Today marks an historic turning point in global action on climate change. At the UN Climate Conference in Paris, known as COP21, 196 countries joined together in the Paris Agreement, a universal pact that sets the world on a course to a zero-carbon, resilient, prosperous and fair future. While the Agreement is not enough by itself to solve the problem, it places us clearly on the path to a truly global solution.
Building on the foundation of national climate plans from 187 countries, the Paris Agreement is a reflection of the remarkable momentum from cities, companies, civil society groups and others that complement the global will to act that has grown over the years since the first international conference on climate change in 1992.
The Paris Agreement will maintain and accelerate that momentum. It offers clear direction with:
But the Agreement does even more: it marks a new type of international cooperation where developed and developing countries are united in a common framework, and all are involved, engaged contributors. It reflects the growing recognition that climate action offers tremendous opportunities and benefits, and that climate impacts can be tackled effectively, with the unity of purpose that has brought us to this moment.
The moment in Paris extended far beyond the Agreement itself. Cities and forests, business and finance – all these were part of the many initiatives and commitments that were launched or strengthened over the past two weeks. And they will be key to the solution as action moves forward with the energy generated by Paris.
Long-Term Mitigation Goals
The Paris Agreement sets landmark goals for taking action on climate change, aiming to keep temperature rise to well below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) and to pursue efforts to keep it to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). To achieve this, countries will aim to peak global emissions as soon as possible and – remarkably – countries agreed to reduce emissions rapidly to reach net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the second half of the century. They will do that taking equity, sustainable development and poverty into account.
Five-Year Cycles of Action
To build on the momentum from countries’ national climate plans put forward for Paris, countries have agreed to a process to ramp up action on emissions every five years. By 2020, countries have agreed to come back and either submit new or updated national climate plans (known as nationally determined contributions). Every five years after that, countries will submit new contributions. Countries have also agreed that their mitigation plans will represent a progression beyond their previous efforts.
Five-Year Comprehensive Global Stocktake
The Agreement establishes a strong process for countries to regularly assess implementation and take stock of climate action every five years, called the Global Stocktake. This will assess implementation of action on mitigation, adaptation and support, including finance, and inform implementation of countries’ climate plans. Assessment will start in 2023, but countries have agreed to return in 2018 to review implementation of mitigation measures to inform their 2020 mitigation contributions.
Adaptation
Adaptation to climate change is a central issue for global climate action in this Agreement, where it is on par with mitigation. It establishes a global goal of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability, including an adequate adaptation response given the Agreement’s temperature goal. The Agreement creates a cycle of action for strengthening adaptation efforts regularly, similar to the mitigation cycle. Countries will have flexibility on the timing and methods for communicating information about their adaptation activities or efforts. Support will be provided to developing countries for planning, implementation and communication of adaptation activities.
Loss and Damage
The Agreement addresses the important issue of loss and damage, referring to the serious impacts of climate change when mitigation and adaptation fail. Those people who are affected by climate change may face damage to their property or health, or in worse cases, permanent loss of land or livelihoods, or even loss of life. The Agreement acknowledges the issue of loss and damage as separate from adaptation, and makes permanent the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) on Loss and Damage, established two years ago to find ways to address these issues. The outcome also establishes a task force on climate change-related displacement within the WIM, and makes clear that the loss and damage provision does not create new legal liability for emitting countries.
Finance
Finance will provide the needed power to turn the world toward a zero-carbon, climate-resilient future, and the purpose of the Agreement states that all financial flows – both public and private – need to be shifted from high to low emissions activities and risky to resilient investments. The Agreement makes clear that developed countries will continue to provide and mobilize finance to support developing countries, and developed countries agreed to continue their 2020 commitment of mobilizing $100 billion a year until 2025. For the period after that, governments will adopt a new, higher, collective goal, though the extent to which finance will increase, and who will mobilize it, is a significant outstanding question. The Agreement opens the door for developing countries to provide support to their peers, recognizing that some developing countries are already doing so.
In addition, governments agreed to balance public funding between adaptation and mitigation, and agreed to significantly increase support for adaptation before 2020, which is of vital importance for the most vulnerable countries dealing with the impacts of a warmer world. Countries also committed to improve reporting on finance, with everyone providing information about finance provided or received, as appropriate.
