journal for european environmental & planning law 13 (2016) 3-29 brill.com/jeep The Paris Agreement: A New Beginning Charlotte Streck Climate Focus, Berlin
[email protected] Paul Keenlyside Climate Focus, Washington, dc
[email protected] Moritz von Unger Atlas, Brussels
[email protected] Abstract The adoption of the Paris Agreement is a milestone in international climate poli- tics and brings years of near deadlock negotiations to a conclusion. The Agreement creates a global process of engagement, follow-up, regular stock-take exercises and cooperative action. On the one hand, it represents a step forward, overcoming the many divisions that had marked the Kyoto area: between developed and developing countries, between industrialized nations inside the Protocol and those outside, and between those supportive of market mechanisms and those that vehemently opposed them. On the other hand, individual country contributions fall short of the overall climate goal, and the risk is that the Paris Agreement remains a shell without sufficient action and support. It thus remains to be seen whether the Paris Agreement is the right framework through which to address the collective action problem of climate change. Keywords Paris Agreement – unfccc – mitigation – adaptation – international climate policy – climate finance – market mechanisms – redd+ – loss & damage © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/18760104-01301002 <UN> 4 Streck, Keenlyside and Unger 1 Introduction On 12 December 2015, 196 Parties to the un Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc) adopted the Paris Agreement (pa), a new legally-binding framework for an internationally coordinated effort to tackle climate change. The Agreement comes 23 years after the signing of the unfccc, represents the culmination of six years of international climate change negotiations un- der the auspices of the unfccc, and was reached under intense international pressure to avoid a repeat failure of the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009.