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The Paris Climate Agreement can be seen as illustrating the evolution of how legal norms are enforced in international law. While the Agreement benefits from a carefully thought-out enforcement mechanism in the international legal order, with techniques that encourage compliance rather than sanction non-compliance, its enforcement is also supported by domestic legal orders. Indeed, the Paris Agreement benefits from both hard and soft enforcement mechanisms. Here, all techniques and all actors have a role to play. This contribution shows that in order to discern the enforcement mechanisms attached to a legal instrument, it is sometimes necessary to take a global and complex look at all legal orders, techniques and actors, since they can act in a complementary manner.

This paper explains the emergence of the "pledge and review" governance approach found in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, in place of the "obligatory targets and timetables" approach found in the Kyoto Protocol, from a neo-Gramscian perspective. The main argument is that the adoption of pledge and review was a response to both the pressure to agree a new international treaty and the simultaneous divergence of interests and fragmentation of negotiation groups within the UNFCCC regime. In explaining this pressure to agree a new treaty, particular attention is given to the US and China, being the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, looking at the key interests involved in shaping the recent move away from their long-held core negotiating positions of reluctance in accepting emission reductions. Shifts in the world political economy - the decline of US hegemony, the shift of power towards China and the East, and the emergence of a new multipolarity - and the complex nature of climate change as a problem were given as causes of fragmentation of the global climate regime. These power shifts all occur within the overarching dynamic of fossil capitalism, where the overuse of global sinks and the exploitation of natural resources remains unquestioned. Any attempt to address climate change emerges within this ideological framework of economic growth and economic development. This is continually apparent throughout the analysis, often influencing the actions of different interest groups and changes in the world political economy. When taken together, the pledge and review approach can be seen to have reinforced cooperation between nations and strengthened consensus building, facilitating the search for an agreement under differentiated interests. Being less fixed than obligatory quantitative emission reduction targets, this degree of flexibility is key to the functioning and adoption of the system. This flexibility allowed many of the key contentions within the negotiations to be sidestepped, in order for an agreement to be reached.

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) were key to reaching the Paris Agreement and will be instrumental in implementing it. Research was quick to identify the 'headline numbers' of NDCs: if these climate action plans were fully implemented, global mean warming by 2100 would be reduced from approximately 3.6 to 2.7°C above pre-industrial levels (Höhne et al. Climate Pol 17:1–17, 2016; Rogelj et al. Nature 534:631–639, 2016). However, beyond these headline mitigation numbers, NDCs are more difficult to analyse and compare. UN climate negotiations have so far provided limited guidance on NDC formulation, which has resulted in varying scopes and contents of NDCs, often lacking details concerning ambitions. If NDCs are to become the long-term instrument for international cooperation, negotiation, and ratcheting up of ambitions to address climate change, then they need to become more transparent and comparable, both with respect to mitigation goals, and to issues such as adaptation, finance, and the way in which NDCs are aligned with national policies. Our analysis of INDCs and NDCs (Once a party ratifies the Paris Agreement, it is invited to turn its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) into an NDC. We refer to results from our INDC analysis rather than our NDC analysis in this commentary unless otherwise stated.) shows that they omit important mitigation sectors, do not adequately provide details on costs and financing of implementation, and are poorly designed to meet assessment and review needs.

Environmental issues have become one of the most salient topics on the political agenda. This is due to near-unanimous consensus amongst the scientific community that all types of environmental degradation, particularly the release of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere leading to climate change, represent a threat to life on Earth. Nonetheless, until recently, progress on finding political solutions to environmental problems has been remarkably slow. This is often linked to fears that environmental regulation may hamper economic development. Europe has always been an exception in this regard, as from the 1960s onward, it has gradually succeeded in enacting some of the most comprehensive environmental legislation in the world. All the while, Europe has maintained steady economic development, demonstrating that the two can be reconciled and are in fact mutually reinforcing. Since the 1990s, Europe has relied on this solid base to play a leading role in the emerging global climate regime. This has been critical in shaping the European Union's identity and incipient foreign policy as a normative power engaged in multilateral diplomacy to shape the international agenda. Following decades of laborious negotiations, the international community finally reached a new accord to tackle climate change during the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) held in Paris in 2015. The so-called 'Paris Agreement', signed by 195 countries, represents the most comprehensive and far-reaching climate accord ever achieved. Consequently, President Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement in June 2017 sent shockwaves through the international community. How should the EU respond to this setback? This paper will provide recommendations on how Europe can and should become the guardian of the Paris Agreement. The first part of the paper will focus on the historical context of Europe's role in climate diplomacy up to the Paris Agreement. The second section will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of EU and ...

