century (Article 2),

Regular review tracks progress and requires progression of commitments: A system of ‘review and ratchet’ determined by five year cycles of review where parties must revise targets and nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to ensure they ‘reflect the highest possible ambition’ and demonstrate progression over time (Articles 3 and 4),

Self-differentiation and flexibility to dilute the split between developed and developing states: Many articles set obligations on ‘all parties’, with a caveat that action can be determined by their ‘national circumstances’, creating flexibility for states to opt out, but also the ability for states to take on responsibilities as much as possible,

Accountability through a hybrid approach to compliance and transparent reporting requirements: A transparency system that embeds monitoring, verification and reporting in national policy. This is to be communicated at the regular review intervals and enhanced through a ‘global stocktake’ every five years and a facilitative compliance committee (Articles 13, 14 and 15),

Finance flows for mitigation and adaptation through an agreed amount to be contributed by developed and developing countries: States should contribute funds to meet a $100 billion target by 2020 and include climate finance targets in nationally determined contributions (Article 5).

These elements interact to form the crucial mechanism for ambition that sets the Paris Agreement apart from other multilateral agreements under the UNFCCC. It aims to establish a precise balance using a rules-based system that steers a future direction for action, encourages participation and competition between parties, and requires regular reporting and accounting of performance.^[1] This interaction is designed to drive ambition and accountability, if the balance is correct. However, the underlying question for this landmark agreement is how the minimal consequences for non-compliance and the voluntary targets for emissions reduction will impact its success. The current rate of climate change suggests there is not much room for error.

1. A Future Direction: The Long Term Goal

The long-term goal is to keep global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and try to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Recognition of the two-degree limit was achieved at Copenhagen in 2009, however reference to 1.5 degrees is significant because it highlights the need to avoid the worst climate impacts and the reality that many countries will be severely affected by an increase. For this reason it was one of the most contentious issues at COP21 and is another symbol of differentiation in practice, as the most severe climate impacts will hit the most vulnerable countries.

2. Regular Review: Ratcheting Targets to Cut Emissions

Regular review periods, or ‘cycles of contribution,’ are a key mechanism for raising ambition. Cycles of contribution refer to the timeframe for parties to regularly schedule future commitments.^[2] The Paris Agreement introduced five-year cycles of review for countries to report on performance towards meeting targets and for increasing ambition by submitting new targets.^[3] This is known as the ‘review and ratchet’ process.

The review process will require annual accounting and reporting, increasing accountability. ‘Ratcheting’ provides a chance to increase the visibility of ambition in the international spotlight. Morgan et al. suggest that having regular intervals for progression or ‘strengthening’ means that combined targets can come closer to achieving the long-term goal.^[4] In this way, reporting and review processes can be a mechanism for inclusivity to push real ‘collective action.’

3. Differentiation: Parties are the Same but Different

The Paris Agreement tries to approach differentiation with more flexibility than the Kyoto Protocol. This is to create fluidity between developing and developed countries, by encouraging developing countries to take on more responsibility over time. It also promotes ‘collective action’ by requiring all countries to submit NDCs and adhere to similar requirements of reporting, review and compliance.

A common framework can work towards the same requirements for review and compliance of all parties, while taking account of their capacities. This could lead to technical knowledge sharing and capacity building between developed and developing states.^[5] Van Asselt hopes the consistency of this framework will “ensure transparency and political feasibility.”^[6] Softer differentiation should not alleviate the ongoing responsibilities and obligations of developed countries to play a leadership role in setting strong commitments, as well as providing adequate support for developing countries.

4. Accountability: Transparency and Political Peer Pressure

Accountability is embedded in the Paris Agreement through the interaction of articles on transparency and compliance. Transparency informs monitoring and reporting, ensuring that there are consequences if parties do not do what they say they will. Compliance with the agreement will provide an institutional response if targets are not met.

Transparency can encourage competition and cooperation between states, while attempting to overcome differentiation. The Paris Agreement facilitates parties to adjust their self-determined targets in line with comparable states, recognising the key UNFCCC principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility.’ Importantly, reporting requirements apply to all parties.

