PROJECT OF

INTERNATIONAL LAW
ON THE TOPIC
“UNFCCC COP 21”

SUBMITTED TO SUBMITTED BY
MR. SHUBHAM SINGH ZAIBA REHMAN
GU16R0272
L.LB (VI SEM)
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 INTRODUCTION

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The 21st United Nations Conference of the Parties, or COP21, has started in Paris. France is
hosting and presiding over the global event in Le Bourget, a north eastern suburb of Paris, from
30 November to 11 December1. A total of 150 countries are taking part in the conference where
the nations are expected to reach an agreement on tackling climate change. The goal is to sign a
pledge to keep the average rise in global temperature below 2C.

1992: The UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which now has a membership of 195
nations, was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit. The framework called for action aimed at
stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to avoid "dangerous anthropogenic
(human-emitted) interference with the climate system".

1994: The UNFCCC came into force on 21 March, 1994.

1995: The COP was created to review the implementation of UNFCC and the first meetings
(COP1) were held in Berlin followed by subsequent conferences almost every year.

1997: The Kyoto protocol was adopted at COP3 in Japan. The protocol, which came into force in
February 2005, put obligation to reduce carbon emissions on developed countries by 2012.

2005: The Montreal action plan was produced at COP11 held in the Canadian city. The plan was
an agreement to extend the expiry date of the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012 and negotiate "deeper
cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions".

2009: The COP15 was held in Copenhagen where an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol
was unfortunately not realised.

2011: A Green Climate Fund was created at COP17 in Durban, South Africa.

2015: The COP21 is expected to be a historic meet in over 20 years of UN negotiations in which
the parties for the first time aim at signing a universal agreement on climate, with the target of
keeping global warming below 2C from the current 2.5 to 3.76C.

According to the official website of the Paris conference, the convention is expected to attract
about 50,000 participants including 150 heads of state and 25,000 official delegates from
government, intergovernmental organisations, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society. Reducing
dependence on fossil fuels is likely to be the key focus of the conference.

1
Rudd, Kevin (25 May 2015). ‘’Paris can’t be another Copenhagen” New York Times. Retrieved 26 May 2015

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LOCATION AND PARTICIPATION

The location of UNFCCC talks is rotated by regions throughout United Nation countries. The
2015 conference was held at Le Bourget from 30 November2 to 11 December 2015.
To some extent, France served as a model country for delegates attending COP21
because it is one of the few developed countries in the world to decarbonize electricity
production and fossil fuel energy while still providing a high standard of living. As of 2012,
France generated over 90% of its electricity from zero carbon sources, including nuclear,
hydroelectric, and wind. The conference took place two weeks after a series of terrorist attacks in
central Paris. Security was tightened accordingly, with 30,000 police officers and 285 security
checkpoints deployed across the country until after the conference ended3.
The European Union and 195 nations were the participating parties.

AIMS
The aim of the agreement is to decrease global warming described in its Article 2, "enhancing
the implementation" of the UNFCCC through:
(a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-
industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-
industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate
change;
(b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate
resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten
food production;
(c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and
climate-resilient development.
(d) This strategy involved energy and climate policy including the so called 20/20/20 targets,
namely reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (by 20%), the increase of RES (renewables) share
(to 20% on the basis of consumption) and the increase of energy efficiency, thus, saving up to
20% in the energy consumption
Countries furthermore aim to reach "global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as
possible". The agreement has been described as an incentive for and driver of fossil fuel
divestment.
The Paris deal is the world's first comprehensive climate agreement.

2
‘’France confirmed as host of 2015 Climate Conference” Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 22 November 2013. Retrieved
31 january 2014

