The Implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change Law, Ethics and Governance Series

In December 2015, 196 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Paris Agreement, seen as a decisive landmark for global action to stop human- induced climate change. The Paris Agreement will replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2020, and it creates legally binding obligations on the parties, based on their own bottom-up voluntary commitments to implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The codification of the climate change regime has advanced well, but the implementation of it remains uncertain.

This book focuses on the implementation prospects of the Agreement, which is a challenge for all and will require a fully comprehensive burden- sharing framework. Parties need to meet their own NDCs, but also to finance and transfer technology to others who do not have enough. How equity- based and facilitative the process will be, is of crucial importance. The volume examines a broad range of issues including the lessons that can be learnt from the implementation of previous environmental legal regimes, climate policies at national and sub-national levels and whether the implementation mechanisms in the Paris Agreement are likely to be sufficient.

Written by leading experts and practitioners, the book diagnoses the gaps and lays the ground for future exploration of implementation options. This collection will be of interest to policy-makers, academics, practitioners, students and researchers focusing on climate change governance.

1: Implementation of International Environmental Agreements; 2: ‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ Law on Climate Change: Comparing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol with the 2015 Paris Agreement; 3: A Comparative Architectural Analysis of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement and other ways to counter Environmental ‘Ratification Fatigue’; 4: Promoting the Implementation of International Environmental Law: Mechanisms, Obligations and Indicators; 5: Strengthening compliance under the Convention on Biological Diversity: Comparing Follow-up and Review Systems with the Global Climate Regime; 6: Five Short Words and a Moral Reckoning: The Paris regime’s CMA-APA Equity Stocktake Process; 7: Equity in Global Stocktake; 8: Stakeholder Perceptions of the Implementation Capacity of the Climate Change Regime; 9: Technological Ethics, Faith and Climate Control: The Misleading Rhetoric Surrounding the Paris Agreement; 10: The Implementation of the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities within the Paris Agreement: A Governance Values Analysis; 11: After Paris: Do We Need an International Agreement on Green Compulsory Licensing?; 12: Low Carbon Market Opportunities and a Brief Discussion on Lessons Learned from Adaptation Fund; 13: Understanding the Relationship between Global and National Climate Regimes and Local Realities in India; 14: Paris Agreement and Climate Change in India: To Be or Not To Be?; 15: USA and India on Climate Change: How the Tables Turned?; 16: Cities and Paris Agreement; 17: Beyond COP21: What Does Paris Agreement Mean for European Climate and Energy policy?; 18: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats To the Implementation Of The Paris Agreement In the Latin American Region;

Vesselin Popovski is Professor and Vice Dean of the Law School, Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of the UN, Jindal Global University, India. Until 2014 he was Senior Academic Officer at the United Nations University, Tokyo. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and has authored and edited over 20 books.