numbers, not adjectives — D. J. C. MacKay
How good is the Paris Agreement?
by Carl Edward Rasmussen, 2023-08-10
The Paris
Agreement, is a United Nations Framework Convention for Climate
Change (UNFCCC) agreement, negotiated
in Paris in December 2015 which came into force in 2016. The agreement
is long, one of its substantial statements, article 2.1(a), states
that the parties agree to Holding the increase in the
global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial
levels and pursuing 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;
When it was signed, the Paris Agreement was widely
hailed as a "historic breakthrough". But I personally think that the
agreement is bad. Specifically, I think it is worse than nothing, as
in that it actively makes the problem of climate change worse. Let me
explain why.
Properties of the Paris Agreement
Below I discuss some of the key properties of the agreement:
- Effectiveness: When the Paris agreement came into force in
2016, the global atmospheric CO2 growth rate was about 2.4 ppm/year,
the highest ever at the time. Today, 7 years later in 2023 the
growth rate is still about 2.4 ppm/year. We haven't run a controlled
experiment, and don't know what the CO2 growth rate would
have been without the Paris Agreement. But stabilising temperature
requires that the CO2 growth rate is reduced to
zero. This shows that the results of the agreement so far are completely
inadequate.
- Consensus: The UNFCCC
COP meetings are governed by consensus, which is both a virtue
and a liability. The advantage is the possibly global inclusivity but
the weakness is that small groups of countries can effectively block
progress. In the past three decades the COP meetings have suffered
from the inability to rapidly reach effective consensus. Time is
running out for agreeing effective measures, we don't have a few
more decades to spend on negotiation. Agreements with only partial
initial consent will be preferable to no effective agreement at
all. Therefore, climate clubs with broad but not
necessarily immediate universal acceptance should be pursued
along side consensus negotiations. The insistance on exclusively
consensus driven negotiations, when the COP meetings are seen by
many as the only legitimate forum for international climate
negotiations, causes international paralysis.
- Responsibility: The agreement prescribes committing
collectively to the 1.5°C or 2.0°C limits. Thus, no
party in particular will be at fault if, or when, the commitments
are broken. An effective agreement in contrast, would require
specific, measurable commitments from the parties, with a clear
assignment of responsibility. In its current form, the agreement
invites to universal abdication of responsibility.
- Global Average Temperature Proxy: The Paris agreement
targets the global average temperature. But the global average
temperature is a proxy for what we really care about, which is the
living conditions on the planet. Living conditions are of course
difficult to quantify, so we need proxies. But is global average
temperature a good proxy? Not on its own, for several resons:
- global average temperature is not directly attributable to
our actions. To be effective, an agreement must (also) target
greenhouse gas emissions which are causing heating, are directly
measurable and whose emissions are attributable
- global average temperature is subject to significant natural
statistical fluctuations. This means that it will take time after
the smooth time averaged temperature has exceeded the 1.5°C or
2.0°C limits before we will know it with confidence
- because of inertia in the climate system, temperature takes
time to respond to our actions. If we hypothetically stopped
releasing greenhouse gases today, average global temperatures would
still keep increasing for a while due to what has been called
global warming in the pipeline.
These effects make is difficult to use the global
average temperature proxy to govern policy.
- Commitment: According to the agreement, countries are
encouraged to submit non-binding, increasingly ambitious Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDCs) at regular intervals. But these
are only weak incentives:
- there is nothing, above perhaps peer pressure, pushing
countries to raise their ambitions. Since weaning from fossil fuels
is difficult, countries have unsurprisingly resisted
- countries are free to water down their future NDCs or simply
not implement them
- there is no requirement of NDC immediacy. Some politicians
boast impressive pledges for the far future, say 2050, when they'll
no longer be active; it's not going to be their problem
- NDCs are not legally binding, which may encourage some
countries to submit pledges which they have no intention of
complying with (but it will necessarily take decades before
we will know how widespread this problem is).
There is no
effective pressure to ensure ambitious NDCs and no mechanisms of
enforcement, so any commitments are largely vacuous in
practice.
Tackling climate change is fundamentally about cooperation. We all
share the same atmosphere, CO2 emissions from anywhere,
quickly spread globally. Cooperation requires reciprocal and binding
agreements. A great example of cooperation in practice is
income-tax. I pay my tax, not because I necessarily agree with every
detail of the system, but because I'm part of a community who
cooperate to achieve communal benefits. I agree because others agree.
I will if you will. But I think it's unfair if people cheat or
free-load. Unfortunately the Paris Agreement completely ignores these
well known, understood, documented and necessary mechanisms of
cooperation. Of course, implementation of income tax requires
enforcement. And the international community doesn't have a body with
global jurisdiction. But that doesn't mean we can't make binding,
reciprocal agreements. How much tax would you pay, if it was
voluntary? Hoping that a voluntary NDC based tax system would work is
delusional. The problem with the Paris Agreement is the
fundamental absense of a framework which includes the mechanisms
necessary for cooperation.
Summary
For all the reasons above, I think the Paris Agreement is a bad
agreement. You might hope that even if it proves not to be
particularly effective, then at least it won't do any harm. But I
think it is much worse than that. Because it is seen internationally
as "the only game in town", this obstructs efforts to engage more
effectively. The net result is that we will continue to wait and hope
in vain. And waiting is precisely what we can't afford. I'm all for
the "keep 1.5°C alive" slogan, but let's be realistic, it's not
going to happen as a consequence of the Paris Agreement. The sooner we
realise this, the sooner we can start working on effective solutions.
What would a better agreement look like?