PARIS AGREEMENT AND OTHER CLIMATE CHANGE CONVENTIONS

SUBMITTED BY – PRAKHAR CHANDRA

1st Semester B.A. LL.B(Hons.) DR. RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL

LAW UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW, UP
 INTRODUCTION

The Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016. The first session
of the conference of the parties serving as the meeting of the parties to the Paris
Agreement (CMA 1) took place in Marrakech, morocco from 15-18 November
2016. At the Paris climate conference (COP21) in December 2015, 195
countries signed the very first universal, legally binding global climate deal.

The signatory nations agreed a long term goal of keeping the rise in global
average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The deal
also aims to limit the increase to 1.5°C, since this would significantly reduce
risks and the impacts of climate change. The nations agreed on the need for
global emission to peak as soon as possible, recognising that developing
countries will take longer time. The agreement brings together the governments
every 5 years to set more ambitious targets as required by science. The
government will have to report each other and the public on the implementation
of their targets and track progress towards the long term goal through a robust
transparency and accountability system. The governments agreed to strengthen
societies’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change and to provide
continued and enhanced international support for adaptation to developing
countries. The agreement also recognises the importance of averting,
minimising and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effect
of the climate change, also acknowledges the need to cooperate and enhance the
understanding, action and support in different areas such as early warning
systems, emergency preparedness and risk insurance.

Climate change is now affecting every country on every continent. People are
experiencing the significant impacts of climate change, which include changing
weather patterns, rising sea level, and more extreme weather events. The
greenhouse gas emission from human activities is driving climate change and
temperature continues to rise. Without action, the world’s average surface
temperature is projected to rise over the 21st century and is likely to surpass 3
degrees Celsius this century. This is a global challenge that does not respect
national borders. To address climate change, countries adopted the Paris
agreement at the COP21 in Paris on 12 December 2015. The agreements
entered into force less than a year later. In the agreement, all countries agreed to
work on limiting the global temperature rise to well below 2 degree Celsius.
Implementation of the Paris agreement is very essential for the achievement of
the sustainable development goals and provide a road map for climate actions
that will reduce emission and build climate resilience.

INDIA UNDER PARIS AGREEMENT

Declaration:

       “The Government of India declares its understanding that, as per its

national laws; keeping in view its development agenda, particularly the
eradication of poverty and provision of basic needs for all its citizens, couple-
0*+d with its commitment to following the low carbon path to progress, and on
the assumption of unencumbered availability of cleaner sources of energy and
technologies and financial resources from around the world; and based on a fair
and ambitious assessment of global commitment to combating climate change,
it is ratifying the Paris Agreement.”

India is among a handful of major polluters that is on track to achieve the

national targets set to address climate change under the Paris Agreement. 
The central government has commissioned three research institutions to project
a long term low carbon growth trajectory for India. The Energy Research
Institute, Observer Research Foundation and Centre for Study of Science,
Technology and Policy are tasked with recommending three different future low
carbon growth scenarios for the country. The three institutions are expected to
come up with their findings in about a year, well before the implementation of
the Paris Agreement begins in 2020. Their studies will project economic growth
and concomitant greenhouse gas emissions for the period 2030-45.

A long-term low carbon growth strategy essentially requires a developing

country to plan the set of actions that ensure future economic growth lowers the
rate of growth in greenhouse gas emissions than achieved in the past. In the
climate jargon, this is described as “decoupling growth from emissions”.

Under the Paris Agreement, developed nations have committed to reduce their
emissions in absolute terms. But developing nations such as India, keeping the
need for poverty eradication in mind, have committed to reducing the emissions
intensity of their economies over time. Emissions intensity of the economy
means the amount of greenhouse gases a country emits per unit of national
income. The hope is that as large developing economies inch closer to their
economic and poverty reduction targets, they will also seek to cap their annual
gross emission levels.

