THE PARIS AGREEMENT: POINTS OF WEAKNESS & OPPORTUNITES FOR REFORM ANAHITA FARISHTA

Anahita Farishta

THE PARIS AGREEMENT: POINTS

OF WEAKNESS & OPPORTUNITES

FOR REFORM

Introduction

When President Donald Trump was inaugurated into office in early 2017, one of the first promises he made to the American public and the world was that he would pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, an agreement among nearly 200 countries that encourages multinational cooperation to cut greenhouse gas emissions and (ideally) mitigate the effects of global warming. President Trump does not support US involvement in Paris primarily on the basis that the Paris Agreement would hurt the United States’ economic growth. Of course, whether the United States truly stays out of the Paris Agreement is a question that will take time to answer, as it is likely that a democratic victory in the United States’ 2020 election will result in continued support for the Paris Agreement from the White House. This is not the first time that such an event has occurred, as party switchover in the United States with George W. Bush is what resulted in the US Federal Government abandoning the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The situation has changed today, as the effects of climate change seem to be intensifying exponentially and the need for action is greater now than it has ever been before.

Nearly three years after President Trump has announced the end of U.S. involvement in Paris, the process of formal withdrawal has now officially begun. The fact that the United States, the world’s largest economy, has decided to back out of the Paris Agreement means that the coherence of the Agreement is more in question now than ever before. Although U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has publicly announced that the United States will continue to support climate action in other ways such as the development of renewable energy, Jonathan Pershing, a former special envoy for climate change during the Obama administration, has declared that the United States has lost the trust of climate diplomats and “has been written off in many cases as a partner” (Friedman 2019). Facing the reality that the Paris Parties will have to continue on their climate mission without the United States, it becomes essential to identify the weaknesses of the Paris Agreement and recognize how much it lacks in its ability to achieve the goals laid out in COP21 (The United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015, the 21st Conference of Parties). Many environmental activists and climate scientists are harboring a sense of frustration with half-hearted actions of policymakers in regards to fighting climate change, one

such example of this half-heartedness being the Paris Agreement, and they feel this for good reason (Finneran 2016). The Paris Agreement has some serious limitations that prevent any change from materializing at all; this article has the goal of examining the components of the Paris Climate Agreement, identifying the sources of its ineffectiveness, and proposing recommendations for how to address the insufficiencies of the Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement Lacks Effectiveness

DISTRACTED NATURE OF PARIS AGREEMENT One of the primary flaws of the Paris Agreement is that it serves as a distraction from true change in regards to the fight against climate change. First, the very structure of Paris, the fact that an individual country can choose how much it is willing and able to curb emissions, means that there is little room for any sort of accountability or enforcement; no one can seriously enforce the rules upon you when you are the one who makes them. But furthermore, aside from the obvious issues of accountability, the structure of the Paris Agreement precludes any mention of the need to curb resource extraction, which is a major contributor to greenhouse gases, and it “sets goals far below those needed to avert a global catastrophe” (Browne & Goldtooth 2016). In fact, with our current trajectory, predicted warming will be above 3 degrees Celsius, which is quite embarrassing considering the goal of the Paris Parties is 1.5 degrees Celsius (Biniaz 2019). The fact that the Paris Agreement is framed through a lens of short-termism means that it inevitably ignores the roots of the climate crisis and ignores the people who have the determination and experience to fight climate change and its effects (Kojima, Tamura, & Institute for Global Environmental Strategies 2015; Browne & Goldtooth). The Paris Agreement’s ineffectiveness is apparent on many levels, making it a weak tool with which our climate diplomats can fight climate change.

Moreover, the Paris Agreement’s approach to the fight against climate change allows for contradictions in practice, “such as the Obama administration, on the one hand, pledging net emission reductions, and on the other proposing a five-year expansion of offshore oil drilling across the Arctic and Gulf of Mexico” (Browne & Goldtooth). If the Paris Agreement allows for these contradictions to occur, it is serving as a distraction for world leaders as it allows our gover-

nment leaders and diplomats to present a guise of action and benevolence while they continue to engage in environmentally-damaging practices. This paints a very clear picture of how blatantly the Paris Agreement lacks any way to truly reach the emission limits needed to prevent the 2° C increase that would spell disaster and cause irreversible damage for planet Earth. THE POWER OF CLIMATE FINANCE

Money is a large part of how our climate solutions are manifested. Whether it’s money from governments or private investors, climate finance is what drives geoengineering and other research efforts to determine the quickest and most effective way to combat global warming and its effects. However, the climate finance infrastructure is falling apart at the seams for two reasons: 1) countries are falling behind on their commitments, and 2) climate finance is currently grossly mishandled and misallocated by investors.

