Reflections on the Paris Agreement, 10 years on

In December 2015, leaders agreed on the breakthrough Paris Agreement, cementing a pathway for enhanced multilateral cooperation on climate action. Over the past 10 years, countries have used the Paris framework to set and track progress toward ambitious climate goals, with a view toward strengthening them over time.

Climate change is accelerating as the amount of global greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise, but there is still time to limit warming, prevent irreversible tipping points, and adapt to impacts. There is no better reminder than the Paris Agreement of what is possible when countries come together to make change happen.

The UN Foundation’s Associate Vice President for Climate and Environment, Ryan Hobert, looks back on the path to Paris in 2015 and how climate action has been shaped by the treaty and its forerunner agreements.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Faith: How has the UN changed the world’s approach to climate?

Ryan: Greenhouse gases and their impacts are global and do not stop at borders’ edge. They demand an international response and collaboration between every country — plus an actor that can play a central coordinating role: the United Nations. That’s why the UN, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, set up the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which eventually led to the Paris Agreement in 2015. In parallel, UN Member States set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to gather and summarize climate science, the impacts from global warming, and the solutions needed.

These UN governance bodies, which were created to support countries in dealing with the climate change threat, have played a central and crucial role since their inception. They are often held up as models for how to deal effectively with the toughest global crises, including those outside the climate realm. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard experts say that they drew on the IPCC or the Paris Agreement as inspiration for other arrangements.

It’s not just the UN’s governance systems that are important, though. Leadership from within that system is also critical. I’ve seen what that leadership looks like firsthand as the past two UN Secretaries-General, Ban Ki-moon and António Guterres, both put galvanizing global action on climate change at the very top of their agendas. Their focus and attention have been transformative.

Faith: What was innovative about the Paris Agreement? How was it different from the Kyoto Protocol or the Copenhagen Accord?

Ryan: Since 1995, countries have gathered every year under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in what are called COPs, or Conferences of the Parties. At these gatherings, nations tackle the climate challenge and focus on developing specific and practical agreements that detail how they can reduce their emissions, adapt to a warming world, and finance these activities.

The first of three main attempts at developing such agreements took place in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Nations negotiated a top-down legally binding deal to set emission limits for developed countries but did not include analogous legal commitments to cut emissions from China, India, or other developing countries. Eighty-four countries ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but the world’s largest emitter at the time –– the United States –– refused to ratify it. This left the world with a decidedly non-comprehensive arrangement and an appetite to try again for an arrangement that was truly global. A second major attempt came with the Copenhagen Accord in 2009. While some crucial headway was made in creating the political space for what such an agreement might look like, those talks failed to produce the permanent arrangement that the world needed.

Then, finally, after several years of tireless diplomatic work, a breakthrough came in 2015. At COP 21, the Paris Agreement succeeded by putting in place a more flexible bottom-up — rather than top-down –– approach to emission reductions. Under this agreement, every five years, countries commit to greenhouse gas reduction goals they set for themselves. These Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, are meant to become increasingly stringent in each successive five-year cycle. This was accompanied by an overarching goal for all countries to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C (3.6°F) above preindustrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F). Critically, the agreement was designed to truly accommodate global participation, including that of the United States, which was able to join without the need for U.S. Senate ratification.

Ban Ki-moon was spot-on when he said, just after the deal in Paris was struck, “This is a resounding success for multilateralism… an agreement that demonstrates solidarity and is ambitious, flexible, credible, and durable.”

LOOKING BACK AT COP 21

Faith: What was it like to be in Paris in December 2015? 

Ryan: As someone who had worked in climate diplomacy for more than a decade in 2015, it was an extraordinary moment. It was incredible to see the French Government’s remarkable diplomatic work and for the UN, the U.S., and other countries to collaboratively seek a strong, but flexible, arrangement. A lot of critical elements fell into place in the run-up to the Paris Agreement: The IPCC finalized its Fifth Assessment Report; public opinion on climate surged; in 2014 the Secretary-General hosted a major climate summit during the UN General Assembly that was accompanied by the largest-ever climate demonstration in the streets of New York City; and the U.S. and China –– in spite of a very fraught bilateral relationship –– worked together to forge solutions and show leadership.

The growth in momentum for a deal in Paris was palpable. Ultimately, with a lot of goodwill and hard work, the stars aligned. Finally seeing the deal come together was extraordinary and filled many of us with a tremendous sense of possibility and hope. It was proof that international cooperation could solve even the world’s toughest problems.

Faith: How did the UN Foundation support the global push toward the Paris Agreement?

Ryan: The UN Foundation brought our convening power and fresh thinking to the process. We worked with the Secretary-General and his team every step of the way and supported UN agencies to set the stage for a deal. We also worked to find creative solutions to climate negotiations to complement the formal process. For instance, we partnered with Club de Madrid to convene a task force of former Heads of State and leaders from business and civil society, including Laurence Tubiana, who was a principal architect for the French Government on the Paris Agreement. Together, this group of accomplished thinkers worked through some of the hardest political challenges that stood in the way of success.

Faith: How has the Paris Agreement performed over the past decade?

Ryan: Thanks to the Paris Agreement and all the work that has been done to implement it, the world is now on a 2.5°C trajectory. This is a big improvement over the 4°C+ trajectory that we were on prior to Paris, and we have averted a lot of suffering in communities as a result.

To bend that trajectory further, we do not need a new climate agreement. The Paris Agreement already includes the appropriate mechanisms and targets. What we need is redoubled political will from countries, subnational entities, the private sector, and civil society to make good on the promises and commitments that have already been made.

Faith: COP 30 just concluded in Belém, Brazil. Ten years later, is the Paris Agreement still relevant and how can the multilateral system deliver its promise in the next decade? 

Ryan: There is frustration in the climate community at the slow pace of progress on climate action coming out of COP 30. That’s understandable. We are still not making progress at the pace we need to keep the world from warming more than 2°C, much less 1.5°C. We understand now, better than ever, how devastating it would be to surpass these thresholds.

At present, we still lack the political will to tackle the issue with the kind of speed and scale that’s required. The current U.S. administration does not even acknowledge that climate change is real. It is in the process of pulling out of the Paris Agreement, refused to participate in COP 30 at any level, and is promoting fossil fuel development and exports. It is very difficult to make significant global progress on climate change when the world’s largest economy and historical emitter –– who typically plays a key role in brokering a consensus COP deal –– is not at the table. That said, no other country has left the Paris Agreement; the economics behind the clean energy transition are becoming more favorable every day; and the impacts of climate change are becoming so violently apparent that they are impossible to ignore.

Many other countervailing signs of progress are emerging. To name just one, the world’s now-largest emitter, China, is far and away the biggest developer, installer, and exporter of the technologies needed to transition the world to a clean energy economy, including solar panels, windmills, electric vehicles, and batteries.

The Paris Agreement remains the best framework we have for dealing with climate change through international collaboration. We need to deliver on it. And for that we all need to rekindle the spirit of multilateral cooperation that led us to ink that breakthrough agreement 10 years ago.