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The 2015 Paris Agreement (PA) has been widely hailed as a diplomatic triumph and a breakthrough in global climate cooperation. However, it is commonly accepted that the PA's collective goal—keeping global warming “well below” 2°C above preindustrial levels—remains ambitious. Making matters even more challenging, in 2017, global CO2 emissions resumed growth after 3 years of near standstill. In 2018, this growth accelerated. It is therefore extremely important that the PA's institutional architecture meet expectations concerning its ability to induce member countries to promise and deliver emissions reductions. This study offers a review of the rapidly growing literature on the PA, to assess its strengths and weaknesses, its significance, and its prospects. We focus on evaluations of its institutional structure and its ability to induce member countries to implement policies. We frame the issues as a trilemma: the challenge of simultaneously satisfying all three main conditions for effectiveness—broad participation, deep commitments, and satisfactory compliance rates. Based on our review, we conclude that the key challenge for the PA will likely be to facilitate sufficiently fast ratcheting‐up of nationally determined contributions, while keeping compliance rates high.
To what extent has the European Union (EU) had a benign or retarding effect on what its member states would have undertaken in the absence of EU climate policies during 2008–2012? A measurement tool for the EU policy’s effect is developed and shows a benign average EU effect with considerable variation across countries. The EU’s policy effectiveness vis-à-vis its member states is explained by the EU’s non-compliance mechanism, the degree of usage of the Kyoto flexible mechanisms, and national pre-Kyoto emission reduction goals. Time-series cross-sectional analyses show that the EU’s non-compliance mechanism has no effect, while the ex-ante plans for using Kyoto flexible mechanisms and/or the ambitious pre-Kyoto emission reduction targets allow member states to escape constraints imposed by EU climate policy.
Foreword
(2018)
Major Countries
(2018)
Our Conclusions
(2018)