Paris Agreement on Climate Weapons. One and a half degrees: five questions about the Paris climate agreement
Paris Agreement- an agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change regulating measures to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 2020. The agreement was prepared to replace the Kyoto Protocol during the Climate Conference in Paris and was adopted by consensus on December 12, 2015, and signed on April 22, 2016. Conference moderator Laurent Fabius, France's foreign minister, said the "ambitious and balanced" plan was a "historic turning point" in reducing the rate of global warming.
The purpose of the agreement (according to Article 2) is to “strengthen the implementation” of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in particular to keep the increase in global average temperature “well below” 2 °C and to “make efforts” to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5 °C.
The parties to the agreement announced that peak CO 2 emissions should be reached “as soon as possible.”
Participating countries determine their contributions to achieving the declared common goal individually and review them every five years. The agreement speaks of the inadequacy of currently proposed national contributions and of "ambition" and "progress" as they are revised. No enforcement mechanism is provided, either in relation to the declaration of national goals or in ensuring that their achievement is mandatory.
Feasibility of 2°C and 1.5°C warming limits
According to modern scientific concepts, a given warming limit, combined with the probability of not exceeding it, determines the size of the available emission budget, that is, future total CO 2 emissions. Climate modeling shows that for the 21st century, at least a 50% chance of 2 °C is on the verge of being achievable, and the emissions budget for an 80% chance of 1.5 °C is zero.
National contributions
A study published in November 2018 examined the relationship between individual countries' declared emissions reductions and the resulting temperature rise that would occur if such emissions reductions actually occurred and, secondly, became a model for everyone countries It is shown that the current climate policies of China, Russia and Canada lead to warming of 5 °C by the end of the century; the USA and Australia look little better (more than 4 °C). For EU countries this figure is 3-3.5 °C.
Criticism
The text of the agreement does not provide for any sanctions if the parties fail to achieve their declared goals, and in the international legal sense, any reductions in emissions are not obligatory for them at all. In this regard, the famous climate scientist James Hansen called the agreement “fraudulent,” while other critics talk about an “agreement to increase emissions.”
Experts from the World Pension and Investment Forum believe that a situation where participants who are not bound by any quantified obligations nevertheless come to an agreed common goal is both a condition for the success of the Paris Agreement and, in fact, what they want to achieve with its help - that is, from the point of view of formal logic, this agreement is based on the principle of a vicious circle.
Some find it remarkable that the agreement does not include the phrase “fossil fuel” at all.
"The Toronto Principle"
The Paris Agreement is used by environmental activists as a formal basis for demands aimed at reducing CO 2 emissions. The first use of the agreement in this capacity was during a campaign to boycott fossil fuel investments at the University of Toronto. The students demanded an end to cooperation with companies that “blatantly ignore international efforts to limit the increase in average global temperatures to no more than 1.5 °C by 2050 compared to pre-industrial levels. These are fossil fuel companies whose actions are inconsistent with internationally agreed goals."
All public institutions have a responsibility to implement the Paris Agreement and must use their status and power to respond meaningfully to the challenge of climate change. According to environmental activists, this approach combines rhetoric and practical action.
On September 23, 2019, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) organized a press conference at which Greta Thunberg and a group of 15 children from different countries announced that they were filing a lawsuit against five countries that ignore the need to reduce CO 2 emissions under the Paris Agreement: Argentina, Brazil , France, Germany and Turkey. The claim was filed in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (in particular, the rights to life, health and peace). If the complaint is upheld, countries will be asked to respond, but any possible resolution is not legally binding.
By country
Russia
The agreement does not contain the grounds for ratification provided for by Russian legislation. In accordance with the Federal Law “On International Treaties of the Russian Federation,” Russia’s consent to be bound by the Paris Agreement is expressed in the form of its acceptance.
There were opponents to the adoption of the agreement. Thus, in the summer of 2016, the business community called on President Vladimir Putin not to approve the document. The RSPP stated that the implementation of the agreement will negatively affect the rate of economic growth, and Russia has already exceeded its obligation to bring emissions into the atmosphere below the 1990 level.
