Before we can dig into where things stand with the Paris Agreement or how likely it is to be successful moving forward, we need to take a stroll through the history of international (and eventually global) scale efforts to address climate change. We'll see that this is much more of an evolutionary process than a revolutionary one. First, a few important terms to note moving forward are:

1. IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This was created in 1988 with the intent "to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on the current state of knowledge about climate change and to prepare a comprehensive review and recommendations with respect to the state of knowledge of the science of climate change; the social and economic impact of climate change, and potential response strategies and elements for inclusion in a possible future international convention on climate," according to the United Nations [1]. Essentially, this is the body that oversees all UN-sponsored climate-related research, or as they put it: "IPCC assessments provide a scientific basis for governments at all levels to develop climate related policies, and they underlie negotiations at the UN Climate Conference" (source: IPCC [2]). See more about who they are here [2]and what they do here [3]. The IPCC provides the Assessment Reports and interim reports. [4]
2. UNFCCC: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This was created in 1992 and is headquartered in Bonn, Germany. They perform a key role in international climate negotiations and are in fact the body that facilitated all major international agreements, including the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. They manage the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are the most consequential aspect of the Paris Agreement. They have full-time staff that host 2-4 negotiating sessions a year where they hash out issues related to the international climate negotiations. The most anticipated of these meetings is the Conference of Parties (see below). See this summary [5] of what the UNFCCC does from the UN.
3. COP [6]: Conference of Parties. This is the primary decision-making body of the UNFCCC. They meet every year, and include tens of thousands of participants (you can find a list of COPs here [6]along with associated reports). The term COP is mostly used to refer to these annual meetings. The COPs are where they formally hash out international climate negotiations. The COPs result in reports on the progress of negotiations, though sometimes result in major agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (COP 3 [7] in Kyoto, Japan) and the Paris Agreement (from COP 21 [8] in Paris, France).
4. AR: Assessment Report. Reports [9] promulgated every ~5 years by the IPCC. They provide meticulously researched details about emissions, their impacts, and more. They summarize all relevant climate-related information under the IPCC purview. The reports are highly anticipated by global policymakers working on climate change-related policies. The most recent report was released in 2022, with the full Assessment Report (AR6 [10]) released in 2023. Each report is numbered - AR1 was in 1992, AR2 was in 1995, and so on.
5. INDCs and NDCs. Intended Nationally Determined Contributions and Nationally Determined Contributions. INDCs form the core of the Paris Agreement. Each country submitted its INDCs to detail how it would achieve their emissions reduction goals per the Agreement. Essentially, it is their plan to reduce emissions. After each country formally entered the Agreement, INDCs were referred to as NDCs. These are updated periodically, usually around every 3-5 years. The details in NDCs vary widely among countries. (More on this later.)

This infographic (which I broke into two separate pieces to make it easier to consume) was put out by The Climate Group around the time the Paris Agreement was forged. I can't find an active link for it on their site anymore, but I think it does a nice job of breaking up our decades of work on this problem to show the very slow pace at which things have moved historically and where the important jumps are in terms of how we think about tackling this problem. Let's take a look. (Please note that the terms "developed" and "developing" countries are used by the UN for these reports, and so will be used in the lesson as well.)

Credit: The Climate Group [11], 2015

Evolution of policy options

• When the UNFCCC was created [12] in 1992, it 1) represented a much smaller subset of countries and 2) only encouraged voluntary actions.
• As the Kyoto Protocol started to develop, the UNFCCC started to establish binding targets for the developed countries but only had voluntary targets for undeveloped countries. (This ends up causing a lot of blame-game between the developed and developing economic powerhouses - in particular US vs China.)
• One of the takeaways of the Kyoto Protocol that we all need to be in this truly together. And so the Paris Agreement marks the first time that we're all in, and we're all beholden to targets. The difference? Countries get to set these targets themselves. (One aspect that has remained consistent is that there are no penalties for not reaching annual or long-term targets.)

Imagine this image below is a clock. (Click on the image to access a resizable version that is easier to see.) If you look at about 1 pm, you see that in the late 1980s, the UNFCCC is established.  It isn't until about 9 o'clock at that the Paris Agreement is adopted and here we stand somewhere around 10-11 o'clock or so, wondering where it will take us.

[13]

Credit: The Climate Group, 2015

The World Tries to Tackle Climate Change Together...Mostly

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 and represents the first global attempt to implement emissions reduction targets for the purpose of address global climate change. For context, this was after the first and second assessment reports from the IPCC. (1990 and 1995, respectively [1]. The first report was instrumential in creating the UNFCCC.) It established binding emission targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union. The Kyoto Protocol did not establish binding reduction targets for developing countries. Collectively, the targets represent a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas levels between 2008-2012 relative to 1990 as a baseline. The detailed rules for its implementation were finalized in 2001.

How does the treaty work?