3
Worland, Justin (14 November 2015), Paris Climate Conference to proceed with heightened Security After
Attacks,

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IMPORTANCE OF COP 21
Following the hundreds of thousands of people who marched in cities around the world on
Sunday, the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) commenced in Paris. As
leaders from 147 nations gathered to address the conference, few can doubt the global
significance of climate change and the importance the world is placing on tackling the challenges
we face. Whilst it is the politicians who will look to negotiate a deal aimed at reducing global
carbon emissions in an attempt to limit global warming to 20C, David Cameron himself stated
that “the issue of climate change is too large for governments alone to deal with. That is why
business and private donors must play an active role in shaping our response to climate change,
and enabling trillions of dollars of investment in clean technology”. Few dispute this and the
recent launch by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Richard Branson and other high-profile
entrepreneurs of an investment fund dedicated to finding clean energy demonstrates the
commitment by business to play their part. For those of us with an interest in the electric vehicle
world, Elon Musk can be added to this list with his backing of Tesla and Solar City. But
critically, these companies have been hugely successful on the capital markets as investors
realise the demand from society for companies able to offer more sustainable products. More
evidence can be seen in the rise of ‘Green bonds’ with HSBC, for example, recently injecting
$1bn into a green bond portfolio. Potentially therefore it will be the bottom up approach that
has the biggest impact on our ability to tackle climate change rather than a top-down approach
driven by legislation. Actions by individuals, their buying habits and desire to support companies
with socially responsible principles will drive the profits of those businesses who respond to this
demand. Business that can innovate and benefit from the disruption to traditional markets.
Perhaps this is why China has invested $90bn on renewable power generation in 2014. Not only
because it has to sort out its own air pollution issues but because it can see the development of
renewable products and technology will support its exporting economy into the future.

THE ROAD TOWARDS COP21- THREE KEY PROCESSES

The recognition accorded to local and subnational governments in the Paris agreements did not
happen overnight. It is the result of many years of consistent and determined advocacy by local
leaders and their networks.

1. Local Government Climate Roadmap: bottom-up proposals and initiatives

Launched in 2007 at COP13, the Local Government Climate Roadmap 1 was an

advocacy campaign designed to ensure local and subnational governments were
recognized, engaged and empowered in a new global climate regime. The process was
built upon experiences through the United States Mayors Climate Protection Agreement

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 and the Covenant of Mayors in Europe, and was inspired by achievements under the
convention on Biodiversity and Rio+20 negotiations. This process yielded a number of
key products, including the Copenhagen World Catalogue of Local Climate
Commitments, Mexico City Pact, Durban Adaption Charter, and Global Protocol for
Community- Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories (GPC) and the carbon Climate
Registry. Each of these demonstrates the strong commitment to climate action among
cities and regions across the world.

local governments have mobilized at the climate negotiations to highlight their

commitments and dedication. Even hosted at the city halls of Mexico City, Durban,
Nantes, Warsaw, lima and Paris, in advance of and parallel to the annual COPs, generated
key ideas and strategies from local and subnational governments that fed into the
UNFCCC processes. This input was presented in several key COP for that mobilized
large contingents of local leaders, including the 2008 local government sessions in
Poznan, the 2009 Local Government Climate Lounge in Copenhagen, the 2013 Cities
Day in Warsaw and the 2015 Cities and Regions Pavilion in Paris.

The decisions related to local and subnational governments adopted at COP16 in 2010,
COP19 in 2013 and COP21 in 2015 also marked concrete achievements in the
recognition, engagement and empowerment of local and subnational governments.

2. ADP process: dialogue with UNFCCC negotiators

At the 2011 COP in Durban, nations decided to begin the Ad Hoc Working Group on
the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, commonly known as ADP. This new process
aimed to build a new climate regime to be adopted in 2015, reinstate the process that
stalled at the 2009 COP in Copenhagen and mandate that nations focus on raising pre-
2020 ambition. ICLEI welcomed the ADP decision as a sign that the time had come to
engage local and subnational governments, which was in fact the case. ADP could, in
effect, stand for Accelerated Dialogue with Parties with respect to local and subnational
governments.
ICLEI submitted, in February 2012, key suggestions to UNFCCC to drive the active
engagement of local and subnational governments from the beginning of the ADP
process. Between May 2012 and June 2015, a total of 46 speakers from 21 countries,
equally balanced between the developed and developing world, participated at ADP
events. This included 30 participants representing a city or a region, many of whom were
political leaders.
Several concrete outcomes of the ADP process have benefited local and subnational
governments, including the first workshop on local governments in 2013 in Warsaw, the
Cities and Subnational Forum in June 2014 and the Technical Examination Process on

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 Urban Environment in 2014 and 2015. Through these fora, examples of local action
were shared with national governments, helping progress dialogue on options for climate
action and cooperation among all levels of government – the latter of which is referred
to as vertical integration.