In November 2016, the special representative of the Russian President on climate issues, Alexander Bedritsky, stated:
… we do not see hydrocarbon phase-out as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of meeting our commitments in the medium term. It is necessary to look for new recipes taking into account the current and projected economic situation, plans for socio-economic development, and take into account the national characteristics and interests of the country.
By that time, the Paris climate agreement had been signed by 192 countries, 113 of which had ratified it. Russia, ranking third in greenhouse gas emissions among the participants in the Paris Agreement (according to the UN), was the only one among the 15 leading emitting countries that did not ratify the document. Russia ranks fourth in CO2 emissions in the world (2017).
In April 2019, Putin said that Russia would ratify the Paris Agreement after a comprehensive analysis of the consequences of its implementation. On July 5, Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Gordeev instructed the Ministry of Natural Resources, together with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to submit to the government a draft federal law on ratification of the agreement by September 1.
However, on September 23, 2019, the opening day of the UN climate summit, the Russian government announced that two days earlier, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev had signed a decree according to which Russia accepted the Paris Agreement. According to a government press release, neither the agreement itself nor the federal law “On International Treaties of the Russian Federation” provided for its mandatory ratification. According to Bloomberg sources, the adoption of the agreement bypassing the State Duma allowed the Kremlin to avoid criticism from deputies who were in alliance with opponents of the Paris process, in particular, with energy and metallurgical magnates.
USA
see also
Notes
- Final draft of climate deal formally accepted in Paris (undefined) . CNN. Cable News Network, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (December 12, 2015). Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- Paris climate talks: France releases "ambitious, balanced" draft agreement at COP21 (undefined) . ABC Australia(12 December 2015).
- 175 countries have signed the Paris Climate Agreement (undefined) . TASS. Retrieved April 22, 2016.
- World seals landmark climate accord, marking turn from fossil fuels (undefined) . Reuters. Thomson Reuters (12 December 2015). Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- Based on IPCC data (see p. 64 Table 2.2 IPCC’s 5th AR Synthesis Report). Emissions for 2010-2014 are from Global Carbon Project estimates, current emissions from Friedlingstein et al 2014.
- Meinshausen, M. et al. Greenhouse gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C. Nature 458, 1158-1162 (2009)
- Carbon Tracker & The Grantham Research Instit - Unburnable Carbon 2013, p.11 (PDF)
- Yann Robiou du Pont & Malte Meinshausen Warming assessment of the bottom-up Paris Agreement emissions pledges Nature Communications vol. 9, Article number: 4810 (2018)
- Paris equity check
- James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks "a fraud" | Environment | The Guardian
- At COP21, the world agreed to increase emissions
- M. Nicolas J. Firzli Investment Governance: The Real Fight against Emissions is Being Waged by Markets Dow Jones Financial News, January 25, 2016
- Report of the Advisory Committee on Divestment from Fossil Fuels, University of Toronto, December 2015
- Benjamin A. Franta On Divestment, Adopt the Toronto Principle, Harvard Crimson, February 8, 2016
The Paris climate agreement has entered into force. Russia signed the document but did not ratify it. Why?
The Paris Climate Agreement has entered into force. It replaced the Kyoto Protocol: countries agreed to reduce emissions into the atmosphere in order to avoid environmental disaster in the future. The document was ratified by 96 countries, Russia was not among them. Moscow has its own opinion on this matter.
UN Climate Secretary Patricia Espinosa called the adopted document “historic.” According to her, this is the basis for “another world.” The planet is literally heating up, and countries are on track to keep warming to within 2 degrees of pre-industrial levels. If it is higher, then an inevitable disaster will happen sooner or later. The Paris Agreement will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2020. The difference between the documents is significant. In fact, all states undertake obligations to limit emissions into the atmosphere: from the United States to Angola, the latter, by the way, has signed and already ratified the document. Another question is that countries are not limited in numbers and are free to reduce emissions at their own discretion.