First, the Green Fund through which climate finance was (somewhat) structured is largely ineffective because it lacks any sort of enforcement mechanism, much like the Paris Agreement itself. The Green Fund was a desperate idea conjured up in Copenhagen in 2009 which required all “developed countries” to pay $100 billion in climate finance per year to developing countries to fund clean technology as a solution to climate change. The Green Fund seems excellent in theory, but the downfalls become starkly apparent when getting these industrialized countries to cough up the money. This large transfer of wealth from developed countries to undeveloped countries seems utopian, which it certainly is. Some countries, such as Canada, committed to only providing $300 million per year, which wouldn’t be a significant problem, but all of the other countries also did not meet their annual goal of $100 billion.

Furthermore, the “lack of a legal framework and insufficient regulatory oversight regarding the use of such technologies” makes it impossible for climate finance to get up to the level it needs to be to be effective (Bojovic & Pulfer 2015). Furthermore, in addition to the insufficient quantity of climate finance funds, how climate finance is currently being allocated is ineffective and even detrimental to climate action efforts. Most climate finance is targeted towards large-scale projects that take large amounts of time to design and deliver, meanwhile the people in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have time to waste. If climate finance was more

Couretsy of Glassholic, licensed under Creative Commons

purposefully targeted on a local level, we would see a much better allocation of it and more effective ways of fighting the effects of climate change. Particularly in areas of the global south that are more affected by climate change, local-level climate finance would fund small-scale decentralized projects that would, unsurprisingly, have a bigger impact (Rai 2017). Moreover, local communities “need to be included in decisions about how money is spent and have enough funding to act effectively.” This foundation for a more effective allocation of climate finance is critical to delivering the Paris Agreement at the pace we need it to happen (Rai). OBSTRUCTIONISTS

Another source of Paris’ ineffectiveness concerns what Sanja Bojovic (2015) refers to as “holdouts” and “obstructionists.” These are countries that do not support and intentionally thwart, any attempts made by the Paris Parties to create binding collective commitments to fight climate change. One such example is Canada. Canada has been regarded as a country that is unwilling to make meaningful commitments towards the vision of the Paris Agreement and another climate diplomacy. At first, the Canadian government claimed that they would not take any action until the U.S. did so, based on Canadian economic survival. However, even after the Obama administration made a climate deal with China and joined the Paris spirit in 2015, Canada remained idle regarding climate action. This is an understatement; Canada does not remain idle, but rather actively contributes to the climate crisis by continuing to invest in the development of oil and gas exports. When probed about why Canada holds such a stance on fighting climate change, the Canadian government claimed that it had already invested billions of dollars in developing clean technology and

they vowed to contribute $300 million to the Green Fund to fund further research and development (Bojovic). However, when Corporate Knights asked further questions to substantiate Canada’s claims about their contributions, the Canadian government declined to provide more information (Bojovic). A POST-U.S. PARIS AGREEMENT

Another major problem with the Paris Agreement is that it appears to be too dependent on support for the United States. While the Parties of Paris would likely oppose this statement, the truth lies in the fact that the structural integrity of Paris is dependent on the positive peer-pressure that is sourced from influential countries such as the United States. The Paris Agreement does not mandate developing countries to curb emissions, and in the context of Paris, both India and China are considered “developing” and therefore have no obligation to curb emissions. The only reason these countries stepped up their commitment to fighting climate change and making an effort to limit pollution and greenhouse gas emissions is because the United States was stepping up and applying pressure. With the United States gone, these “developing countries” have no one left to compete with or impress.

This indicates that other developed nations will have to replace the U.S. and apply that same pressure on China and India (Friedman). This complicates the efficacy of the Paris Agreement, as the influence and pressure from the United States was a driving factor to get some of the world’s biggest polluters on board with the fight against climate change. Of course, one could argue that other superpowers in Europe could easily replace the U.S.’s role in Paris, but this seems unlikely, especially as China is currently resisting any efforts to deliver on its promises made at COP21 (Friedman 2019). With Europe currently divided over how to curb coal power, there is very little political capital available for European leaders to win concessions with China regarding sustainability.