Transparency
The Agreement establishes a common system for transparency for all countries. Through an enhanced transparency framework all countries will be required to report on their emissions and track progress on achieving their nationally determined contributions regularly. The information provided by all parties will be subject to an expert review and facilitative multilateral consideration of progress. The framework provides flexibility and support that takes account of different countries’ capacities. Developed countries will report on the finance and support they provide, and developing countries will report on the finance and support needed and received.
Capacity Building
For the new international climate agreement to be universal, countries acknowledged that effective capacity building is vital to enable developing countries to take strong climate action. To elevate this issue, countries established the new Paris Committee on Capacity Building to oversee a work plan to enhance capacity building. The Committee will identify capacity gaps and needs, foster international cooperation and identify opportunities to strengthen capacity for climate action.
Legal Form
The Paris Agreement is a universal, legal agreement under the UNFCCC, with the participation of all countries. It will be open for signature next April, and will come into force in January 2020. Notably, the Agreement contains a strong, legally binding framework for reporting, transparency and review of implementation capable of driving greater ambition to tackle climate change. The establishment of a mechanism to facilitate implementation and promote compliance will provide further assurance of Parties’ actions.
COP21’s outcome fulfilled the promise of its opening day, when more than 150 heads of state and government converged in Paris to express their commitment to climate action and a viable agreement. On the same day, 20 countries and 27 representatives from the private sector announced a multi-billion dollar clean energy fund and commitment to increase R&D investments, a major boost to the talks. This set the stage for more progress on climate action across a wide spectrum of areas.
Forests and Restoration
Opening day, November 30, also saw significant government commitments to protect forests, including $5 billion in funding from Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom. Global Forest Watch Climate, launched during the conference, offers the potential to shift the debate on monitoring forest-based emissions. The African Forest and Landscapes Restoration Initiative (AFR100) seeks to restore 100 million hectares (nearly 250 million acres) of degraded and deforested land in Africa by 2030.Initiative 20x20 is landscape restoration effort in Latin America and the Caribbean that has now reached nearly 28 million hectares (nearly 70 million acres) and $730 million in investment.
Cities
Building efficiency, sustainable mobility and interactive tools were among the city-level solutions advanced to prevent carbon-intensive congestion, sprawl and inefficiencies from locking in for decades to come. WRI announced 25 new partners to the Building Efficiency Accelerator as part of the UN SE4All initiative and presented the New Climate Economy message of better transport, better climate. A coalition including WRI advanced the Paris Process on Mobility and Climate to position mitigation and adaptation contributions from transport sector. Along with UK DECC, WRI demonstrated the 2050 Global Calculator, an interactive model – WRI contributed the transport section – that allows users to explore 2 degrees C pathways. Looking ahead, the UN announced the Climate Action 2016 conference to deepen and expand action in six focus areas—with cities and transport being key.
Business
More than 114 companies committed to set emissions reduction targets in line with Science Based Targets, using what scientists say is necessary to keep global warming below 2 degrees C. Participating companies have combined annual carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to what125 coal-fired power plants emit in a year. Goldman Sachs announced plans to invest $150 billion in clean energy projects and technology.The investment bank previously had a target to invest $40 billion in clean energy technologies by 2012, and will now almost quadruple that by 2025. Google added 842 megawatts of renewable energy capacity around the world, nearly doubling the amount of renewables it has purchased to 2 gigawatts, equivalent to taking nearly 1 million cars off the road.
Investment
Institutional investors and banks signaled their plans to build climate change considerations into their decisions. Allianz and ABP officially joined the Portfolio Carbon Initiative, bringing the value of the Coalition’s assets under management to $600 billion. Five Principles for Mainstreaming Climate Action within Financial Institutions also launched, with more than two dozen financial institutions indicating their intent to incorporate climate change into strategies and operations. An alliance of global investors, development banks, financial sector associations and NGOs launched the Green Infrastructure Investment Coalition to support the accelerated financing of green infrastructure through investor-government global and regional dialogues, and 27 global investors issued the Paris Green Bonds Statement to support policies that drive the development of long term, sustainable global markets in green bonds.
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