Pros and Cons of the Paris Climate Agreement

With the U.S. having recently withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement, and President-Elect Joe Biden planning to rejoin ASAP, this Agreement has attracted significant public attention. In this article, I tell you everything you need to know about the Paris Climate Agreement.

Paris Climate Agreement 101

What is the Paris climate agreement?

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement is an international agreement asking countries to create personalized plans to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The Agreement states that all participating countries should (but are not legally required to) limit their greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible. The signatories' goal is to keep our average global temperature under 1.5 degrees Celsius above 1990's average global temperature.

To accomplish this, each country in the Agreement created a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), an individualized plan for limiting emissions, adapting to climate change and supporting developing nations. Like the entire Agreement, these plans are not legally binding. Instead, they represent each country's ideal course of climate action. To track global compliance with NDCs, I recommend exploring the Climate Action Tracker. Fair warning: it is not a pretty sight.

In addition to NCDs, the Paris Agreement emphasizes different responsibilities for developed versus developing countries. Namely, the treaty states that developed countries should take leadership roles in mitigating climate change. Meanwhile, developing countries should focus on creating infrastructure and meeting their citizens' immediate needs, considering climate whenever possible.

This Agreement has tremendous international support from developed and developing countries, with every country except the U.S. having signed it. Developed countries support the Agreement's flexibility (AKA lack of enforcement) while developing countries support the Agreement's goals and differentiated responsibilities.

Bottom line: The Paris Agreement is an international agreement for mitigating and adapting to climate change. It relies on non-binding, country-specific goals.

What's the history of the Paris climate agreement?

Let's begin this history lesson with the first major international conference on environmental issues: the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972. At this conference, world leaders and non-governmental organizations from 113 countries gathered in Stockholm to create 26 principles for environmental betterment and form the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). Today, the UNEP continues to spearhead and manage many global environmental projects and policies.

Since that time, the UN has facilitated several more international environmental conferences around the world. One of the most noteworthy conferences is 1994's Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. At the Rio Conference, world leaders created the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the first international treaty to limit human climate interference.

Today, the UNFCCC still stands and has gained two new additions: the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Climate Agreement (2015). UN countries created these two baby treaties to hold governments accountable for their UNFCCC promises. In effect, the Paris Climate Agreement has replaced the Kyoto Protocol with a more globally supported and less binding climate agreement.

Bottom line: The Paris Agreement operates under the UNFCCC, a global treaty that recognizes the need for environmental conservation and protection.

Who is part of the Paris climate agreement?

At the time of signing, the vast majority of countries were part of the Paris Agreement. The only two nations who did not sign were Syria, which was busy handling a civil war, and Nicaragua, which didn't think the Agreement was strict enough. Among the 197 signatories, only seven countries (Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan, Turkey, and Yemen) have yet to formally ratify the Agreement.

In 2017, the United States shook things up by withdrawing from the Agreement. Since then, both Syria and Nicaragua signed the Agreement, leaving the United States as the world's sole bad actor. Once Joe Biden is inaugurated, he hopes to sign back on to the Agreement, making the Agreement truly international. The current state of the Agreement is outlined on the map below.

Bottom line: The U.S. is the only country currently not signed on the Paris Agreement.

Pros

The Agreement aims to mitigate and adapt to climate change

The Paris Climate Agreement serves a wildly essential purpose: asking countries to mitigate climate change as much as possible and put measures in place to adapt to climate change. Global warming is threatening our food and water supplies, lives, livelihoods, homes, wildlife, natural wonders, ecosystems and more. If we ignore this issue, more people will suffer and more lives will be lost. Although the Paris Climate Agreement has its fair share of problems, it addresses this global crisis in a way that no other current agreement does.

It has International Support

The Paris Agreement has received overwhelming international support. As I mentioned above, only one country globally (*cough* United States *cough*) is not signed onto the Agreement, while only seven have not formally ratified it. This unity demonstrates that all countries are aware of climate change and, in theory, take it seriously. With an issue as global and potentially catastrophic as climate change, every nation must formally recognize its role in the problem before committing to meaningful mitigation efforts. At future conferences, this formal recognition can serve as the starting point for more substantial (and hopefully legally binding) changes.

It holds big emitters accountable

The Paris Climate Agreement also includes language to hold developed countries accountable for their comparatively astronomical emissions. Article 4, point 4 of the Agreement specifies that developed nations should take the lead in reducing global emissions, acknowledging that countries have "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capability." All countries are responsible for reducing emissions, but big emitters have a greater responsibility than developing nations.

This feature is in place because of three primary factors:

Richer countries are more responsible for climate change,
Richer countries are more equipped to create large-scale changes,
And poorer countries will rightfully release more emissions as they expand infrastructure and healthcare and create a better quality of life for their citizens.

Recognizing these differences helps highlight the v important role that developed countries have in worsening or mitigating climate change.

Cons

the Agreement is not legally binding

The Paris Climate Agreement has no legal component. It merely states that countries should follow their mitigation plans. If countries do not follow their Paris pledges, they do not face any punishment. International judgment is one risk of non-compliance, but because the vast majority of countries are currently not meeting their promises, few are judging. Without legal ramifications, and with little international pressure, some view this treaty as meaningless. With an issue as life-threatening as climate change, we need to hold ourselves to a higher legal standard.

Current pledges won't keep us under 1.5 degrees Celsius

The Agreement's goal is to keep warming "well below" 2 degrees Celsius and "pursue efforts" to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial global average temperatures. This is a noble goal, but it is far from realistic. If all nations follow current policies and pledges, we will be lucky to stay below 3 degrees Celsius of warming.

This discrepancy between the Agreement and reality makes the Paris Agreement seem less legitimate. Instead of painting an accurate picture of the millions of people who will experience extreme heatwaves, drought, flooding and food scarcity, it fantasizes that we will remain within a comfortable degree of warming. This language waters down the urgency of the situation and calls the rest of the Agreement's logic into question.