And, lastly, with the United States out of Paris, China has lost the vigor with which it signed the climate deal with the United States. Moreover, the United States is not only absent from the Paris discussions, but President Trump’s antagonistic discourse towards climate diplomats and climate action serves as another barrier for other countries to act on climate change. The United State’s influence, whether it’s positive or negative, is a significant determiner of Paris’ success in rallying important actors to play their part. THE LACK OF A HUMAN RIGHTS COMPONENT

The next problem with the Paris Agreement, a problem which I would argue is the most problematic, is that the Paris Agreement shows little respect for human rights. In the face of climate change, human rights violations are amplified as climate change disrupts many people’s access to fundamental resources for survival, especially in vulnerable areas. This can occur in both direct and indirect ways. The direct way is when people are denied access to basic human rights for survival, such as food, potable water, and suitable living conditions. The indirect violation of human rights is through radical climate solutions such as geoengineering and the construction of mega-dams that may result in the displacement of certain populations and infringe upon their human rights. The text of the Paris Agreement is progressive in the sense that it is one of the first documents of its kind that explicitly recognizes a need to consider and respect human rights. However, as is often the case with UN documents, the discussion of human rights stops at the preamble of the text of the Paris Agreement (2015), in which it states that “Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity.” This is the first and last time the phrase “human rights” appears in the official document. In practice, it is also evident that the Paris Agreement does little to deliver on its promise to respect and promote human rights.

In fact, not only does the Paris Agreement ignore human rights, but practices under the Paris Agreement will violate even more human rights than are already being violated. One such way in which this will happen is indirect, at the hands of geoengineering practices that the Paris Agreement funds with little regulatory oversight (Browne and Goldtooth). The likelihood of pieces of land being privatized for the sake of “research” will affect indigenous populations and people of color the most, especially in the global south, as they have their homes taken away from them. Thus, the Paris Agreement once again finds itself in contradiction; there is a vision for the promotion and protection of human rights, but the actual practices and mechanisms of the Paris Agreement will make it impossible to achieve that vision. Moreover, not only are developed countries going to directly fund the displacement of indigenous peoples, but those same countries will also deny any sort of responsibility, financial or otherwise, to compensate for the loss and damage done to areas of the global south at the hands of the climate change caused by these superpowers. As stated before, the

rules of the Paris Agreement are made by the winners, which means the losers do not receive any sort of compensation for the damage caused by the winners. The fact that the Paris Agreement blatantly facilitates the violation of human rights is arguably the most disappointing element of Paris. It appears as though the mention of human rights in the official text of the Paris Agreement serves more as an accessory to the document than a critical part of climate action.

Some will make the substantial argument that these issues of human rights were so contentious that they would have compromised the integrity of the entire Paris Agreement, so the Paris Parties decided to ignore the touchy subject of human rights for the sake of the agreement (Atapattu 2016). For example, if Paris required some sort of protection of human rights, countries like China, Venezuela, and Russia would refuse to participate. However, the argument about avoiding touchy subjects precludes asking the question of why human rights are a touchy subject in the first place. The issue of human rights lies at the heart of the climate issue; it isn’t the wealthy, Western populations who are affected by climate change, it’s the vulnerable populations in the global south. Perhaps it is possible that a discussion of human rights at COP21 would have resulted in fewer countries making commitments to climate action, but even that smaller group of participants would have meant more meaningful conversations and practices about how to combat climate change and mitigate its effects, especially in vulnerable areas. It became a question of quality or quantity, and the Paris Parties chose quantity, which was a major mistake for the future of human rights.

A Hopeful Future

Despite the language I have expressed thus far, the Paris Agreement is not a lost cause entirely. There are several ways in which the Paris Agreement can be reformed efficiently to fill the gaps that currently exist. One particular method is not more correct than any others, but rather I argue that all of these ways of reform must be arranged and permuted in conjunction with each other for Paris to achieve some sort of success. POLICY COHERENCE

Policy coherence in this context refers to how local and provincial governments step up and take more of a responsibility to monitor emissions and engage in climate action. This would be most practical if climate finance was more locally targeted.

As stated prior, issues of climate finance impeded the realization of Paris’ vision because the current top-down, centralized blueprint of climate finance is ineffective as it fails to supply sufficient funds at the pace needed to crucial areas. By decentralizing climate finance, we gain the advantage of having “accountability, efficiency, and sustainability” for the climate investments made in a particular region. One practical method through which this can be done is through alliances with government and non-government bodies. There have been successful systems of devolved climate funds in Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, and Senegal, in which there is an alliance between these bodies and national planning systems that allows funds to be directly channeled to the people of affected areas, allowing them a sense of ownership over how the money is handled (Rai). This also allows local concerns to be addressed immediately and effectively, which manages risks and ensures sustainability. Having a coherence between the top-down approach and the local micro-level approach will pave the way to more effective climate action, which needs to be a critical component of the Paris Agreement.