India has promised to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy by 30-35%
below the 2005 level by 2030. As part of this overarching commitment, the
country plans to increase the share of renewable energy in its total power
generation capacity to 40% by 2030.

China, leaps ahead of India on the economic front as well as in annual

emissions, has committed to peak its carbon dioxide emissions by around 2030
and reduce its emissions per unit of Gross Domestic Product by 60%-65% from
the 2005 level.

To ensure that each of the three appointed institutions work on the same basic
assumptions for the low carbon growth models, the Union environment, forests
and climate change ministry has also set up an expert group on climate change,
economy, development economics and greenhouse gas emissions.

“We have some previous studies and models on India’s emissions growth but
their results were not comparable as each institution worked on its own
assumptions of the nature and pattern of economy we wish to see in future and
for the base scenarios,” said a senior government official who asked not to be
identified. “This time we want to ensure that while we have different
perspectives from the three institutions, they are all based on the same basic
assumptions and parameters.”

The expert group will provide the set of parameters to the three institutions,
based on which the latter will build their respective low carbon growth
projections. The projections would be then reviewed by the government to
decide what set of actions across the economy will be required to ensure the
emission intensity of India’s economy reduces over time in tune with its
commitments under the Paris Agreement.
UNFCC (UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON
CLIMATE CHANGE)

The UNFCC entered into force on 21 March 1994. Today, it has near-universal
membership. The 197 countries that have ratified the convention are called
partied to the convention. The UNFCC is a “Rio Convention”, one of the three
adopted three adopted at the “Rio Earth Summit” in 1992. Its sister Rio
Conventions are the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the
Convention to Combat Desertification. The three are intrinsically linked. It is in
this context that the Joint Liaison Group was set up to boost cooperation among
the three Conventions, with the ultimate aim of developing synergies in their
activities on issues of mutual concern. It now also incorporates the Ramsar
Convention on Wetlands. Preventing “dangerous” human interference with the
climate system is the ultimate aim of the UNFCCC. In 1992, countries joined an
international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, as a framework for international cooperation to combat climate change
by limiting average global temperature increases and the resulting climate
change, and coping with impacts that were, by then, inevitable.

By 1995, countries launched negotiations to strengthen the global response to

climate change, and, two years later, adopted the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto
Protocol legally binds developed country Parties to emission reduction targets.
The Protocol’s first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. The
second commitment period began on 1 January 2013 and will end in 2020.
There are now 197 Parties to the Convention and 192 Parties to the Kyoto
Protocol.

KYOTO PROTOCOL- 192 parties have ratified the protocol (191 states and
one regional economic integration organisation). This protocol mandates that
37 industrialised nations plus the European community cut their greenhouse gas
emission. More than 100 developing countries, including China and India, were
exempted from the treaty. The treaty could not go into effect until at least 55
countries, accounting for 55% of the world’s emission in 1990, ratified it. The
treaty also establishes an international trading system, which allows countries to
earn credits towards their emission target by investing in emission cleanups
outside their own country. According to the Global Carbon Atlas, the largest
contributors of greenhouse gases in 2014 were China and the United States.
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, which commits its Parties by
setting internationally binding emission reduction targets.

Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current
high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150
years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed
nations under the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities."

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and
entered into force on 16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the
implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh, Morocco,
in 2001, and are referred to as the "Marrakesh Accords." Its first commitment
period started in 2008 and ended in 2012.

VIENNA CONVENTION

The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer was adopted in
1985 and entered into force on 22 Sep 1988. In 2009, the Vienna Convention
became the first Convention of any kind to achieve universal ratification. The
objectives of the Convention were for Parties to promote cooperation by means
of systematic observations, research and information exchange on the effects of
human activities on the ozone layer and to adopt legislative or administrative
measures against activities likely to have adverse effects on the ozone layer.

The Vienna Convention did not require countries to take concrete actions to
control ozone-depleting substances. Instead, in accordance with the provisions
of the Convention, the countries of the world agreed the Montreal Protocol on
Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer under the Convention to advance that
goal.

