Suchergebnisse

Preliminary Material / Lavanya Rajamani --An introduction to the international climate change regime : issues, instruments, institutions, actors / Lavanya Rajamani --Process and procedure in the international climate change regime : tools, techniques, and tricks / Lavanya Rajamani --Legal instruments and obligations in the international climate change regime : nature, type, spread, functions, and interplay / Lavanya Rajamani --Differentiation in the international climate change regime / Lavanya Rajamani --Delivering on the promise of the international climate change regime / Lavanya Rajamani --Bibliography / Lavanya Rajamani --Principal Abbreviations / Lavanya Rajamani --Acknowledgments / Lavanya Rajamani --About the Author / Lavanya Rajamani --Publications of the Hague Academy of International Law / Lavanya Rajamani.

AbstractThe 2015 Paris Agreement represents a historic achievement in multilateral diplomacy. After years of deeply discordant negotiations, Parties harnessed the political will necessary to arrive at a climate change agreement that strikes a careful balance between ambition and differentiation. The Paris Agreement contains aspirational goals, binding obligations of conduct in relation to mitigation, a rigorous system of oversight, and a nuanced form of differentiation between developed and developing countries. This article will explore the key building blocks of the Paris Agreement—ambition and differentiation—with an eye to mining the text of the Agreement for its interpretative possibilities and underlying politics.

AbstractThe Warsaw conference, 2013, marked the halfway point from the Durban conference, 2011, that launched negotiations towards a 2015 climate agreement and the Paris conference, 2015, slated as the deadline for these negotiations. As such, the Warsaw conference needed to register a step change in the process—from the airing of differences to negotiating them. It also needed to create the conditions necessary to reach agreement in 2015. This article analyses the outcome of the Warsaw negotiations with a view to determining the extent to which it paves the way for a 2015 climate agreement. In particular, this article explores the divisions over, prospects for and contours of a likely 2015 agreement. The 2015 agreement is likely to be shaped by the resolution Parties arrive at on three overarching issues. These are: architecture—whether the agreement will be 'top-down' (prescriptive) or 'bottom-up' (facilitative) or a hybrid version of the two; differentiation—the nature and extent of it, and in particular whether it will eschew or replicate the Kyoto model of differentiation and related vision of equity; and legal form—whether the 2015 agreement will be legally binding, and if yes, as is likely, which elements of the 2015 package will be in the legally binding instrument and which elements will be in non-binding complementary decisions. The Warsaw outcome will therefore be analysed with a view to providing insights into the likely architecture and legal form of as well as treatment of differentiation and equity in the 2015 agreement.

The Durban Climate Conference,1 marked by tension, high drama and sleepless nights, agreed on a set of historic decisions under the climate regime 36 hours after the scheduled end of the conference. The climate regime—comprising the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change2 and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol,3 and decisions taken by Parties under these instruments—has been plagued in the last few years, in particular after the debacle at Copenhagen,4 by doubt and uncertainty. Doubt over its ability to meet climate goals, and uncertainty over its future, in particular that of the Kyoto Protocol. At Durban, Parties strengthened the climate regime with decisions to implement the 2010 Cancun Agreements,5 extend the beleaguered Kyoto Protocol, for a second commitment period,6 and launch a new process to negotiate a post-2020 climate regime.7 This new process, christened the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, is intended to craft the agreement that will govern, regulate and incentivize the next generation of climate actions.

The Cancun Agreements, hailed by Patricia Espinosa, Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs and President of the Cancun Conference, as launching 'a new era of international cooperation on climate change,'1 were concluded on 11 December 2010 to widespread acclaim. These agreements that will guide the climate negotiations for the foreseeable future represent another twist in the tale of the ongoing negotiations.

The last two years have witnessed a flurry of diplomatic activity on climate change. In addition to the 16 weeks of scheduled inter-governmental negotiations under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), meetings, many at a Ministerial level, were convened by the G-8, the Major Economies Forum, the UN Secretary General, and Denmark, the host of the 15th Conference of Parties (COP-15) to the FCCC. Notwithstanding regular and intense engagement at the highest-level many fundamental disagreements remained in the lead up to COP-15, including on the future (or lack thereof) of the Kyoto Protocol, the legal form and architecture of the future legal regime, and the nature and extent of differential treatment between developed and developing countries.