Unfcc And Climate Change

The UNFCCC was established in 1994 to address climate change at an international level. Since then, the parties to the convention (including the EU) meet annually in Conferences of the Parties. The Kyoto Protocol (1997) set an obligation for developed countries to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, through setting national targets, using 1990 as a base level. The UK has been one of only a few countries to comply with the international obligation and has reduced GHG emissions since 1990.

The UNFCCC is working with the various governments around the world to stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere to keep the planet from warming more than 2ºC above pre-industrial temperatures (Watts, 2015). The most noted of the work is the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings that began with COP1 in Berlin back in 1995. The COP3 adopted the Kyoto Protocol, even though it wasn’t fully accepted by all member nations. The COP21 was an effort to legally bind members to their submitted plans of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), defining what level of greenhouse gas production each nation would commit to not exceeding from 2025-2030. Prior to the INDCs, a bleak outlook was forecast in 2009-2010 of global temperature rising between 4-5ºC. That figure was restated by the UNFCCC prior to the COP21 in Paris, to below 3ºC, due to the commitments of the INDCs (Watts, 2015).

by 12.5% which was well above the goal of 4.7%. The downside is, when this was created it

It requires all parties to put their best efforts and requirements to report emissions on a regular basis. Every 5 years, there will be a global stock take to assess the progress toward achieving the purpose of the Agreement (UNFCCC- The Paris Agreement, 2018). A climate change conference where leaders all over the world came together to address climate change, have a goal to deliver action by 2020. In order to be successful, participating countries must make enough provisions to develop financial and technological support to help developing countries. The Marrakech partnership for good clime change action provides agreed outcomes in Paris, by providing a detailed structure to help speed up and get rid of gas emissions, scale down the pace of climate action among parties and non-parties steak holders in all parts of the world. Each year the action plan will continue to evolve as progress is made and new challenges and opportunities arise. The Paris agreement requires all parties to forward their effects nationally determined contributions. This includes regular reports on emissions and plans to success. As all parties have agreed to work together during the time frame 2017-2020, there has been current progeress to minimizing emissions (UNFCCC- Marrakech partnership for global climate action,

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aspires to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.” The Paris Agreement, created under the UNFCCC, helps make that goal a reality. Signed by Canada on Earth Day 2016, the agreement “requires all Parties to put forward their best efforts through ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead. This includes requirements that all Parties report regularly on their emissions and on their implementation efforts. There will also be a global stocktake every 5 years to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the agreement and to inform further individual actions by Parties.” As of 5 November 2016, ninety-seven parties out of one hundred ninety-seven have signed the agreement that went into effect on 4 November 2016. Canada’s involvement in the UNFCCC and the Paris agreement is just the tip of the iceberg, and it is quite a contribution to global efforts to reduce climate change.

Addressing this issue, there has been a few things done in result of eliminating this problem. One solution being The Kyoto Protocol, "...was the first agreement between nations to mandate country-by-country reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions ( 'Extract ', 2011)." During this process, countries agreed to cut their yearly emissions of greenhouse gases. "Some countries and regions, including the European Union, were on track by 2011 to meet or

Around the world, increased output of greenhouse gases is contributing to a rise in average global temperatures. At a 1997 conference in Kyoto, Japan, one hundred forty one countries, including Canada signed an agreement that became known as the Kyoto protocol. The Kyoto Protocol called on countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Canada set a target of six per cent. Countries were free to develop their own plans to meet the targets. In Canada, plans focused on reducing fossil-fuel use. A 2006 poll by McAllister Opinion Research found that seventy seven per cent of respondents believed that Canada should meet or exceed its Kyoto targets. The federal and some provincial governments have adopted strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and some municipalities have also developed plans, and some industries have taken

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This amounts to an average of five per cent over the five-year period 2008-2012.

The climate change impacts of greenhouse gases threaten the economic development and environmental quality. These threats indicate that all nations regardless their economic growth should work collaboratively to reduce the emission to a certain level. Hare et al. (2011) argued that “climate change is a collective action problem” thus requires a global coordination from all countries. This indicates that actions from several countries would never be sufficient to address the climate change problem. If a global target to limit warming to 2°C or below is about to achieve (UNFCCC 2010, p.4) a broad range of participation is required (Hare et al., 2011). However, the increasing complexity of negotiation processes is inevitable. Each country will pursue its own interests during the

“The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the premise that (a)

Greenhouse gases concentration in the atmosphere has reached unprecedented levels, causing global temperature increase, floods and droughts, a loss of biodiversity, and ocean acidification among others. Failure to respond to climate change will only exacerbate these effects and threaten water, food and energy systems vital for our quality of life. After years of advocacy and calls by international actors, climate change has finally been placed on the forefront of the global political agenda. In 2015, climate change action was recognized as a core goal in the Sustainable Development Goals, and at COP21, 196 parties of the UNFCCC signed the Paris Climate Agreement aiming to limit global warming to well below 2oC (with efforts to pursue 1.5oC) above pre-industrial levels.

To make a substantive and significant deal on climate change, there is a need to integrate various parties that focus on the issue. United Nations (UN) is one of the leading parties in the world that make fundamental and major deals on climate change. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN’s arm that carries out climate change negotiations. The UNFCCC is committed to a decarbonized the world through its commitment to 40-70% reductions in carbon emissions by 2050 (UNFCCC, 2014). However, this can only be achieved if all countries phase out fossil fuels and rapidly scale up the usage of

The United States heavy demand of fossil fuels for transportation is causing extreme confliction and competitiveness with many other countries. Japan became so concerned with these issues that they devised a plan that could bring countries together to compromise this extremely difficult issue. The Kyoto Protocol is a negotiation put together by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The treaty was compromised in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. Countries that formally approve this protocol devote to decrease the amount of released greenhouse gases, or trade the number of emissions allowed from sustaining or raising the emissions of greenhouse gases. The United States of America was not among these countries that signed the

On December 12 of 2015, 195 countries made history by committing to the first truly global international climate change agreement (Paris Agreement, 2015). This agreement took place in Paris and was adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The outcome of the Paris Conference on Climate Change was described as “revolutionary” (Venezuela) “marvelous act” (China) and as “a tremendous collective achievement” (European Union) that introduced a “new era of global climate governance” (Egypt) while “restoring the global community’s faith of accomplishing things multilaterally” (USA) (Paris Agreement, 2015).

Annex I countries are industrialized nations with large carbon emissions, such as the US, Australia, EU, and Russia. The agreement has four implementation mechanisms designed to achieve the desired reductions in emissions, but only asks that countries comply with the reductions rather than suggesting a methodology. The primary method for countries to reduce emissions is through domestic policies, traditionally taking the form of governmental controls, which each nation would be responsible for creating and enforcing. Domestic policy is “…likely to become a ‘hook’ to ensure that the industrialized countries implement the policies necessary to spur real changes towards less carbon-intensive production and consumption patterns (Depledge 11).” The domestic policy article in the Kyoto Protocol is intended to provide governments, not an international body, with direct control over domestic emissions.