However, compliance powers under the Paris Agreement are weak. The compliance body must be transparent, non-adversarial and non-punitive and take account of differentiation.^[7] Byrnes and Lawrence posit whether this can be considered an adequate system of compliance when there is no enforcement mechanism, such as penalties for non-compliance or sanction rights by other parties.^[8] The rationale is that other elements of the agreement boost accountability and promote flexible participation, for example the interaction of review, reporting and ‘ratcheting.’

5. Finance: Putting Money on the Table

Paris confirmed the extension of the current goal of contributing $100 billion a year in support to 2025, when a new, higher goal will be set. This money is for mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries and will be subject to similar reporting and review requirements of mitigation targets, including projected contributions. It will be accounted for as part of the global stocktake.

The gathering of 150 state leaders led to the announcement of many new financial pledges. Developing countries collectively pledged $19 billion, including a leadership statement by the United States that, by 2020, its support for adaptation efforts will double to $800 million a year.^[9] Developing countries are also encouraged to make contributions, such as Vietnam’s pledge of $1 million to the Green Climate Fund.^[10] Yet will this be enough to support the hundreds of millions affected by climate change annually and shift the global economy towards a low emissions society? The global finance effort will require significant public funds and increasingly seek to leverage private funds: $100 billion is just the beginning.

What else did we get?

 A Goal for Adaptation

Mitigation through emissions reductions is the centrepiece of the Paris Agreement and the objective of the UNFCCC. At COP21, recognition of the need for global adaptation efforts was clear. This was driven by the emotive speeches of leaders from developing and vulnerable countries already experiencing the impacts of climate change.^[11] The Paris Agreement introduced a global goal for adaptation of “enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change.”^[12]

Adaptation will be included in the global stocktake. Subsequently, all parties are required to plan, implement and report on adaptation efforts. Recognition of the need for a global and coordinated response to adaptation is an important next step for building a resilient global community. The impacts of climate change are already in effect, with countries bearing significant economic, environmental and human costs from natural disasters, heat waves and drought.^[13] While the intellectual frameworks and mechanisms to adapt are not as evolved as mitigation, the Paris Agreement is a signal that global effort and resources need to be directed towards meaningful adaptation soon. Adequate climate finance will be crucial to ensure this happens.

Saving the Trees

The Paris Agreement delivered a significant outcome for global forests. It articulated the crucial role forests play in carbon sequestration to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and recognised the need for finance resources to be directed towards forest management (Article 5). To date, the vehicle to achieve this has been REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), a results-based mechanism that incentivises developing countries to limit deforestation.

While the Paris Agreement does not explicitly institutionalise REDD+, it is implied that it will remain the central framework for delivering forest outcomes. REDD+ has limitations and raises issues for indigenous and local land rights, technical capacity for forest monitoring and the competing economic interests for land, such as agriculture or large-scale infrastructure.^[14] The Paris Agreement is a catalyst to address these issues and promote global forest management that has equity and development at its core, on the way to reducing emissions.

The Market for Carbon

The Paris Agreement sends a clear signal that carbon markets are here to stay, though what design features will be included are yet to be determined. Provisions were made for carbon trading across international borders to achieve NDCs and for markets to ensure transparent accounting by avoiding double counting (where two countries try to claim credit for the same emissions reduction).^[15] A new mechanism was also introduced to replace the Clean Development Mechanism, an international, voluntary emissions offset system.

Carbon trading is important in order to put a price on carbon and take a market-based approach to emissions reduction. Emissions trading schemes exist across the EU, South Korea and New Zealand. California and Quebec also recently joined their sub-national schemes. However, serious issues relate to the accounting and verification process of credits and offsets, as well as the variance between state commitments and the government effort required to limit free riders.^[16] The design mechanics of carbon trading need to be refined and enhanced based on the lessons from ten years of international and national schemes to ensure carbon markets grow to deliver the meaningful emissions reductions required.

