Changing the game: the Paris Agreement and the role of scientific communities

Abstract

Scientific communities were instrumental in building the momentum that led to the success of the Twenty-first Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), held in Paris in December 2015. Less than a year after its adoption, the Paris Agreement has entered into force. The Paris Agreement is now, and will stay, a reality. Now more than ever, with an unprecedented mobilization all over the world to implement and enhance climate actions, advances in science are needed to inform the negotiations and guide political choices to raise climate ambition. This article proposes several areas where scientific communities could help to implement the Paris Agreement and promote low carbon, climate-resilient economies and societies. In doing so, it focuses on the role of science in several key areas. Firstly, the article explores the relationship between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the new climate regime, with a focus on the 1.5°C special report and future global stocktakes. The article then considers how science can contribute to the preparation of long-term low greenhouse gas (GHG) emission development strategies, before focusing on the role of science in advancing on adaptation issues. Now more than ever, scientific advances and inputs are needed to strengthen the upward revision of ambition, and inform sound concrete actions.Policy relevanceThe climate change negotiations have always been informed by science; the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 benefitted from the fifth assessment report of the IPCC released a few months before COP21. The new era of global climate policy after the entry into force of the Paris Agreement will require stronger interactions between scientists and policy makers. This ‘perspectives’ article proposes, from the point of view of the former French Presidency of COP21, areas where links and interactions could be strengthened to help implement the Paris Agreement, and to place science at the centre of the transformation towards low emission and resilient societies.