Parties to the convention managed to agree on a first draft agreement in Lima (COP20) in December 2014 and the text has been further refined at the Geneva meeting of February 2015. Although this draft^[1] is now almost ninety pages with plenty of options pulling in different directions, negotiators have a solid basis for discussion and their role will now be to progressively narrow down options before the agreement can finally be approved in December 2015. Such prospect is backed up by the first submissions of post-2020 pledges (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, INDCs) from Switzerland, the EU, Norway, Mexico, Russia, the United States and Gabon, showing that more and more countries are now ready to take action domestically.

Back in 2009, the goal of the Copenhagen conference was also to reach a global agreement. However, despite mounting pressure from civil society, unprecedented media coverage and the mobilization of political leaders, the push for ambitious climate action failed to overcome divisions on how to define a fair distribution of mitigation efforts. At that time, the length, complexity and limited impact of international climate talks became more evident than ever. Disappointment was such that it took years to rebuild confidence in the negotiation process. Today, climate ambassadors – and the French presidency in particular – are therefore entrusted with a very challenging task; the Paris conference will be our second and probably last chance at defining a global legal framework for climate action.

What makes Paris different is that the approach to climate negotiations has been thoroughly reviewed since 2009; self-differentiation has been promoted as a way to circumvent the endless discussions on burden sharing. To ensure a large participation to the agreement, it was agreed that the new regime would be mainly based on INDCs by which countries define their post-2020 contributions to the fight against climate change. While mitigation targets are a central element of INDCs, adaptation plans, commitments in terms of climate finance, technology transfers or capacity building may also be covered. The initial deadline for INDC submissions (31 March 2015) is now behind us and only seven contributions have been received. However, this “bottom up” approach is still a key progress because it has blurred the original distinction between “annex 1” (developed) and “non-annex 1” (developing) countries. Besides, the first contributions have a stimulating effect on countries which could have been more hesitant to demonstrate climate leadership. Latest developments suggest that Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea and Singapore are also likely to submit their contributions by the first half of 2015. In the end, most of the large emitters will be on board and will formulate climate pledges, with a diverging level of ambition of course.

Another important change is that the debate over the legal form has been left for the last stages of the negotiations. The idea was to define the commitments first and only clarify the legal force of INDCs once their substance is known, again with the objective not to discourage participation. A possible landing zone could well be that national commitments are somehow linked to the agreement but not made legally binding as such. This solution would fit well with the idea of building a durable agreement, with national commitments being revised upward at regular intervals, without the need to engage a heavy international approval process. On this particular point, the EU seems more flexible than in the past. It recently declared that it would be ready to consider an “alternative solution” to legally binding commitments, if the same level of effectiveness can be demonstrated^[2]. 

The situation today is that this new “hybrid” approach to climate negotiations is itself consensual, although updating the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities remains a very sensitive issue. It is a major step forward because it breaks the deadlock and enables a global climate action. However, reaching an agreement is meaningless if it is an empty shell. If self-differentiation is not balanced at all with “top-down” elements, there is a clear risk that the sum of INDCs is not up to the climate challenge. In the first place, late submissions of national contributions could mean that too little time will be left for an ex ante review of ambitions. It may not be possible to check whether countries’ post-2020 pledges can be considered “fair and ambitious”, for instance, in light of their historical responsibility, current level of emissions, emission trajectory, per capita shares or their financial capability. This review process will be all the more challenging since the INDCs are likely to be very heterogeneous and therefore difficult to compare. As a result, the UN Climate Change Secretariat may not be in a position to draw clear-cut conclusions in its synthesis report on the aggregate effect of the submitted INDCs, which should be published by 1 November. Without a thorough ex ante review, there is little chance that countries would accept to upgrade their individual commitments before the Paris conference. In other words, we might end up with a collection of weak and inconsistent commitments, which will not be enough to ensure that global temperature rise stays within the 2°C limit by 2100. In addition, there could be a low degree of confidence in the process and in the likelihood of the pledges being effectively implemented. If INDCs are not legally binding, it means that a robust measurement, reporting and verification process has to be established and given full legal force. It is the only way to ensure transparency and to enable an ex post review process to eventually pressure governments that otherwise would not have deployed the necessary efforts to meet their targets.

While creative solutions are clearly necessary to put an end to the procedural and legal controversies, they also generate complexity and it becomes very difficult to define what would be a successful outcome for COP21. The Paris conference is likely to succeed in reaching a global climate agreement, but it is also likely to fail in aligning climate pledges with the 2°C target. This is inevitable but perhaps also the best way to proceed, provided that the agreement is actually dynamic. This would require a robust process for monitoring progress and for regularly upgrading the INDCs so that long-term trajectories are ultimately consistent with the 2°C target. In short, Paris will only be truly successful, if the post-Paris framework is agreed.  This way, negotiators can send a clear signal that the transition towards low-carbon economies is sustainable, although today’s commitments fall short. Because the devil lies in the details, the next steps of the negotiation will be crucial, in particular the June negotiation session in Bonn. Keeping up the pace of efforts and increasing the pressure are the only ways to ensure that the Paris Climate conference does not end up with just a bottom-up agreement, but instead delivers a workable framework for global climate action that can ignite this virtuous circle of ambition. 

[1] https://unfccc.int/files/bodies/awg/application/pdf/[email protected]

[2] http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/energy-union/docs/paris_en.pdf