Andrey Kiselev Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences“If you take a closer look at its provision, it doesn’t do much and obliges the countries that signed it. That is, everyone chooses their own strategy, despite the fact that everyone seems to agree. Different countries have completely different ideas about what and how they will do, but the worst thing is that according to current assessments (this is recognized by the Paris Agreement itself), the measures that are announced and must be implemented are absolutely insufficient to achieve those goals. goals set out in the Paris Agreement. Unless we regard this as a zero approximation, it should be followed by other actions. More efficient."
Russia has signed the Paris Agreement, but has not yet ratified it. First, the country needs to pass appropriate laws. However, back in the summer, business called on Vladimir Putin not to approve the document. The RSPP stated that the implementation of the provisions will negatively affect the rate of economic growth. The head of the Union, Alexander Shokhin, noted that Russia has already exceeded its obligation to bring emissions into the atmosphere below the 1990 level. Aleksey Kokorin, coordinator of the Climate and Energy program at the Wildlife Fund, believes that Moscow will ratify the document, but at a more appropriate moment.
Alexey Kokorin coordinator of the Climate and Energy program at the Wildlife Foundation“The development of global energy, which is reflected in the Paris Agreement, leads to the fact that a number of industries are very associated with large greenhouse gas emissions and, of course, are under pressure. First of all, coal energy, our plans to export coal, in particular, to the Asian market (probably, we should assume that they should already be cancelled). This has a very serious impact on Russia and does not depend on our ratification. Ratification itself is a political moment, and when the right moment comes, I think it will be done.”
Meanwhile, from November 1, all Russian gas stations must be equipped with chargers for electric cars. This is how the authorities support owners of environmentally friendly transport. However, now only 722 electric vehicles are registered in Russia.
Denying reality is never good. Whether we like it or not, whether it’s true or not, there is a very definite consensus in the scientific world - the global warming that we are seeing right now is associated with an increase in the proportion of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, which is a direct result of human activity.
In the current situation, it is important to understand what is really happening and how Russia should behave in this case. “Climate games” have long been a tool that is used for a wide variety of purposes. It is extremely important for our country not to become a victim once again, but to try to act in the current conditions to our advantage.
First, let's plunge into the past and find out how this story developed. It all started back in 1972 with the UN Declaration on the Problems of the Human Environment, which contains, for example, the following:
“We are at a point in history where we must regulate our activities around the world, taking greater care of the environmental impacts of those activities.”
Strictly speaking, the Declaration is a very general document, the essence of which is that the international community is aware of the problem of adverse environmental changes and establishes certain principles.
Based on the Declaration, the thematic UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (). More than 180 states, including Russia, put their signatures on the agreement. Our country ratified the UNFCCC in 1994.
The convention, in Article 4, sets out the general principles of action by countries to resist negative climate change, as well as the obligations that they undertake. These include the development and implementation of national and regional programs to minimize the negative impact on the climate, large-scale cooperation in this industry at the interstate level, and the disclosure of information about the real state of affairs in the field of combating global warming.
The Convention, however, for all its timeliness, has only one, but very serious, drawback: it does not contain a word about responsibility. However, this often happens with international acts: countries set “in all respects positive” norms, but do not establish responsibility for their implementation. And then the game begins: someone performs, someone only pretends to perform, and someone applies the provisions only in the part that is beneficial to him. The classic situation from the fable “Swan, Pike and Cancer” often arises. This is what happened with the Framework Convention.
By the way, Russia quite successfully implemented the norms set out in this international document. The fact is that in the 90s, production in our country was, to put it mildly, far from in the best shape, so emissions into the atmosphere were quite modest, especially compared to other countries.
The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, became a new milestone in the history of combating adverse climate change. It introduced a very interesting innovation - a market mechanism for trading quotas for greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, a country that did not choose the established limit for the year could sell quotas to other countries. However, the Kyoto Protocol again did not fix responsibility, and countries such as China and India did not undertake any obligations at all. Russia, again, diligently implemented the Kyoto Protocol and, according to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, even exceeded it.
In general, the shortcomings of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol were visible from the very beginning; the idea of a new, more serious document was in the air for quite a long time. This is how the Paris Agreement came into being.