3. 2014 United Nations Climate Summit: an era of partnerships

The 2014 United Nations Climate Summit hosted by United Nations

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon led to a remarkable evolution in the
concept of partnerships among all stakeholders. This was further
strengthened by the positive mood spread by the United Nations Climate
Change Secretariat Executive Secretary, Christiana Figures, who strongly
supported a partnership-driven approach.
The appointment of Michael R. Bloomberg as the United Nations Special
Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, and the constructive spirit among
global networks of local and subnational governments, opened up new
opportunities. These resulted, for example, in new global initiatives such as
the Compact of Mayors and Compact of States and Regions, which
demonstrate and strengthen the collective impact of local and subnational
climate action.
The launch of the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA)
Platform by the UNFCCC at COP 20 in Lima provided additional visibility
and recognition to the diversity of commitments and actions taken by
stakeholders other than national governments.
Finally, the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA) established an inclusive
process that engages all actors in mobilizing short and long term action to
support the climate regime. It played a catalytic role for the endorsement of
national governments of long term action and became a core element of the
new global climate regime.
LOCAL AND SUBNATIONAL GOVERNMENTS AT COP21 IN
PARIS
The success achieved by local and subnational governments at COP21 stems first and
foremost from the recognition and engagement accorded to them in the Paris
Agreement. At the same time, COP21 was a milestone in the level of active engagement
by local and subnational government leaders, who maintained a strong presence in every
important sphere of activity.

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  Core events outside the negotiation zone of COP 21

The Cities & Regions Pavilion – TAP2015 was the main stage for local climate action at
COP21. Co-hosted by Paris and Bristol, as European Green Capital 2015, and facilitated
by ICLEI, the two-week Pavilion placed local climate action on center stage, offering an
open forum for cities and regions to showcase their climate actions to over 2,000
participants. Partnership was at the heart of this Pavilion, including city-business
cooperation, local-national government coordination and many other dimensions of
effective climate action around the world. The Pavilion featured more than 120 local and
regional projects from the Transformative Actions Program (TAP) – each with the
potential to accelerate climate change mitigation and/ or adaptation, and many of them in
search of finance. With its vast pool of climate projects, the Pavilion conveyed an
important constant: local and subnational governments hold tremendous potential to act
quickly and concretely whether or not nations achieved an international agreement. The
role of the TAP, which made its global debut at the Pavilion, was – and continues to –
address ways to improve capital flows to cities and regions in order to make this potential
a reality. Paris itself was also a stage for local leaders to demonstrate their commitment to
climate action.
KEY OUTCOMES OF THE 2015 PARIS CLIMATE PACKAGE
The voices of local and subnational governments have, in fact, been heard. The Paris
Climate Package, which includes both the Paris Agreement and the COP21 decisions on
implementation, explicitly recognizes and engages local and subnational governments in
climate action – a significant success for cities and regions around the world. The Paris
Agreement, signed by 177 national leaders in April 2016, will enter into force as soon as
at least 55 Parties accounting for 55 percent of global emissions ratify the Agreement
through national processes.
The preamble of the Paris Agreement recognizes the need for stronger engagement with
Non-Party Stakeholders, promising to involve local and subnational governments in
actions on capacity building, adaptation and loss-and-damage.
The COP21 decision, also part of the Paris Climate Package, establishes a framework for
action that begins now. Non-Party Stakeholders are explicitly mentioned in many
paragraphs of the text, which means nations have detailed various processes that
immediately advance their engagement with Non-Party Stakeholders. This includes,
notably, a work plan for subnational capacity building that spans from 2016 to 2020.
National governments have also recognized cities and regions in their Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDCs), approximately half of which encourage and foresee
action at the local and subnational levels. This figure is promising for the role of cities
and regions as nations work toward achieving their climate commitments4.

