3. Global Climate

Abstract

On 12 December, the twenty-first Conference of Parties (COP-21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement. This marked the conclusion of the long process of crafting a new international climate regime that began with the adoption of the Bali Roadmap in 2007, failed spectacularly in Copenhagen in 2009, and resumed with a new approach in Durban 2011. This article summarizes and analyzes the main contents of the Paris Agreement. The outcome of the Paris climate change conference consists of two parts: the Paris Agreement and the COP decision that adopted the agreement and set out steps to be taken in the next years until the agreement enters into force (Decision 1/CP.21, Advance Version, FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1, 29 January 2016). The ‘natural’ legal form of the Paris Agreement would have taken the shape of a protocol, such as the Kyoto Protocol, as provided for in Article 17 of the UNFCCC. This, however, would have forced the US administration to submit the protocol to the Senate for ratification. Given the current state of domestic politics in the United States, Senate ratification would have been impossible to achieve. Thus, the parties in Paris chose a legal form that is not provided for in the UNFCCC, since it is neither an amendment to the convention nor a protocol. This innovative legal approach immediately sparked a discussion in the United States as to whether the Paris Agreement is a treaty and whether it has to be submitted to the Senate for ratification.