If we analyze the legal history of climate agreements, we will see that there is an obvious tendency towards specification. If the UN Declaration on the Human Environment, in fact, only raises the question of the need to take care of nature, then the UNFCCC is already beginning to take shape the first outlines of an answer to the question: “How can we take care of it?” The Kyoto Protocol, in turn, introduces quite interesting regulatory mechanisms.
Now it is the turn of the Paris Agreement. What is its essence?
Essentially, the Paris Agreement was supposed to be a response to the current situation in which plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the global community are simply failing. There is an attempt by the UN to at least somehow solve the problem in conditions where there are no enforcement mechanisms, and there is no desire on the part of countries to impose very specific and tangible responsibility on themselves.
The Paris Agreement is a document in which countries committed to “keeping global average temperature rise to well below 2°C” and declared a goal of “limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C.” Translating from diplomatic into Russian, we can say that countries want to achieve an increase in average temperature in the 21st century no higher than 2°C and will try very hard to reach the level of 1.5°C, which, most likely, they will not succeed. In addition, states decided to reach peak CO 2 emissions “as soon as possible.” Previous national plans to reduce CO 2 emissions were recognized as untenable, but now the participating countries have agreed that they will formulate new “more ambitious” plans and review them every 5 years.
As we can see, the Paris Agreement does not provide for any quotas, nor does it provide for any liability measures. Moreover, the provisions of the agreement do not impose any obligations on the countries at all. The famous climatologist James Hansen, after reading the text of the document, could not stand it and called it.
However, the point here, it seems, is not at all a matter of ill will. It’s just that in the current situation the UN does not have any mechanisms for real influence on the situation. The organization really wants to, but at the same time cannot. Failure awaited the FCCC; the very interesting decisions of the Kyoto Protocol in practice did not lead to the expected results. In this situation, the UN did not come up with anything smarter than setting a certain benchmark for the twenty-first century and making “green growth” as prestigious as possible.
In fact, now everything is in the hands of the world community, which seems to be aware of the need to do something about the climate and at the same time does not really want to. Whether countries will be able to voluntarily achieve the given indicators is a big question.
Nevertheless, we are primarily interested in Russia. Should we be eager to put the Paris Agreement into practice? Let's be honest: Russia followed the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol not only because it had good will, but also because it was not very burdensome for us.
Today, as the country stands on the cusp of new industrialization, the Paris Agreement may pose a challenge. We know one thing for sure: the implementation of international agreements on climate protection has not made our country “green and beautiful” in the eyes of the world community, especially the Western one. So you can’t hope for a bonus in the form of a positive image in the international arena given the dominance of Western media. At least for now.
However, one cannot help but notice the obvious trend towards a “green economy”, which has already formed in the world and which was consolidated in the Paris Agreement. In addition, although the Paris Agreement does not provide sanctions for non-compliance, there are a huge number of non-governmental organizations that will try to loudly remind us of the norms of the document. Naturally, various non-governmental institutions can become a tool in the competition against Russia. It is important not to give them obvious reasons for this and to avoid reputational risks.
Our country is in a very interesting situation: on the one hand, it must develop technologically and at the same time remember about the environment, on the other hand, it is important not to fall into environmental populism and even a race with Western countries, when “beautiful” political decisions undermine the real economy.
It is important to keep abreast of the international environmental and economic agenda. How should we approach the Paris Agreement? First of all, rationally, without forgetting the main goal - the environmental and economic well-being of Russia itself.
The problem of global warming is so often considered at various levels that it has ceased to be something frightening for ordinary people. Many do not understand and are not aware of the catastrophic situation facing the Earth. Perhaps that is why, for some, a very serious event was missed, which concerned the settlement of issues related to minimizing the amount of harmful emissions resulting from anthropogenic activities.
It took place back in 2015 in France, and its result was an agreement known to the world as the Paris Agreement. This document has a rather specific wording, which is why it has been criticized more than once by environmental activists. Let's figure out what kind of agreement this is and why the United States, one of the main initiators of the conference during which the treaty was discussed, refused to take part in this project.