4
See http://www.iclei.org/climate-roadmap

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 ACCOMPANYING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PARIS CLIMATE
PACKAGE THROUGH INTEGRATED TRANSFORMATION
The Paris Climate Package engages all levels of government in pursuing the 1.5-degree
Celsius goal, and it is vital that local leaders capitalize on the existing global
momentum. The Paris Agreement will unlock resources that can help cities and regions
meet and exceed their climate goals. Resulting locally-driven implementation process
can and should be systematic, based on a series of actions that build a strong framework
for action.
The elements of implementation are the same at the national and local level. Local
policies define the level of ambition, while robust capacity building and strategic
partnerships enable defined actions to progress quickly and with an eye for innovation.
Importantly, consistent and transparent performance evaluation and reporting give
greater legitimacy to climate commitments. To support local and subnational
governments advance at this critical stage, ICLEI is providing a suite of resources that
guide and enhance local systems thinking and improvement.
AFTER THE COP 21 PARIS SUMMIT: OUTCOMES AND
EXPECTATIONS
The 21st session of the conference of the parties (COP), also called the Paris summit,
started on November 30, 2015 and ended about two weeks later after 195 countries
reached consensus on the Paris agreement. The agreement was signed on December 12,
2015 and included a decision to limit the climate change by 2 degrees. The Paris
agreement is being structured to be legally binding and all parties commit to take joint
action regarding the decisions including in the agreement, such reasons make the Paris
Agreement different than its predecessors.
The decisions included in the agreement and the main outcomes of the conference are as
follows:
 Limiting global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, while pursuing efforts to limit the
warning to 1.5 degrees,
 All parties announcing Nationally Determined Contributions and making binding
commitments that will encourage taking measures aimed at achieving them,
 Committing all countries to report regularly on their emissions and the progress made in
implementing and achieving their NDCs, and subjecting the progress to a system of
international review,
 Committing all countries to submit new NDCs every five years, with the clear
expectations that they will represent a progression beyond previous ones,
 Ensuring that developing countries support developing countries,
 Extending the current goal of mobilizing $100 billion financing each year by 2020 to
2025, with a new, higher goal to be set for the period after 2025,

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  Extending a mechanism to address and minimize the loss and damage resulting from
climate change,
 Requiring parties engaging in international emissions trading to undertake necessary
actions to avoid double counting,
 Developing a new mechanism to replace the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
under the Kyoto Protocol, which will enable emission reductions in one country to be
counted toward another country’s NDC.5

CRITICISM
Effectiveness
A pair of studies in Nature have said that, as of 2017, none of the major industrialized
nations were implementing the policies they had envisioned and have not met their
pledged emission reduction targets, and even if they had, the sum of all member pledges
(as of 2016) would not keep global temperature rise "well below 2 °C". According
to UNEP the emission cut targets in November 2016 will result in temperature rise by
3 °C above preindustrial levels, far above the 2 °C of the Paris climate agreement.
In addition, an MIT News article written on April 22, 2016 discussed recent MIT studies
on the true impact that the Paris Agreement had on global temperature increase. Using
their Integrated Global System Modeling (IGSM) to predict temperature increase results
in 2100, they used a wide range of scenarios that included no effort towards climate
change past 2030, and full extension of the Paris Agreement past 2030. They concluded
that the Paris Agreement would cause temperature decrease by about 0.6 to 1.1 degrees
Celsius compared to a no-effort-scenario, with only a 0.1°C change in 2050 for all
scenarios. They concluded that, although beneficial, there was strong evidence that the
goal provided by the Paris Agreement could not be met in the future under the current
circumstances.
A 2018 published study points at a threshold at which temperatures could rise to 4 or 5
degrees compared to the pre-industrial levels, through self-reinforcing feedbacks in the
climate system, suggesting this threshold is below the 2 degree temperature target, agreed
upon by the Paris climate deal. Study author Katherine Richardson stresses, "We note
that the Earth has never in its history had a quasi-stable state that is around 2°C warmer
than the preindustrial and suggest that there is substantial risk that the system, itself, will
'want' to continue warming because of all of these other processes – even if we stop
emissions. This implies not only reducing emissions but much more."
At the same time, another 2018 published study notes that even at a 1.5C level of
warming, important increases in the occurrence of high river flows would be expected in
India, South and Southeast Asia.Yet, the same study points out that under a 2.0C of
warming various areas in South America, central Africa, western Europe, and the
Mississippi area in the United States would see more high flows; thus increasing flood
risks.
5
http://www.c2es.org/international/negotiations/cop21-paris/summary

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 Lack of binding enforcement mechanism
Although the agreement was lauded by many, including French President François
Holland and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, criticism has also surfaced. For
example, James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and a climate change expert, voiced
anger that most of the agreement consists of "promises" or aims and not firm
commitments. He called the Paris talks a fraud with 'no action, just promises' and feels
that only an across the board tax on CO2 emissions, something not part of the Paris
Agreement, would force CO2 emissions down fast enough to avoid the worst effects
of global warming.
 Institutional asset owners associations and think-tanks have also observed that the stated
objectives of the Paris Agreement are implicitly "predicated upon an assumption – that
member states of the United Nations, including high polluters such as China, the US,
India, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Indonesia and Australia, which generate more than
half the world's greenhouse gas emissions, will somehow drive down their carbon
pollution voluntarily and assiduously without any binding enforcement mechanism to
measure and control CO2 emissions at any level from factory to state, and without any
specific penalty gradation or fiscal pressure to discourage bad behavior.

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