Jorge E. Viñuales

David Reiner

Joanna Depledge

Emma Lees

The 2015 Paris Agreement marked a turning point in the global community’s response to climate change. For the first time, almost all the world’s nations put forward specific pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions with the aim of limiting global warming to 2 ̊C, and ideally 1.5 ̊C. The ten contributions in Climate Policy after the 2015 Paris Climate Conference provide a powerful and scholarly analysis of how this historic achievement came about. Written by longstanding experts in the field, the chapters explore the merits and flaws of the treaty and the implementation challenges that still lie ahead, including inconsistency between the Paris Agreement’s global temperature goals and national pledges; weak provisions on support for developing countries; differing legal interpretations on climate liability; and the potential for trade disputes between more and less ambitious countries. Altogether, these authoritative contributions provide essential reading for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of the Paris Agreement, its political origins, and the prospects for international climate policy going forward. Apart from the addition of an insightful new introduction tracking and analysing developments since 2015, the chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Climate Policy.

Climate Policy after the 2015 Paris Climate Conference

Farhana Yamin

This book presents a comprehensive, authoritative and independent account of the rules, institutions and procedures governing the international climate change regime. Its detailed yet user-friendly description and analysis covers the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and all decisions taken by the Conference of the Parties up to 2003, including the landmark Marrakesh Accords. Mitigation commitments, adaptation, the flexibility mechanisms, reporting and review, compliance, education and public awareness, technology transfer, financial assistance and climate research are just some of the areas that are reviewed. The book also explains how the regime works, including a discussion of its political coalitions, institutional structure, negotiation process, administrative base, and linkages with other international regimes. In short, this book is the only current work that covers all areas of the climate change regime in such depth, yet in such a uniquely accessible and objective way.

A Guide to Rules, Institutions and Procedures

The International Climate Change Regime

The basic assumption of this book is that the organization of a negotiation process matters.The global negotiations on climate change involve over 180 countries and innumerable observers and other participants, addressing enormously complex and economically vital issues with conflicting agendas. For the UN to create an effective and well-supported international regime has required enormous and very skilful organization: factors such as the role of the Chair, the choice of negotiating arenas, the rules for the conduct of business and the approach of negotiating texts are usually taken for granted, and rarely attract attention until something goes wrong.This book explores how the negotiations were organized to produce the Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Change Convention and the subsequent Bonn Agreements and Marrakesh Accords. The author draws out the lessons and implications for other intricate and far-reaching negotiations, not all of which have succeeded so far, such as the WTO trade negotiations at Seattle and Cancun.This is essential reading for all participants in and organizers of international negotiations; and for researchers and students of international relations, climate change and environmental studies.

Joanna Depledge

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