Environmental issues have become one of the most salient topics on the political agenda. This is due to near-unanimous consensus amongst the scientific community that all types of environmental degradation, particularly the release of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere leading to climate change, represent a threat to life on Earth. Nonetheless, until recently, progress on finding political solutions to environmental problems has been remarkably slow. This is often linked to fears that environmental regulation may hamper economic development. Europe has always been an exception in this regard, as from the 1960s onward, it has gradually succeeded in enacting some of the most comprehensive environmental legislation in the world. All the while, Europe has maintained steady economic development, demonstrating that the two can be reconciled and are in fact mutually reinforcing. Since the 1990s, Europe has relied on this solid base to play a leading role in the emerging global climate regime. This has been critical in shaping the European Union's identity and incipient foreign policy as a normative power engaged in multilateral diplomacy to shape the international agenda. Following decades of laborious negotiations, the international community finally reached a new accord to tackle climate change during the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) held in Paris in 2015. The so-called 'Paris Agreement', signed by 195 countries, represents the most comprehensive and far-reaching climate accord ever achieved. Consequently, President Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement in June 2017 sent shockwaves through the international community. How should the EU respond to this setback? This paper will provide recommendations on how Europe can and should become the guardian of the Paris Agreement. The first part of the paper will focus on the historical context of Europe's role in climate diplomacy up to the Paris Agreement. The second section will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of EU and member state environmental policies, demonstrating how Europe is committed to lead by example, inciting further international climate action. The last section will examine how leading by example will provide Europe with the authority to position itself at the heart of the global climate regime, building a network of robust partnerships with countries around the world to compensate for US disengagement. ; Les questions environnementales sont devenues l'un des sujets les plus marquants de l'agenda politique. Cela est dû à un consensus quasi unanime parmi la communauté scientifique, selon lequel les atteintes à l'environnement représentent une menace pour la vie sur Terre, en particulier les gaz à effet de serre (GES) rejetés dans l'atmosphère, qui provoquent un dérèglement climatique. Néanmoins, jusqu'à récemment, les progrès vers des solutions politiques aux problèmes environnementaux ont été lents à se mettre en place. Cela est souvent lié aux craintes que la réglementation environnementale devienne un frein au développement économique. L'Europe a toujours constitué une exception de ce point de vue. En effet, à partir des années 1960, elle a progressivement réussi à adopter une législation environnementale parmi les plus ambitieuses au monde. Or, dans le même temps, elle a connu un développement économique stable, démontrant ainsi que les deux aspects sont compatibles et peuvent se renforcer mutuellement. Depuis les années 1990, l'Europe s'est appuyée sur cette base solide pour jouer un rôle de premier plan dans l'émergence du régime climatique mondial. Cela a contribué à façonner l'identité et la politique étrangère naissante de l'Union européenne (UE) en la positionnant comme puissance normative, utilisant une diplomatie multilatérale capable d'influer sur la politique internationale.Après des décennies de négociations laborieuses, la communauté internationale est finalement parvenue à un accord mondial pour lutter contre le changement climatique lors de la 21e Conférence des Parties (COP) qui s'est tenue à Paris en 2015. L'Accord de Paris, signé par 195 pays, constitue le traité climatique le plus complet et le plus ambitieux jamais conclu. Dès lors, la décision du président Trump d'en retirer les États-Unis en juin 2017 a provoqué des ondes de choc à travers la communauté internationale. De quelle manière l'Union européenne devrait-elle réagir face à ce recul? La première partie de cette étude présentera le contexte historique du rôle de l'Europe dans les négociations climatiques jusqu'à l'Accord de Paris. La seconde partie analysera les forces et les faiblesses des politiques climatiques de l'UE et de ses États membres, soulignant de quelle façon l'Europe doit montrer l'exemple dans ce domaine. La troisième partie abordera comment l'UE a le potentiel de se positionner au cœur du régime climatique mondial en construisant un réseau de partenariats avec des pays du monde entier pour compenser le retrait américain.

AbstractThe 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change is relevant to human rights law, not for what it says about human rights— which is next to nothing—but for what it says about the need to address the risk of climate change taking global temperatures above 1.5 or 2 °C. The Agreement could work, or it could fail by a large margin, but those who want to influence the outcome can still do so. That includes the human rights community. Since climate change is plainly a threat to human rights, how should the UN human rights institutions respond? Should they use their existing powers of oversight to focus attention on how States parties implement (or fail to implement) commitments made in the Paris Agreement? Or should they recognize a right to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment? Either choice would represent a significant contribution to the debate on human rights and climate change, giving humanity as a whole a voice that at present is scarcely heard.

The 2015 Paris Agreement achieved a broad international consensus on a methodology to limit emissions to control climate change. By its terms, the Paris Agreement anticipates individual action by individual nation-states. But underlying this principle stands the fact that climate change need not and should not be addressed only by nation-states. Rather, combatting climate change requires attention at multiple levels – national, state, regional, and local – as well as requiring a public-private partnership to engage businesses in a dedicated effort to achieve meaningful results in abatement. This article examines overlapping competencies within the European Union ("EU") and considers how various actors within the United States federalist system are engaged in trying to combat climate change. The question regarding overlapping competencies extends beyond the legal delineation of authority. At its core is the question of how to best utilize specific qualities of various constituencies with overlapping competencies to not only harmonize efforts but also to achieve maximum utilization of the efforts of different parties. Climate change is a global problem with globally felt externalities, and it must be addressed globally. It is not one that will self-resolve. Despite extensive technological advances, we cannot artificially create a livable habitat. People are dependent upon the continuing functioning of natural systems and habitats for survival. A coordinated approach to regulation among layers of government is essential to a properly functioning, fully utilized approach to climate change. This article thus addresses issues of European subsidiarity and American federalism in the context of climate change. Part II provides an overview of the basic issues at stake and briefly sketches the effectiveness of international treaties designed to address climate change and other approaches to date. No prior international effort created the cause for optimism that attended the signing of the Paris Agreement. Part III of this article takes a detailed look at issues of subsidiarity and places the discussion in the context of climate change. Part IV examines the issue within the United States, as the federal government's approaches to climate change have been dramatically revised over the past couple of years.