Further, there needs to be more coherence not only between governmental and non-governmental actors but also between visions of mitigation and adaptation. While adaptation is largely concerned with minimizing the impacts of climate change, mitigation is more focused on dealing with the causes, the latter being what most climate policy centers itself around. In the status quo, climate diplomats and the leaders of the Paris Parties view mitigation and adaptation as zero-sum, in which we can only focus on one or the other, and this view is largely what informs climate policy. Focusing on both the causes and effects of climate change shapes a more holistic approach to how we face the climate crisis, expanding the tools we can use. Sarah Burch writes in a policy brief from 2016 that “holistic responses can deliver other sustainability benefits as well: recreational areas that enhance public health, build community vitality and strengthen biodiversity.” Burch’s analysis points to the conclusion that by excluding half of our potential sources of solutions to the climate crisis, we are possibly missing out on the crucial ways in which approaches can be combined to create a complex, coherent solution. A BETTER IMAGE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

As discussed, the primary context of human rights violations is with the geoengineering mechanisms of the

Paris Agreement. William Burns (2016) discusses how a human rights-based approach to geoengineering would include several key components, and the most compelling of these are outlined here.

First, the Paris Agreement must identify what Burns refers to as “rights-holders” and “duty-bearers,” the former being citizens and the latter being governments. In the Paris Agreement text, there is no way of scoping human rights interests and where obligations lie. Having a method to determine this would revolutionize the promotion of human rights because it would directly pin responsibility on those who are responsible.

Second, Burns discusses that an agreement like Paris should include “an evidence-gathering process to help assess the potential impacts of geoengineering research or deployment.” In the status quo, there is no follow-up with how communities are being affected by geoengineering practices; there is only the assumption that geoengineering is working and is not causing any harm to the communities in which it is heavily practiced. Having a process through which leaders can monitor geoengineering practices would not only help the problem of human rights violations, but it would also allow for greater monitoring of the success of such scientific practices.

The third component of Burns that I would like to highlight is a combination of the former two, as it is a mechanism that would include analysis and recommendations to allow an “assessment of the human rights impacts of the proposed geoengineering intervention (research or deployment), and an assessment of state responsibilities to respect, protect and fulfill human rights in this context.” If the Paris Agreement had this mechanism, it would significantly improve the conversation between duty-bearers and rights- -holders, creating a more constructive space through which expectations are vocalized. Across all three of these solutions, the common denominator is having more accountability for governments and leaders, which is a large part of what is missing in the Paris Agreement.

As the climate situation across regions and jurisdictions looks different, there is no key solution that can serve as a panacea to the problems rampant in the Paris Agreement, but what all successful approaches have in common is that they use the same fundamental tools: decentralization, carbon pricing, and sustainable community plans. These practices form the basis for successful climate policies that Paris should adopt. Moreover, there is also an emphasis on holistic and long-term approaches, rather than the more common narrow and short-term approaches (Kojima and Tamara 2015). Embracing holistic approaches would go a long way for governments to overcome the problems that the Paris Agreement poses for meaningful climate action. Some authors (Biniaz 2019) may argue that the responsibility of climate action is misplaced in the hands of the Paris Parties and that other transnational organizations (such as the World Bank) would be better suited to fighting climate change. However, this view is not an effective way to perceive opportunities for reform because as a planet, we are not in a situation to be able to afford the time to start from scratch on climate policy. It is quite idealistic to propose the idea that we abandon what little we have with the Paris Agreement and to start over in a place where we aren’t sure we will obtain the needed commitment. Although this may not apply in every situation, in the case of the Paris Agreement, it is better to fix a broken machine than to build a new one. It appears as though Paris is here to stay, so we must do what we can to adjust it to our needs.

Conclusion

The Paris Agreement has quite a few issues that impede its ability to serve as the revolutionary pact we need to save the planet from impending doom. While the Paris Agreement has the potential to serve the role we need it to, it must first overcome the issues of climate finance, human rights violations, obstructions, and influence. Only by adopting the methods of decentralization and policy coherence can the Paris Agreement overcome its current status as a distraction and turn into the impetus for change that it needs to be. Above all, Paris lacks accountability more than anything; installing accountability systems would put Paris years ahead of its current trajectory. Until the Paris Agreement can resolve some of these inherent issues in the system, our future will remain bleak.

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