The Paris Agreement: Lessons in Global Governance Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Paris Agreement on global governance. It begins by defining global governance and its relevance to climate change, emphasizing the agreement's goal of mitigating climate change by limiting temperature rise. The report discusses the agreement's key aspects, including the hybrid approach combining top-down and bottom-up strategies, nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and the transparency framework. It highlights the agreement's success in achieving broad international participation. The report then examines the limitations of the Paris Agreement, such as the lack of legally binding targets and mechanisms for enforcement. It also critiques the agreement's reliance on future technological advancements and the absence of concrete financial support for developing countries. The analysis concludes by assessing the overall effectiveness of the Paris Agreement in addressing climate change and its implications for international cooperation.

Running head: PARIS AGREEMENT ON GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
PARIS AGREEMENT ON GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
The lessons from the Paris agreement in terms of global governance............................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Global governance refers to world governance and it involves a movement towards
political cooperation and is usually aimed at getting responses to problems that are affecting
more than one country at a time. Therefore climate change is an issue that requires global
governance because it is leading to changes in the global temperatures and therefore steps need
to be taken to overcome the same issue (Al-Dabbagh 2016). This is so because climate change is
often referred to as the “ Tragedy of the commons” and the main reasons behind the same is that
of over-exploitation of the atmosphere of the planet by the individuals and the also the nations
widely. However several steps have been undertaken to reduce the impacts of the same such as
the framework convention on climate change or FCCC, that is aimed at stabilizing greenhouse
gases. Further, the Paris agreement has also been undertaken that is aimed at achieving a balance
between the activities of mitigation and adaptation and also attaining the support and adaptation
of various parties. The adaption and support of usually the small developing countries and states
are required. The main aim of the paper is to discuss the lessons of the Paris agreement on global
governance and also the limitations of the Paris agreement. The paper will discuss the Paris
agreement and the lessons drawn from the same concerning global governance and also the
limitation of the global governance.
Discussion
The lessons from the Paris agreement in terms of global governance
The Paris agreement is aimed at bringing all the nations together for a common cause that
is to reduce the impacts of climate change and also to be able to adapt to the same and also
helping the developing nations in achieving the same. The main aim of the Paris agreement is to

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overcome the threats of climate change by keeping the rise in temperature at least lower than 2
degree Celsius and also includes the efforts made by the nations to reduce the rise in temperature
to at least 1.5 degree Celsius (Bailey and Tomlinson 2016). Moreover, the agreement is aimed at
helping the countries which are a part of the agreement in meeting the impacts of climate change.
To ensure the achieve also a framework of increased capacity building will be used and this will
also ensure that the developing countries and the vulnerable countries get proper supports. The
agreement also aims at providing a transparency framework that will help in bringing
transparency to actions. The Paris agreement is an agreement of global governance because it
requires the participation of different nations for getting a solution to some common issues that
are being faced globally (Zapf, Pengg and Weindl 2019). Moreover, it requires political
cooperation towards these global issues and the Paris agreement is one such agreement that has
become one of the most important treaties globally. The agreement provides discussion over
cross border issues. The Paris agreement is based on efforts of the earlier agreements and
convention such as the Copenhagen accord and Kyoto protocol. Further, a special report was
released by the IPCC or the intergovernmental panel on climate change regarding why the global
warming needs to be stopped at 1.5degree Celsius above the levels set by the industries and also
the way of achieving the same (Barnosky et al., 2012). This is so because if the warming of the
planet continues at 2 degrees Celsius that is the touted limit of temperature as per the Paris
agreement then people will be faced with a scarcity of water that will be twice as much as it the
warming rises at 1.5 degree Celsius. Moreover, if the temperature rises continuously at the rate
of 2 degrees Celsius about 1.5 billion people will be exposed to heat extremes and they will also
be exposed to various other diseases including malaria and also various other harms (Xu,
Ramanathan and Victor 2018). Moreover, various techniques have been identified for the

