Armin Hohenadler

Currently, 197 countries – every nation on earth, the last signatory is war-torn Syria – have adopted the Paris Agreement. 179 of them have consolidated their climate proposals with official approval, including, for the time being, the United States. The only major emitters that have yet to formally accede to the agreement are Russia, Turkey and Iran. While the enhanced transparency framework is universal and the global inventory is carried out every five years, the framework must provide „integrated flexibility“ to distinguish the capabilities of developed and developing countries. In this context, the Paris Agreement contains provisions to improve the capacity-building framework. [58] The agreement recognizes the different circumstances of some countries and notes, in particular, that the technical review of experts for each country takes into account the specific capacity of that country to report. [58] The agreement also develops a capacity-building initiative for transparency to help developing countries put in place the necessary institutions and procedures to comply with the transparency framework. [58] Kyoto Protocol, 2005. The Kyoto Protocol [PDF], adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005, was the first legally binding climate treaty.

It called on industrialized countries to reduce emissions by an average of 5% from 1990 levels and set up a system to monitor countries` progress. But the treaty did not force developing countries, including the major CO2 emitters China and India, to take action. The United States signed the agreement in 1998, but never ratified it and then withdrew its signature. Although the United States and Turkey are not parties to the agreement, as they have not indicated their intention to withdraw from the 1992 UNFCCC, they will continue to be required, as an „Annex 1“ country under the UNFCCC, to end national communications and establish an annual inventory of greenhouse gases. [91] Although the agreement has been welcomed by many, including French President Francois Hollande and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,[67] criticism has also emerged. James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and climate change expert, expressed anger that most of the agreement is made up of „promises“ or goals, not firm commitments. [98] He called the Paris talks a fraud with „nothing, only promises“ and believed that only a generalized tax on CO2 emissions, which is not part of the Paris agreement, would force CO2 emissions down fast enough to avoid the worst effects of global warming. [98] The Paris Agreement was launched at the signing on April 22, 2016 (Earth Day) at a ceremony in New York. [59] After the agreement was ratified by several EU member states in October 2016, there were enough countries that had ratified the agreement to produce enough greenhouse gases in the world for the agreement to enter into force. [60] The agreement came into force on November 4, 2016.

[2] While mitigation and adjustment require increased climate funding, adjustment has generally received less support and has mobilized less private sector action. [46] A 2014 OECD report showed that in 2014, only 16% of the world`s financial resources were devoted to adaptation to climate change. [50] The Paris Agreement called for a balance between climate finance between adaptation and mitigation, highlighting in particular the need to strengthen support for adaptation from the parties most affected by climate change, including least developed countries and small island developing states.