Invisible atomic attack
In 2017, scientists made a shocking conclusion: over the past twenty years, as a result of human activity, as much energy has been released into the atmosphere as would be released by multiple explosions of atomic bombs. Yes, namely explosions - not just one, but many, very many. To be more precise, every second for 75 years, atomic bombs equivalent to those that destroyed Hiroshima would have to be detonated on the planet, and then the amount of heat released would be equal to what a person produces “just” doing his economic activity.
All this energy is absorbed by the waters of the World Ocean, which is simply not able to cope with such a load and is heating up more and more. And at the same time, our long-suffering planet itself is heating up.
It seems that this problem is far from us, residents of safe regions where tsunamis are not scary, because there are no oceans nearby, where there are no mountains, and therefore there is no risk of landslides, powerful floods and destructive slabs. Nevertheless, we all experience unstable, atypical weather, breathe terrible air, and drink dirty water. We have to live with this and hope that the will of politicians is enough for serious achievements. The Paris climate agreement could be one of them, because it is based on the voluntary agreement of those in power to preserve our planet for posterity.
Ways to solve the problem
Perhaps the most serious problem for cleaning the atmosphere is the emission of carbon dioxide. Its sources are people themselves, cars, and enterprises. The Paris Agreement on climate change is aimed at supporting a similar convention signed earlier at the UN.
The difficulty with CO2 condensation is that it barely dissipates on its own. This gas does not decay, it cannot be released artificially, and, according to scientists, the amount of it that is already in the atmosphere will reach a normal level that does not affect the planet’s climate if humans completely stop producing it. That is, plants and factories must stop, cars and trains must stop running, and only then the process of negative CO 2 budget emissions will begin. This scenario is unrealistic, which is why at the forum in Paris the Paris Agreement was adopted, according to which the participating countries undertake to reach a level of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere at which its amount would gradually decline.
This can be achieved by creating high-quality barrier systems that purify CO 2 emissions from enterprises, replacing fossil fuels (gas, oil) with more environmentally friendly ones (wind, air, solar energy).
Conventionally significant event
The Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, in December. Six months later, in April 2016, it was signed by the countries participating in the consensus. The treaty entered into force at the time of its signing, but it will come into effect a little later, although not in such a distant future - in 2020, until then the international community has time to ratify the agreement at the state level.
According to the agreement, the powers participating in this project must strive to locally limit the increase in global warming to 2 degrees, and this value should not become the maximum reduction threshold. According to Laurent Fabius, who moderated the meeting, their agreement is a fairly ambitious plan, because ideally it is necessary to reduce the rate of global warming to 1.5 degrees, which is the main goal promoted by the Paris Climate Agreement. The USA, France, Russia, Great Britain, China are the countries taking the most active part in the project at first.
The essence of the Paris conclusion
In reality, everyone understands that achieving outstanding results in reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere is almost impossible. Nevertheless, the Paris Agreement was accepted by both the politicians themselves and some scientists with a bang, because it should push the world community to stabilize the environmental situation, as well as stop the process of climate change.
This document is not about reducing CO2 concentrations, but at least peaking CO2 emissions and preventing further accumulation of carbon dioxide. 2020 is the starting point when countries will need to demonstrate real results in improving the environmental situation in their territories.
The governments of participating countries must report on the work done every five years. In addition, each state can voluntarily make its proposals and material support for the project. However, the agreement does not have a declarative nature (forced and binding). Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement before 2020 is considered impossible, however, in practice this clause turned out to be ineffective, as US President Donald Trump proved.
Goals and prospects
As we have already said, the main goal of this agreement is to put into effect the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted back in 1992. The problem with this convention was the reluctance of the parties to take real and effective measures to prevent global warming. The words once stated in the stands were just loud rhetoric, but in fact, until the moment the Paris Agreement was approved, the countries that have the greatest economic activity did their best to slow down the process of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by their enterprises into the atmosphere.
The climate problem cannot be denied anywhere in the world, which is why a new agreement was signed. Its fate, however, remains as vague as the previous agreement. The main confirmation of this point of view is the assertion of environmental critics that the new convention will not be effective, because it does not prescribe absolutely no sanctions against those who violate the recommendations adopted under the Paris Agreement.
