In 2015, the Paris Agreement against climate change was reached in the capital of France. This Monday, countries meet in Azerbaijan to continue developing this global tool that tries to alleviate the climate crisis and its impacts.
The agreement is a legally binding international treaty by which the signatory countries undertake to make the necessary efforts to prevent the global temperature of the planet at the end of the 21st century from rising more than 2ºC compared to what it was before the industrial era and “ preferably” that this limit be 1.5ºC. For that pre-industrial era, the year 1850 is taken as an approximate reference.
This is, as the text explains, a long-term objective. Because reducing greenhouse gas emissions implies a gigantic change in the production and consumption model on the planet until now based on the burning of fossil fuels (which cause these emissions). “The implementation of the agreement requires an economic and social transformation based on the best available science,” describes the UN itself.
Also because climate inertia is measured in decades: the active life of gases like CO2 in the atmosphere is so long that, even if emissions were completely cut right now, its effect will last for many years, as the World Meteorological Organization recently explained. in his analysis of how much CO2 is currently accumulated in the atmosphere.
The agreement includes that rich countries will financially help developing countries to comply with the agreement
The most innovative thing about this agreement is that the countries that adhere to it undertake to do everything in their power to achieve this objective and it is admitted that the origin of the global warming that causes climate change is greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse caused by humans.
COP29 and the horizon 2050
They are also committed to ensuring that global gas emissions reach a maximum as soon as possible so that they can begin to decrease from then on. The agreement recognizes that impoverished countries will have more time to peak. The idea is that, starting in 2050, the amount of gases that continue to be pumped into the atmosphere and the amount that is absorbed in forests, soils and oceans, is equivalent (a kind of subtraction from zero) to reach what which he calls: “climate neutrality”.
This commitment, as required by the agreement, must be reflected in the National Climate Plans of each country (NDC) in which they must detail, basically, how much they are going to cut their emissions and how. These plans are renewed every five years. The next round of NDC plans must be made in 2025 and they have to be “more ambitious” than previous ones, as established in the treaty.
The agreement includes that rich countries will financially help developing countries to comply with the agreement. That they are going to put money into cutting their emissions, protecting forests that absorb CO2 or implementing clean energy.
Next year, the COP should have the new national climate plans on the table
This model treaty has meant that 195 of the 198 countries that make up the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have ratified this agreement, which came into force one year after it was reached; in 2016. The Kyoto Protocol, for example, was agreed to in 1997 and did not come into force until 2005. The United States did not ratify it and Canada abandoned it.
The progress of the agreement is reviewed each year at the Conference of the Parties to the Convention. Parties in English. or COP). This year it is celebrated in Baku (Azerbaijan) in what is known as COP29.
Each COP, including this one, has an agenda to develop and agree on the tasks involved in implementing the agreement. For example, this year, in theory, it is time to review the amount of money that rich countries have to provide each year to assist developing countries. Next year, the COP should have the new national climate plans on the table.
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