With the upcoming presidential elections, a large part of American media is directed toward campaign coverage. Surprisingly though, few news medias acknowledged or even mentioned the major international event that occurred in Paris in late November of 2015. The Conference of Parties 21 (COP21) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was the first major environmental negotiation since the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and Copenhagen Summit (2009). COP21 resulted in the drafting of the Paris Agreement, which is regarded as a “historic moment” by UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon since “for the first time, [the world has] a truly universal agreement on climate change.” The Agreement is a commitment by countries who share the common goal of reducing carbon emissions to achieve a global average temperature of well below 2 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels. The Agreement also put into place a monitoring mechanism to track individual countries’ progress toward their reduction goals, forcing international collaboration and introducing “public shaming” as an incentive to meet reduction goals.
Since the failures witnessed at Kyoto and then Copenhagen in tackling issues of global climate change, all eyes were on the China and the US during the Paris Conference due to historical tensions between the two countries over emission levels. Due to their size and influence in the international arena, their tensions are argued to be the largest contributing factor to the failure of the Kyoto Protocol back in 1997. On a broader scale, this has been an issue since the first environmental conference back in 1972 at the Stockholm Conference as the Global South felt as though their concerns were not taken into account by the Global North. This necessity for unity in the international arena, gives rise to an influential new player in environmental negotiations – The Environmental Integrity Group (EIG).
Formally established in 2000, the EIG was comprised of Mexico, Korea, and Switzerland and later joined by Liechtenstein and Monaco (UNFCCC Negotiating Groups). Currently, the group is recognized as the only negotiating body that includes both developed and developing states (Bach 2015). This “group of diversity,” as described by Jai-chul Choi (Korea’s ambassador for climate change) serves as the bridge to “help find common ground between blocs with different interests” (Darby) and does so through promoting the environmental integrity of the climate change regime (Yamin).
Given the group’s geographical and economic composition, it acts as a valuable mediator in the climate negotiations representing the interests of both developed and developing nations. For this reason, the group is able to make relevant arguments on behalf of both sides with recognized credibility (Darby). Early in the Paris Negotiations, Korea, speaking on behalf of EIG, called for “the adoption of an agreement applicable to all, that included a flexible approach to differentiation and [that] had common rules and a mechanism to increase ambition over time” (IISD 2015). This statement represents the group’s views entering into the negotiations, emphasizing the need for a transparent, progressive agreement with the capacity to adapt to the changing future of the global climate change regime.
As the EIG supports the concept of “broad participation” – or “the refusing to perpetuate a hard division between rich and poor” (Darby), an issue of high importance was mobilizing the climate financing effort. A statement made by Switzerland later in the negotiations, reflected the EIG’s concern as to whether the drafted agreement was unbalanced, specifically in financing (Dechert 2015). The text was said to “reflect compromise, proposal and the hard position of other parties” (Dechert 2015) suggesting procedural obstacles to the regime that prevented a fair division of costs due to power disparity amongst negotiating groups. Similar to the common, but differentiated responsibilities framework, the EIG supported differentiation as reflecting reality, meaning that emerging economies, with increasingly substantial emissions, must shoulder some of the financial responsibility (Darby). This “flexible differentiation” allows for a proportional contribution by developing nations based on individual state capacities and taking into account their speed of development.
In line with EIG, Korea has individually expressed the importance of the activism of the international community in regards to supporting technological development and technology transfer to developing countries (Statement by Ms. Kyung Won Na for the Republic of Korea 2015). Supporting this stance, the EIG paid special attention to financial assistance and its role in facilitating these technological improvements and, more specifically, improving state capacity. Prior to the convention, the EU and Korea released joint statements affirming the “ambition to ‘make the Green Climate Fund fully operational and the main operating entity of the financial mechanism’ under the UNFCCC for the Post-2020 climate regime” (Green Climate Fund 2015). This was consistent with the EIG’s views that sustainable mobilization of finance is dependent on a well-functioning and coordinated financial mechanism (Environmental Integrity Group).
Although financial assistance was a major concern entering into the Paris Conference, no legally-binding financial obligation was added to the agreement and neither were provisions for a financial mechanism under the new regime (New York Times 2015). Despite the establishment of the “new collective goal” of at least $100 billion per annum to climate-related financing by 2020 (New York Times 2015), in the eyes of the EIG, the lack of a financial mechanism reveals a significant flaw to the agreement. The underlying fear regarding the non-binding obligations being whether the developed world will voluntarily contribute to the Green Climate Fund or to use the non-binding nature of the agreement as an excuse to shy away from financial responsibility.
Independent of the perceived financial shortcoming, the agreement set an important binding procedural framework that allowed for the future monitoring of states toward their national emissions reduction goals – a concept consistent with EIG recommendations prior to the Convention (Environmental Integrity Group). The set framework requires all countries to submit progress assessments every five years starting in 2023 that compare states’ efforts to reduce emissions to their committed targets (New York Times 2015). The provision also requires that all countries submit an updated emissions reduction plan every five years beginning in 2020 (New York Times 2015) strengthening the efforts in continuing the reduction in global emissions. Additionally, by requiring states to adopt the “highest possible ambitions” when updating their national plans, (New York Times 2015), the agreement signals a progressive move forward into the regime.
The consensus made in Paris marked a potential shift in the momentum of the current combat against climate change. The monitoring strategies outlined in the Paris Agreement show an assertive move in the right direction that perpetuates a global race to the top by applying a global pressure of an “absolute” reduction by developed nations and a “continuation of mitigation efforts” in the developing world (New York Times 2015). Overall, based on the success coming out of the Paris negotiations, the transition into the new global climate regime is met with overwhelming optimism.
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