5. Towards a Future Climate Policy—From the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement

The Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate contained the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the EU, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russian Federation, South Africa, the UK, and the USA.

Although the Chinese President Xi agreed, during a meeting with US President Obama on 12 November 2014, to let Chinese greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2030, followed by a greenhouse gas emission reduction pattern, a clear emission reduction target was not announced (Vlaskamp and Elshout 2014).

In the context of climate change policy, two aspects of trade leakage could be distinguished. First, countries with emission reduction commitments would switch from carbon-intensive fossil fuels to fuels with lower carbon content or to renewable energy sources. Due to the lower demand for fossil fuels in these countries fossil fuel prices will go down, which could create an incentive for countries without commitments to increase their demand for fossil fuels. The greenhouse gas emission reductions achieved because of the commitments would thus be offset by increased emissions elsewhere. Second, trade leakage can occur if companies decide to shift their production from countries with commitments to countries without commitments (Schreuder 2009; Barrett 1997, 2000).

Nationally appropriate mitigation actions or NAMAs.

Before Copenhagen, the EU had stated that it would be willing to reduce emission by 30 % if other key emitting countries would also offer ambitious reduction targets at Copenhagen. Now, that COP-15 had not resulted in a legally-binding agreement, this offer was from the table, at least for the time being.

Carbon intensity in these proposals means greenhouse gas emissions per unit of gross domestic product.

In paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Copenhagen Accord, it was only stated that Annex I Parties (developed countries) committed to quantified economy-wide emissions targets for the year 2020, which they had to propose themselves by 31 January 2010. For non-Annex I Parties (developing countries), the formulation avoided the word ‘committed’; instead it was stated that non-Annex I Parties “will implement mitigation actions”.

It is noted that the EU Member States submitted one INDC.

A first stocktake, a so-called ‘facilitative dialogue’ is also scheduled to take place in 2018 as an assessment of pledged mitigation actions before the year 2020 (UNFCCC 2016, p. 4, para 20).

Note that the Paris Agreement does not contain sanctions in case countries do not meet the targets in their own NDC. The regular review as part of the global stocktaking exercise is hoped to introduce peer pressure from other countries to perform. The strength of this pressure remains to be seen. For example, should a country be the only one not complying with its NDC, then it will feel stronger international pressure then if it is part of a (much) larger group of countries lagging behind their planning.

The decision on financial contributions by developed countries to the Green Climate Fund, the collective effort to bring together USD 100 billion per year by 2020, was therefore softened, so that the Paris Agreement would not contain new financial commitments. In practice, this implies that the deadline for collecting USD 100 billion per annum was postponed until 2025 (Baker & McKenzie 2015, p. 12).