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purpose such as rethinking the policy goals, assessing science in the near terms and similar other
techniques. By rethinking the policy goals, Broader planning tools need to be used for
maintaining the warming limits at 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to the special report of the
IPCC when much reliance is given on the NEGATIVE EMISSIONS TECHNOLOGIES it
becomes difficult to envision realistic policies.
These realistic goals are dependent upon the trade-offs between social and political
parameters. And the Paris climate process needs to embed the assessment of the trade-offs. The
Paris agreement has made a breakthrough in climate negotiations. It is considered as a 21dt
century model of global governance. The Paris agreement is a hybrid mechanism that includes-
soft, hard, top-down and bottom-up approaches. The Paris agreement unlike the previous treaties
on climate change does not set the targets for mitigation in specific countries rather nationally
determined contributors or NDC depending upon their judgment. Further, the lessons from the
success of the Paris agreement concerning global governance include- making use of a hybrid
approach that includes a combination of the top-down stock taking procedures and oversight and
also the bottom-up approach of setting targets nationally. The agreement reflects a strong
political movement as it is one of the fastest agreements to enter into force. Moreover, the united
nations framework convention on climate change or UNFCCC is driven by various factors such
as cities, actors, states, society organizations and also includes other local communities.
Moreover, various domestic models of governance can complement the Paris agreement. The
Paris agreement also provides a new direction towards various cooperative mechanisms and
carbon markets. These mechanisms are expected to go beyond the Kyoto protocol thereby
incorporating all the lessons learned including the clean development mechanism. The most
important lesson of the Paris agreement is that the countries which signed the agreement

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including the developing countries had identified nationally determined contributors (NDC). And
therefore the developing countries were expected to end their NDC under the agreements
however they did not have any individual obligation for the same (Falkner 2016). There was only
a collective aim that was to reach the peaking of the emission globally as soon as possible. This
was so because the developing countries were taking more time in reaching the same. The Paris
agreement was important because, under it, the member countries go back to their alternative of
“pledge and review”. Under it countries are required to send their NDC and therefore the novelty
of the Paris agreement arises from the fact that all the countries are now committed to sending
their NDC’s with the special responsibility of the developing countries. Another major advantage
of the Paris agreement is that it covers about 96% of the emissions against the Kyoto protocol
which covers only 14% of the emissions.
Limitations of the Paris agreement
Though the Paris agreement has ambitious goals which if carried out would help in
mitigating the problems related to climate changes, the main issue with the Paris agreement is
that it does not cause any legal binding on the parties. Therefore if the target cannot be met then
none of the parties will be at fault. Moreover, there are no commitments for the countries and
therefore none of the countries can be blamed if the target is not met. Moreover, it has also been
identified that it is easy to set up institutions but it is not easy for those institutions to produce
successful outcomes or meet the objectives of the organizations. Moreover, developing countries
are always ready to establish an institution because of their frustration with the existing
organizations. On the other hand, the developed nations are reluctant to the establishment of new
institutions because of the fear of duplication. Moreover, meticulous considerations are to be
done for the institutional designs in case the institution carries out a governance activity.

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Therefore all the new institutions are to be assessed on grounds of climate regime
evolution especially involving global stocktake and ambition cycle. A broader structure has been
laid down by the UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE
CHANGE for global cooperation in which the future agreements were required to provide
specificity. The Paris agreement has not done anything like that. Instead, the model introduced
by the Paris agreement is considered to be more worrisome as it includes nationally determined
contributors. Moreover, most of the results are dependent upon the operation of the use of
revolutionary technology (St Fleur 2015). The model used by the Paris agreements meets the
needs of different key players. However, this model does not take into consideration the
reductions in the actual emission and therefore does not have a collective system for enforcing
the individual countries in meeting their targets. Moreover, the Paris agreement is dependent
upon the world leaders' reputation. And the initial implementation will also not be checked by
the leaders who have invested in the Paris agreement.
Therefore the model that is used in the Paris agreement suffers from political uncertainty
(Zhang 2010). The approach of Bottoms up that is used by the Paris agreement is suitable for
Paris and it made it impossible to hold the different countries answerable for their emission
under the Paris agreement. Therefore the agreement was considered void for its actionable
commitments. The Paris agreement was expected to provide results that reflect the good
intentions however it was not the case (Tiberghien and Schreurs 2007). This is so because
although the Paris agreement laid down certain objectives such as reducing the temperature rise
to 1.5 degrees Celsius it failed to discuss the techniques with which the same objective can be
achieved. Moreover, section 7 of the Paris agreement that discussed climate change adaptation is
considered to be the longest. However, nothing was concrete in that section especially related to