Participating countries
Several countries initiated the convening of the conference on climate change. The event took place in France. Its moderator was Laurent Fabius, who at that time served as prime minister in the country hosting the conference. The actual signing of the convention took place in New York. The text of the original document is stored in the secretariat; it has been translated into several languages, including Russian.
The main activists were representatives of countries such as France, Great Britain, China, USA, Japan and Russia. In total, 100 parties officially took part in the discussion of this convention.
Ratification of the treaty
In order for the Paris Agreement to fully enter into force, it had to be signed by at least 55 countries, but there was one caveat. Signatures were required from states that collectively emitted at least 55% of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This point is fundamental, because, according to the UN, only 15 countries pose the greatest environmental danger, with the Russian Federation in third place on this list.
At the moment, more than 190 countries have already done this (the total number is 196), including the USA. The Paris Agreement, from which no one had previously allowed themselves to withdraw, was announced by the Americans after the inauguration of the new president, causing a lot of noise in the world political elite. In addition, Syria did not sign the treaty; Nicaragua was one of the last countries to ratify it. The president of this state, located in Central America, previously did not want to sign the agreement, citing the refusal by the fact that his government would not be able to fulfill the demands placed on it.
Harsh reality
Alas, no matter how many signatures are on the form of the agreement, they alone will not be able to correct the catastrophic situation in the ecological system of our planet. The implementation of the Paris Agreement depends entirely on the political will of officials responsible for monitoring compliance with legal regulations by enterprises. In addition, as long as oil and gas production is lobbied at the state level, there is no hope that climate change will subside or at least decrease.
Russian opinion
Russia did not immediately ratify the Paris Agreement, although it agreed to it immediately. The snag was largely due to the fact that the president of the country was strongly influenced by entrepreneurs. In their opinion, our state has already reduced the volume of harmful substances emitted into the atmosphere, but the signing of the agreement itself will entail a serious economic downturn, because for many enterprises the implementation of new standards would be an unbearable burden. However, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment has a different opinion on this matter, believing that by ratifying the agreement, the state will push enterprises to modernize.
US exit
In 2017, Donald Trump became the new president of America. He considered the Paris Agreement a threat to his country and its stability, emphasizing that protecting it is his direct responsibility. This act caused a storm of indignation in the world, but did not force other world leaders to stray from the goals proclaimed in the document. Thus, French President E. Macron convinced both his electorate and the entire world community that the agreement would not be subject to amendments, and the doors would always be open for countries that wished to withdraw from the agreement.
On November 4, the Paris Climate Agreement comes into force. Its initiators expect it to be more successful than the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. But to achieve the goals of the agreement, investment in the environment will have to triple
UN Headquarters (Photo: Reuters/Pixstream)
What is the essence of the Paris Agreement?
The Paris Climate Agreement was adopted during the climate conference in Paris in December 2015 and signed by most countries in the world in April 2016. It (.pdf) will replace the previous document that regulated global emissions of harmful substances, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. A new document, starting in 2020, will regulate greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides).
At the same time, the text of the agreement does not contain either absolute or relative data on the volume of emissions that a particular country will have to reduce: everything will be voluntary, but all countries that have signed the agreement will have to do this, regardless of the level of economic development. The document only sets a general global goal - to keep the increase in global average temperature below two degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial level by the end of the 21st century, and also make efforts to limit the temperature increase to one and a half degrees.
As part of the agreement, developed countries agreed to allocate $100 billion annually to developing economies to implement environmental policies. To date, the document has been ratified by 92 of the 197 countries that signed the agreement, including China, the USA, France, Germany and others.
How realistic are the goals of the agreement?
The goals for limiting global warming set out in the Paris Agreement look very ambitious and even difficult to achieve. Nowadays, the readiness of states for a given amount of emissions reduction is reflected in the so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) - documents that almost all countries of the world submit to the UN. They are not legally binding. According to a study (.pdf) by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there is a 95 percent chance that temperatures will rise by 3.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century if current emissions reduction commitments are met and met. According to the most optimistic estimates (IEA, Climate Action Tracker), the temperature increase will be 2.7 degrees. A report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) notes that to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, greenhouse gas emissions will need to be reduced by an additional 12-14 gigatons of CO2 equivalent.