Most of a country's required reductions must occur internally via measures such as renewable energ and energy efficiency. However, there were several additional measures which enabled Kyoto signatory countries to meet their targets. These additional measures had been designed to offer countries with compliance obligations a certain degree of flexibility in how they achieve their reductions, so as to help contain costs and encourage emission reduction projects worldwide. Note that some of these methods are used in many, if not most international climiate goals.

1. Emissions trading [14] - countries who reduce their emissions by more than their established target are able to sell their surplus reductions on the carbon market. 
    
2. Clean development mechanism (CDM) [15] - allows countries with emission limitation commitments to implement emission reduction projects in other countries . These projects earn credits (one credit per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent) which can then be sold on the carbon market and counted toward Kyoto compliance. CDM places a strong emphasis on sustainable development in conjunction with emission reductions and gives industrialized countries the opportunity to reduce emissions at a lower cost externally rather than generating all of their reductions within their own borders. CDM projects are subject to a strict verification and quantification process to ensure that the reductions for which someone earns credit are real, additional, and verifiable. Check out the CDM Rulebook [16] to learn more about the verification process for CDM projects.
    
3. Joint implementation (JI) [17] - allows countries under Kyoto commitments to achieve their emission reductions from projects in other countries also subject to emission reduction commitments under the Protocol.

The United States and the Kyoto Protocol

While the United States participated in the discussions and development of the Protocol and became a signatory nation, we have never formally ratified it and therefore have not participated in reducing emissions by our assigned 7% below the 1990 baseline.

• What went wrong? The Clinton Administration never submitted the Protocol to the Senate because of one dealbreaker - the lack of commitment to binding reductions for developing countries. Later, the Bush administration rejected the protocol. And while the United States did sign initially, because it was never ratified domestically, the targets are non-binding. In the years since the US backed away from the Kyoto Protocol, it ontinued to send delegates to the UNFCCC annual meetings but not to participate in conversations related to the Protocol implementation itself.
   
• Big pieces of the pie: In order for the Protocol to go into effect, countries representing at least 55% of the 1990 level emissions needed to ratify. As you can imagine, this was challenging without the United States' participation (representing a full 25% of global emissions at that time). However, in 2004 with Russia's ratification, the Protocol was set in motion. Here's a BBC article [18] from February 2005, just after that 55% threshold was met, and the Protocol went into effect. I like this because it's a nice time capsule of what our global thinking was around international climate change action at that time.

The Intervening Years
 

Beyond Kyoto

As the initial 2008-2012 phase of Kyoto drew to a close, UNFCCC meetings focused on what would come next. In particular, the intervening COPs emphasized addressing two of the biggest shortcomings of Kyoto:

1. engaging the United States
2. holding developing countries to binding emissions reductions

​​​​These two shortcomings are very tangled, and it really became a contentious game of chicken. The United States did not want to commit to binding emission reductions until developing countries also face binding targets, citing economic disadvantage if it were regulated, but economies like China and India were not. The developing world, however, is looking for the United States to join the rest of the developed world and take leadership on this issue before they agree to binding targets. They want reassurance of financial support in meeting these goals, and expect the historic emissions giants to take some bigger responsibility for their share in the global problem. Who will blink first?

Below is a summary of the action(and inaction) of recent annual meetings leading up to Paris in 2015.

Applying Lessons Learned from Kyoto

Credit: Francois Mori. "1.5 DEGREES". Associated Press [33]. December 11, 2015

Scientists and policymakers alike understood that 2015 was the year a new global climate treaty needed to be forged in order to start aggressively addressing emissions at a level commensurate with what the science was telling us about necessary reductions to avoid catastrophic impacts. 

And believe it or not, they came together and brought us the Paris Agreement [34].

Key Differences Between the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement

1. No differentiation between developed vs. developing - everyone agrees to binding commitments. Remember, this was a big sticking point for the United States going all the way back to the Kyoto Protocol. This aspect of the agreement is an important and historic step in international climate policy.
    
2. Countries set their own targets - these were called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) in the Agreeement. After each country formally entered the Agreement, they are referred to as also referred to [35] as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Each country submitted its INDCs as part of the Agreement to detail how it would achieve their emissions reductions goals per the Agreement. Put together as a whole, these pledges determine whether or not broader emissions goals will be met. Each country commits to self-reporting on their progress. This gives nations the flexibility to choose strategies that align with other strategic priorities and opportunities. These are the core of the Agreement because they outline how the emissions goals will be met. You can read more about INDCs from the World Resources Institute here [36]and from the United Nations here [37].
3. Degrees not percentages - The Paris Agreement focuses on limiting warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (relative to pre-industrial levels) by mid-century based on IPCC scientists collective recommendation that this is really the threshold for avoiding the more catastrophic and irreversible impacts of climate change.  It goes on to say more ambitiously that while limiting the warming to 2 degrees is good, containing it to 1.5 degrees is much better. This is further reiterated by the IPCC 2018 Special Report on 1.5 degrees [38]. This WRI summary [39] also explains how big of a difference just half a degree can make. Focusing the conversation around degrees instead of percentages serves to ground the policy more in the science that's guiding it than the politics of what countries think they can or cannot do. 
    
