Paris Agreement

At COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015, Parties to the UNFCCC reached a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future. The Paris Agreement is a non-binding agreement that builds upon the Convention and – for the first time – brings all nations into a common cause to undertake take ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so.

• The aim of the convention is described in Article 2, “enhancing the implementation” of the UNFCCC through:
• Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above preindustrial 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;
• 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;
• Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.
• Frameworks under Paris Agreement

- Technology Framework

- Capacity Building Framework

- Transparency Framework

• Why is Paris Agreement important?

> Current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions (Kyoto Protocol) will expire in 2020. Paris Agreement deals with what should be done in the decade after 2020 and beyond this time frame.

> The text of the agreement includes a provision requiring developed countries to send $100 billion annually to their developing counterparts beginning in 2020. That figure will be a “floor” that is expected to increase with time.

> The Paris Agreement has a ‘bottom up’ structure in contrast to most international environmental law treaties which are ‘top down.

> For the first time, the accord lays out a longer-term plan for reaching a peak in greenhouse emissions “as soon as possible” and achieving a balance between the output of man-made greenhouse gasses and absorption – by forests or the oceans – “by the second half of this century.