The Parties to the Vienna Convention meet once every three years, back to back
with the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, in order to take decisions designed to
administer the Convention.

The Vienna Convention has two trust funds:

 Trust Fund for the Vienna Convention: Provides financial support to the
Convention, including the operations of the Ozone Secretariat (jointly
 with the Trust Fund for the Montreal Protocol), and the organizational
costs of the meetings of the Conference of the Parties along with
provision of support to developing countries and countries with
economies in transition to participate in the meetings.

 Trust Fund for Research and Systematic Observation: Funds

certain research and observation activities related to the Vienna
Convention in developing countries and countries with economies in
transition.

Many other steps have been taken during the past years to fight against the
climate change
2015 - Intensive negotiations took place under the Ad Hoc Group on the Durban
Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) throughout 2012-2015 and culminated in
the adoption of the Paris Agreement by the COP on 12 December 2015.

2014 - At COP 20 in Lima in 2014, Parties adopted the ‘Lima Call for Action’,
which elaborated key elements of the forthcoming agreement in Paris

2013 - Key decisions adopted at COP 19/CMP 9 include decisions on further

advancing the Durban Platform, the Green Climate Fund and Long-Term
Finance, the Warsaw Framework for REDD Plus and the Warsaw International
Mechanism for Loss and Damage. Under the Durban Platform, Parties agreed to
submit “intended nationally determined contributions”, known as INDCs, well
before the Paris conference.

2012 - The Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol is adopted by the CMP at
CMP 8. Several decisions taken opening a gateway to greater ambition and
action on all levels

2011 — The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action drafted and accepted by the
COP, at COP17.

2010 — Cancun Agreements drafted and largely accepted by the COP, at COP
16
2009 — Copenhagen Accord drafted at COP 15 in Copenhagen. This was taken
note of by the COP. Countries later submitted emissions reductions pledges or
mitigation action pledges, all non-binding.

2007 — IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report released. Climate science entered

into popular consciousness. At COP 13, Parties agreed on the Bali Road Map,
which charted the way towards a post-2012 outcome in two work streams: the
AWG-KP, and another under the Convention, known as the Ad-Hoc Working
Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention.

2005 — Entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. The first Meeting of the Parties
to the Kyoto Protocol (MOP 1) takes place in Montreal. In accordance with
Kyoto Protocol requirements, Parties launched negotiations on the next phase of
the KP under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I
Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). What was to become the Nairobi
Work Programme on Adaptation (it would receive its name in 2006, one year
later) is accepted and agreed on.

2001 — Release of IPCC's Third Assessment Report. Bonn Agreements

adopted, based on the Buenos Aires Plan of Action of 1998. Marrakesh
Accords adopted at COP 7, detailing rules for implementation of Kyoto
Protocol, setting up new funding and planning instruments for adaptation, and
establishing a technology transfer framework.

1997 — Kyoto Protocol formally adopted in December at COP 3

1996 — The UNFCCC Secretariat is set up to support action under the
Convention. 

1995 — The first Conference of the Parties (COP 1) takes place in Berlin.

1994 — UNFCCC enters into force. An introduction

+1to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

1992 — The INC adopts UNFCCC text. At the Earth Summit in Rio, the
UNFCCC is opened for signature along with its sister Rio Conventions,
UNCBD and UNCCD. More about the two other Rio
Conventions: UNCBD and UNCCD.

1991 — First meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC)

takes place.
1990 — IPCC's first assessment report released. IPCC and second World
Climate Conference call for a global treaty on climate change. United Nations
General Assembly negotiations on a framework convention begin.

1988 — The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is set up. 

1979 — The first World Climate Conference (WCC) takes place.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 www.nature.org
 unfccc.int
 www.un.org
 edition.cnn.com
 ozone.unep.org
 www.epa.gov
 www.hindustantimes.com
 www.thehindubusinessline.com