To turn the situation around, the Paris Agreement provides for a review of national contributions to reduce harmful emissions every five years, starting in 2020. At the same time, the document does not clearly define the mechanisms for monitoring emission reductions (it only notes that the implementation of the provisions of the agreement must be carried out with respect for national sovereignty and not be punitive in nature).
Achieving the Paris Agreement targets will also require a significant increase in investment in clean technologies. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in order to achieve temperature growth targets, by 2030 it will be necessary to increase investment in renewable energy by more than three times (from the current level of $270 billion to $900 billion per year).
What did the previous agreement achieve?
The main difference between the previous global document on climate regulation, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement is that developed economies assumed clear legal obligations to reduce emissions of harmful substances. The legally binding nature of the agreement ultimately led to the fact that the US Senate (the second country in the world in terms of emissions) simply refused to ratify it. At the same time, the Kyoto Protocol did not impose legal obligations on countries such as India and China.
The fact that China and the United States, the largest countries in greenhouse gas emissions, actually found themselves outside the framework of the agreement, led Canada to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol in 2011 (this did not result in any penalties for Ottawa). Calculations by the Global Carbon Project show that the protocol did not bring any positive consequences in reducing harmful emissions. Against this background, the achievements of Russia, on which he imposed legal obligations, look significant: by 2012, Russia had reduced the volume of harmful emissions by 31.8% from the 1990 level, with obligations only not to exceed this level.
Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement provides for reductions in emissions by all its participants, regardless of the level of economic development.
How serious is the problem of global warming?
In November 2015, the UK Met Office reported that average annual temperatures were approaching a record one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. According to NASA, the increase was 0.8 degrees. The pre-industrial level is taken to be the average temperature in 1850-1900.
In 2013, following a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (under the auspices of the UN), a report was released in which confidence that anthropogenic factors were the main reasons for the rise in temperature since 1951 was estimated at 95%.
An increase in average annual temperatures of more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels could lead, in particular, to drought and adversely affect grain yields. Other negative effects that are associated with global warming are rising sea levels, longer wildfire seasons, more destructive hurricanes, melting ice, and so on.
While the scientific community is close to absolute in its belief that global climate change is caused by human activity, the same cannot be said for politicians. In particular, the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is an opponent of the theory of the anthropogenic nature of global warming. In May, he said he would “cancel” US participation in the Paris Agreement if he wins the election.
What will Russia do?
Russia, which as of 2014 was the fourth largest emitter of harmful substances, is not yet among the states that have ratified the agreement. The document was signed in Moscow six months ago, in April 2016, by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Khloponin. At the same time, he stated that Russia’s contribution to the Paris Agreement would be limiting greenhouse gas emissions to 70% of 1990 levels by 2030.
As Advisor to the Russian President Alexander Bedritsky stated to TASS in June, ratification by the Russian side may occur no earlier than 2019-2020. He also noted that Russian authorities have not yet begun to develop a national low-carbon development strategy, indicating that work on the document will take at least two years. “Our business, especially those who export products, understand that it will not be long before it will be impossible to compete in the market with products that have a larger carbon footprint than others,” said the presidential adviser.
However, the attitude of Russian business towards the Paris Agreement turned out to be ambiguous. Back in December 2015, the main owner of Rusal, Oleg Deripaska, in an interview with the Financial Times, called the Paris Agreement “nonsense” and proposed introducing a global tax on hydrocarbons starting at $15 per ton of CO2 equivalent.
The possible negative consequences of such measures were pointed out in June 2016 by the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin. In his letter to Vladimir Putin, he noted that the Paris Agreement in Russia will create “significant risks for the fuel and energy complex of the Russian Federation, which is of systemic importance for the economy.” Shokhin, in particular, noted that the implementation of the proposal for a “hydrocarbon tax” at a rate of $15 per ton of CO2 equivalent would cost the Russian economy up to $100 billion a year, while damage from climate change would amount to 60 billion rubles. in year. According to the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, obligations under the Paris Agreement can be fulfilled using existing instruments (nuclear and renewable energy) and without resorting to additional regulation of the fuel and energy sector.