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financial support. Further, the agreement includes languages that did not have proper meaning
such as it used the term LOSS AND DAMAGE that was expected to mean the cost of changing
climates over developing nations. Moreover, the agreement fails to provide grounds for
compensation or liability. Therefore most of the scholars consider the Paris agreement as a
continuation of the discussion on topics that were previously discussed also even the Paris
agreement may not be able to mitigate the issues of climate change. Further, the Paris agreement
fails to lay down any targets for the individual countries that are a part of the same and it also
lacks a meaningful mechanism that measures accountability and therefore the nations are not
legally bound by the agreement (Harrison 2007). The Paris agreement, therefore, fails to take
into consideration the legal elements that could have improved the enforceability of the
agreement.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion, it can be concluded that the Paris agreement was
aimed at reducing or stabilizing the emissions such that the rise in the temperature could be not
more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. For the same purpose, it even adopted a hybrid model that used
both the top-down and the bottom-up approach. Some of the major learnings of the agreement
can also be understood from the paper and it included- the identification of the nationally
determined contributors and also the way the same needs to be submitted by different nations
especially the developing countries to achieve its global objectives. The Paris agreement is one
of the first multilateral agreements that has been successful in covering about 96% of the
emission, unlike the previous conventions and agreements that we're able to cover only 14%.
However, the Paris agreement also had to suffer from different limitations such as it was
criticized on grounds that it was lacking the legal obligations on part of the member countries

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and as a result, the agreement was not binding on the countries and they could easily reject the
submission of their national determined contributors. Moreover, several terms were used in the
Paris agreement that did not have proper specific meanings, for instance, the use of the word:
LOSS AND DAMAGE.

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References
Al-Dabbagh, M., 2016. Towards a middle path: Loss & damage in the 2015 Paris
Agreement. Environmental Law Review Syndicate/NYU Environmental Law Journal. Available
at: http://www. nyuelj. org/2016/04/towards-a-middle-path-loss-damage-in-the-2015-paris-
agreement.
Bailey, R. and Tomlinson, S., 2016. Post-paris: Taking forward the global climate change
deal. Chatham House. Briefing. April.
Barnosky, A.D., Hadly, E.A., Bascompte, J., Berlow, E.L., Brown, J.H., Fortelius, M., Getz,
W.M., Harte, J., Hastings, A., Marquet, P.A. and Martinez, N.D., 2012. Approaching a state shift
in Earth’s biosphere. Nature, 486(7401), p.52.
Falkner, R., 2016. The Paris Agreement and the new logic of international climate
politics. International Affairs, 92(5), pp.1107-1125.
Harrison, K., 2007. The road not taken: Climate change policy in Canada and the United
States. Global Environmental Politics, 7(4), pp.92-117.
St Fleur, N., 2015. The Road to a Paris Climate Deal. The New York Times.
Tiberghien, Y. and Schreurs, M.A., 2007. High noon in Japan: Embedded symbolism and post-
2001 Kyoto Protocol politics. Global Environmental Politics, 7(4), pp.70-91.
Xu, Y., Ramanathan, V. and Victor, D.G., 2018. Global warming will happen faster than we
think.

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Zapf, M., Pengg, H. and Weindl, C., 2019. How to Comply with the Paris Agreement
Temperature Goal: Global Carbon Pricing According to Carbon Budgets. Energies, 12(15),
p.2983.
Zhang, S., 2010. Seeking balance: reconciling nature and development. Global Asia cover
feature-Inside China: How a World Power is Facing Up to Its Many Domestic Challenges, 5(2).