4. Financial support for developing countries - establishes a minimum annual commitment of $100 billion (from developed countries) in climate finance by 2020 to assist Least Developed Countries (LDCs) develop more sustainably and adapt to the impacts they're already committed to feeling. This is an fundamental step toward helping LDCs meet their climate goals, though it is likely inadequate [40], and even this target has not been reached (see here [40] for some analysis from WRI). In addition, this is significantly less than the estimated [41]$5.9 trillion of annual subsidies to fossil fuels. Further, funding that has been provided is possibly overstated [42]. (For example, loans that incur debt are counted in full, and the debt payments are not considered.) Note that some of the $100 billion per year is an investment, not a donation, and ironically (and sadly) has contributed to more debt [42]for already financially-strained budgets in low-income countries.

Nationally Determined Contributions - Are They Enough?

1. Lack of an enforcement mechanism. There is no penalty for not meeting targets or not having aggressive enough targets.
2. As detailed above, the specificity of how to reach goals may vary widely among participating countries.
3. The goals are not aggressive enough. In the most recent synthesis report, the UN determined that the updated NDCs taken as a whole would only reduce 2050 emissions levels by 70-79 percent, and further that they will only drop 5.2% by 2030 instead of the 25% required to be on a 2º C pathway or 45% to be on a 1.5º C pathway. The full synthesis report is available here [43]and the key findings here [44].
   
   Credit: COP26 NDC Synthesis Report [45], 4 November 2021.

"Differentiation, Financial Support, and the Paris Climate Talks [52]" (Stowe, 2015) - this provides a nice summary of some of the key differences between Kyoto and Paris, which are really key to understanding the possibility for more extensive success. "Is the Paris ruleboook sufficient for effective implementation of Paris Agreement? [53]" (Sun, et al., 2022) provides a very detailed look at NDCs and whether or not the Paris Agreement is capable of reaching climate goals.

The Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.  What has happened in the intervening years? Where do we stand on our progress toward its goals?

Let's take a look first at the annual COP meetings that have occurred since then.

The Paris Agreement represents a landmark achievement in international policy. I remember watching John Kerry signing the Agreement, his granddaughter in his lap, and getting goosebumps. I guess I never really thought the world would come together and agree on anything to address climate change. I felt (and continue to feel) so full of hope and excitement. Think about it - we identify this existential threat and figure out a way to address it before it's too late. This is a story only Hollywood could tell, right?

Credit: US Special Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, signs the Paris Agreement with his granddaughter on his lap (2015)

Well, we don't know yet. No one of us has seen the entire script just yet. But here's what we do know. The Paris Agreement isn't enough to get us to where we need to be. Each year, the United Nations puts out what's called the Emissions Gap Report [64]. This report gives a detailed look at the delta between where our emissions are, where they'd be heading with no policy intervention, and where we expect them to be with successful implementation of existing measures. Let's take a look.

Credit: United Nations Environment Programme (2024). Emissions Gap Report 2024 [64].

The gap looks pretty daunting, doesn't it? We know that we want to keep warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (relative to pre-industrial temperatures). We've already used up about a degree of that. We also know that the closer to 1.5 degrees we can contain that warming, the better off we are in terms of minimizing detrimental impacts. But as you can see, the delta is...well, it's big.

• unconditional NDC (nationally determined contributions) - these are the voluntary actions that countries have committed to that are totally implementable without external support
• conditional NDC (nationally determined contributions) - these go farther than the unconditional NDCs, but require some sort of external financial support (perhaps from the 'high ambition' bloc of countries) or are contingent on the climate-related policies other countries choose to implement.

Take note - that bigger zoom of it is just through 2030.  As we go farther out to 2050 and 2100, what happens is that the delta gets bigger. The longer we wait to take action, the more aggressive the action needs to be to achieve ever increasingly steep reductions.

But we can't let this graph discourage us from action. We don't have the luxury to throw up our hands and say nothing can be done. We have the tools, technology, and know-how to dig ourselves out of this emissions gap. The question really is - do we have the political will?

Important concepts to take away from this lesson

So, where will we go from here? It's hard to say. The good news is that the US intent to withdraw from Paris hasn't cascaded to other countries. Instead, it's inspired enhanced vigilance to pick up the slack we're leaving and solve the problem with or without us. One thing is certain though, the time to act is now. The other big question remains - will the US come (back) to the table and be part of the solution, or will we be served for lunch and let the rest of the world seize opportunities for expansion of cleaner technologies.

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