Before we can dig into where things stand with the Paris Agreement or how successful it has been, we need to examine 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. 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). See more about who they are here and what they do here. The IPCC provides the Assessment Reports and interim reports. Although it is comprised of the some of the world’s preeminent scientists in a number of related fields, the IPCC and its reports have not been without some controversy and challenge.
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 of what the UNFCCC does from the UN.
3. COP: 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 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 in Kyoto, Japan) and the Paris Agreement (from COP 21 in Paris, France).
4. AR: Assessment Report. Reports 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) released in 2023. Each report is numbered - AR1 was in 1992, AR2 was in 1995, and so on. AR7 is due in 2027.
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 is divided into more manageable and understandable parts) was issued by The Climate Group around the time the Paris Agreement was forged. An active link does not seem to be available, but it did an adequate job of dissecting our decades of work on this problem to show the pace at which things have moved historically and where the important jumps are in terms of how we think about tackling this problem. (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, 2015

Evolution of policy options

• When the UNFCCC was created 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 marked the first time the effort was intended to be fully inclusive of member nations, and that targets were compulsory, to the extent that such as treaty is enforceable. One of the main differences between Kyoto and Paris is that now countries get to set these targets themselves. (One aspect that did remain consistent between the two treaties 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 we are now here we somewhere around 10-11 o'clock.

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 addressing global climate change. For context, this was after the first and second assessment reports from the IPCC. (1990 and 1995, respectively. The first report was instrumental 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?

Note that the Kyoto treaty is no longer in effect.  But it is useful and prudent to learn about its key elements, as many of these approaches are still being used. Most of a country's required reductions must occur internally via measures such as renewable energy and energy efficiency. However, there were several additional measures that enabled Kyoto signatory countries to meet their targets. These additional measures were 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 climate goals.

1. Emissions trading - countries that 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) - 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 to learn more about the verification process for CDM projects.
3. Joint implementation (JI) - allows countries under Kyoto commitments to achieve their emission reductions from projects in other countries also subject to emission reduction commitments under the Protocol.

A common element of items 1 through 3 above is that it recognizes that we are all under the same atmosphere, and regardless of where actions occur, it contributes to the carbon balance worldwide. 

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 did not participate in reducing emissions by our assigned 7% below the 1990 baseline. This does not mean the US did not reduce emissions during that period, nor does it mean countries that did participate actually met their emissions goals. 

• 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 continued to send delegates to the UNFCCC annual meetings but not to participate in conversations related to the Protocol implementation itself. The Bush Administration did develop a parallel “global” alternative to Kyoto called the Asia Pacific Partnership (See below).  The idea of the APP was to engage several of the nations who exempted from the Kyoto requirements.  In other words, APP attempted to address the key reason the US did not ratify the Kyoto treaty.
• 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 from February 2005, just after that 55% threshold was met, and the Protocol went into effect. The article provides a 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 were related, 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, was looking for the United States to join the rest of the developed world and take leadership on this issue before they would agree to binding targets. They also wanted reassurance of financial support in meeting these goals, and expected the historic emissions giants to take some bigger responsibility for their share in the global problem.

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. 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.

Surprisingly, they came together and developed the Paris Agreement.

Key Differences Between the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement

1. No differentiation between developed vs. developing - everyone agrees to binding commitments. Recall this was a key point for the United States going all the way back to the Kyoto Protocol. This aspect of the agreement was an important and historic step in international climate policy because it recognized the point that as it is one atmosphere, exempting some countries' impacts progress for all.
2. Countries set their own targets - these were called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) in the Agreement. After each country formally entered the Agreement, they are referred to as also referred to as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Each country submitted its INDCs as part of the Agreement to detail how it would achieve their emissions reduction 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 its 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 and from the United Nations here.
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. This WRI summary also explains how big 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) in developing more sustainably and adapt to the impacts they're already committed to feeling. This is a fundamental step toward helping LDCs meet their climate goals, though it is likely inadequate, and even this target has not been reached (see here for some analysis from WRI). In addition, this is significantly less than the estimated $5.9 trillion of annual subsidies to fossil fuels. Further, funding that has been provided is possibly overstated. (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 has contributed to more debt for already financially-strained budgets in low-income countries.

Nationally Determined Contributions - Are They Enough?

While an important step, some criticisms of the INDC process include:

1. Lack of an enforcement mechanism. There is no penalty for not meeting targets or not having aggressive enough targets. This was also true of Kyoto and is an inherent shortcoming of these international treaties.
2. As detailed above, the specificity of how to reach goals may vary widely among participating countries.

3. Some contend 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, and this assumes countries meet these goals. The full synthesis report is available here and the key findings here.

   

   Credit: COP26 NDC Synthesis Report, 4 November 2021.

"Differentiation, Financial Support, and the Paris Climate Talks" (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 rulebook sufficient for effective implementation of Paris Agreement?" (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.

Is the Paris Agreement enough to get us to where we need to be? Each year, the United Nations issues what is called the Emissions Gap Report. 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. Below we see what the report tells us.

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

We know that we want to keep warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (relative to pre-industrial temperatures), but we have 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 should be in terms of minimizing detrimental impacts.

• 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 would need to be to achieve ever increasingly steep reductions.

The Asia Pacific Partnership

As a counter approach to Kyoto, the Bush Administration implemented the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) in 2006.  The idea was that the reason we did not support Kyoto was that it exempted countries- many of which were actually significant contributors to carbon.  Another issue was the cost burden on US taxpayers. 

APP is no longer in effect, but the partnership intended to address climate change issues, while promoting economic development and poverty reduction by leveraging development of clean and efficient technologies.  More importantly, the partnership was comprised of China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, India, and the US. With Canada joining on later.  This effectively captured the key countries that would be necessary to create real change and substantial emission reductions but were exempted from Kyoto. 

As positive as this may sound, the APP was criticized for being a way to avoid Kyoto and for not having biding targets.  But APP was meant to be a complement to Kyoto.  As to non-binding goals, this criticism was ironic in that in the long run, without an enforcement mechanism, being “binding” was not as impactful for Kyoto as originally intended.  The point of acknowledging the APP although it ended in 2011 with minimal fanfare is to show that there are different international agreement models.

Important concepts to take away from this lesson

We have seen that there have been a number of international efforts, each with starts and stops.  Efforts get started, then stall, then restart in some cases.  We have also learned that international tools have inherent limitations and drawbacks that present challenges.  Issues such as enforcement, funding, consistency in metrics, and other issues introduce complexity.  As we move forward, we might see in the future that there are other tools and approaches that are more effective. 

It is interesting to note that being a treaty signatory does not guarantee that the country will meet its goals, and not being a signatory does not mean that the country is not making progress. The United States and part of Europe are an interesting study in in this anomaly.  US emissions slightly increased between 1998 and 2009, then have been on a steady decline since then; during the stops and starts of Kyoto and Paris-and everything in between.  An interesting paper by Michael Cary of Virginia Tech demonstrates that the US emissions trend during the Kyoto period was essentially the same as that for treaty signatories. 

Whereas the US did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, it essentially met what would have been its commitment.  Conversely, several European signatories to Kyoto did not meet their goals.  We see the same issue with the Paris Agreement- signatories are not on track to meet the goals. 

Regardless of what is the vehicle in place in the future at the international level, it will need to contend with:

• Choosing the right measures and metrics
• Addressing the funding issue, without putting undue financial burden on countries. 
• Dealing with developed vs undeveloped countries and where they are in the development of their economies
• Enforcement mechanisms

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