Did we get enough?

The Paris Agreement attempts to pursue ambitious, ‘collective action.’ The mechanism to achieve ambition is ambitious in itself: a long term goal to set the direction, a system of national goal setting, compliance and review that is transparent and revisable, while requiring all states to make contributions, though levels of effort may vary. The strength, durability and robustness of how governments take action are central to achieving this ambition. Implementing climate adaptation, limiting deforestation and trading carbon in markets are important elements to get there.

The Paris Agreement uses flexibility as a priority to meet the differentiated capacities, targets, responsibilities and needs of all parties. However, there is a risk that too much flexibility could undermine the potential for ‘collective action’ or, far worse, fail to deliver the emissions reductions required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The impacts of failing to meet this goal will likely be catastrophic for the economic, human and environmental systems of our planet.

Jacqueline Fetchet was the recipient of the National Delegate Scholarship with Global Voices to represent the youth of Australia at the UNFCCC COP21 in Paris, December 2015. As a law graduate currently working in climate policy she is passionate about renewable energy as a solution to climate change.

^[1] J. Morgan, Y. Dagnet, N. Höhne, S. Oberthür & L. Li, (2015) ‘Race to the top: Driving ambition in the post-2020 international climate agreement’, Working Paper. Washington, DC: Agreement for Climate Transformation 2015, www.wri.org/our-work/project/ act-2015/publications.

^[2] ADP. (2014) ‘Parties’ Views and Proposals on the Elements for a Draft Negotiating Text.’ ADP.2014.6.NonPaper, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2014/adp2/eng/6nonpap.pdf, 19 October, 2015,

^[3] Paris Agreement COP21/CMP21, Articles 4.9 and 4.11

^[4] Morgan et al., op. cit. p. 8.

^[5] U.S. Department of State, (2015) U.S. Submission: Certain Accountability Aspects of the Paris Agreement, p. 5. 2015http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/Lists/OSPSubmissionUpload/54_99_130618062605395814-Submission%20on%20post%202020%20transparency%20system.docx, 20 October 2015.

^[6] Van Asselt, H, Sælen, H & Pauw, P (2015) ‘Assessment and Review under a 2015 Climate Change Agreement’ Nordic Council of Ministers, Denmark, p. 18.

^[7] Paris Agreement, UFCCC/CP/2015/L.9 Article 15.2

[8] Byrnes, R and Lawrence, P (2015) ‘Can ‘Soft Law’ Solve ‘Hard Problems’?

Justice, Legal Form and the Durban Mandated Climate Negotiations’ The University of Tasmania Law Review 34(1)

[9] ODI (2015) Climate finance pledges at COP21, http://www.odi.org/opinion/10196-infographic-climate-finance-pledges-cop21-paris

[10] Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (2015) Outcomes of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris, http://www.c2es.org/international/negotiations/cop21-paris/summary

[11] Statements made by world leaders at the Leaders Event at COP21, http://unfccc.int/meetings/paris_nov_2015/items/9331.php.

[12] Paris Agreement, UFCCC/CP/2015/L.9 Article 7.

[13] IPCC, (2014): Summary for policymakers. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Field, C.B., V.R. Barros, D.J. Dokken, K.J. Mach, M.D. Mastrandrea, T.E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K.L. Ebi, Y.O. Estrada, R.C. Genova, B. Girma, E.S. Kissel, A.N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P.R. Mastrandrea, and L.L.White (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 1-32.

[14] See, for example: Larson, AM, (2011) ‘Forest tenure reform in the age of climate change: Lessons for REDD+’, Global Environmental Change, 21(2), pp. 540-549.

[15] Paris Agreement, UFCCC/CP/2015/L.9 Article 6.

[16] Upton, J, (23 February 2016) ‘Paris Pact Promotes But Complicates Carbon Trading’ Climate Central, http://www.climatecentral.org/news/paris-pact-promotes-but-complicates-carbon-trading-20058.