Politics & International Relations
UNFCCC
The UNFCCC, or United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is an international environmental treaty aimed at addressing global warming and its impacts. It provides a framework for negotiating and implementing measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change. The UNFCCC also hosts annual conferences, such as the Conference of the Parties (COP), to review progress and make decisions on climate action.
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11 Key excerpts on "UNFCCC"
eBook - ePub- Brian Dawson, Matt Spannagle(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE (UNFCCC)The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change1 (UNFCCC, “the Convention”), and its affiliatedKyoto Protocolis the most important international cooperation agreement on climate change and provides the basis for international action to curbglobal warming. The Convention was agreed in May 1992 and entered into force on March 21, 1994. The UNFCCC has been ratified by 192 countries (Parties to the Convention), and only Andorra, the Holy See (Vatican City), Iraq, and Somalia have yet to ratify. The Convention sets an overall framework for nations to cooperate to address climate change.Ratification of the Convention requires Parties to recognize 14 important principles and sets an ambitious framework for international action. Of these principles, four of the most important are:The overriding objective of the Convention, under Article 2, is “to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The Convention states that this objective “should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner” (seedangerous climate change). The Convention is informed by interdisciplinary studies from theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which assist in determining what greenhouse gas concentrations would result in dangerous interference. The Convention does not set numerical targets, but, under Article 4.2, calls for Annex I Parties to “return their greenhouse gas emissions … to 1990 levels.”- Recognition that the adverse effects of climate change are a common concern of mankind.
- Agreement that the precautionary approach be applied. That is, where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
eBook - PDFClimate Change
Five Years after Kyoto
- V Grover, Velma I. Grover(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
It set a goal of establishing a new and equitable global partnership through creation of new levels of cooperation among States, key Sectors of societies and people and to work toward international agreements which respect the interest of all and protect the global environmental and development system. Building on the same sentiments another conference—UNCED—was held in June, 1992 at Rio de Janeiro. The UNFCCC was adopted in 1992 and became effective in 1994. It provides the overall policy framework for addressing the climate change issue. The IPCC has continued to provide scientific, technical and socioeconomic advice to the world community, and in particular to the 170-plus Parties to the UNFCCC through its periodic assessment reports on the state of knowledge of causes of climate change, its potential impacts and options for response strategies. Its Second Assessment Report, Climate Change 1995, provided key input to the negotiations, which led to adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by the UNFCCC in 1997. The IPCC also prepares Special Reports and Technical Papers on topics for which independent scientific information and advice is deemed necessary and it supports the UNFCCC through its work on methodologies for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. The Third Assessment Report Climate Change 2001 provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of policy-relevant scientific, technical, and socioeconomic dimensions of climate change. It concentrates on new findings since 1995 and pays greater attention to the regional (in addition to the global) scale, and non-English literature. The aforesaid report assisted governments in making important policy decisions in the negotiations and eventual implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed by 166 countries at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992). The Convention was ratified in December, 1993 and entered into force on March 21,1994.
eBook - PDF- Alexander Zahar, Jacqueline Peel, Lee Godden(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
2 Legal elements and ongoing development of the international climate change regime Introduction page 52 Background to the UNFCCC 52 Legal principles and rules of the UNFCCC 54 Legal principles and rules of the Kyoto Protocol 83 Outlook for the international climate change regime 90 Introduction This chapter undertakes a close examination of the key provisions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, reflecting on the significance of these provisions and their links with broader climate change issues. For twenty years the UNFCCC has defined the international climate change regime. It will probably retain this role for many years to come. While it lacks the specificity of the Kyoto Protocol in the critical area of emission reductions, its ongoing role as a ‘framework’ for international cooperation is generally accepted. A careful study of the Convention is still a requirement for understanding the present state of the international negotia- tions and the international law on climate change. As the Kyoto Protocol’s fortunes have diminished, the UNFCCC has reasserted itself as the treaty of greatest consequence. While the Convention will certainly outlast the Protocol as an operative treaty, the Protocol also repays close study, both for the governance model it represents and for the institutions it has created. Background to the UNFCCC Work on an international climate change convention began in 1988 with the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by the World 52 Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Programme. 1 The work of the IPCC underpins not only the science but also the law of climate change. In December 1988, the UN General Assembly endorsed the IPCC as an institution ‘to provide internationally co-ordinated scientific assessments of the magnitude, timing and potential environmental and socio-economic impact of climate change and realistic response strategies’ .
eBook - PDFClimate Trading
Development of Greenhouse Gas Markets
- D. Stowell(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
CHAPTER 2 Climate Change and the UN Process Much of the current development in climate change policies is a result of the adoption of the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, including its mechanisms for emissions trading and project-based cooperation. While the Protocol is only a small step towards correcting a potentially dramatic environmental problem, the adoption of the Protocol was a major political breakthrough. 2.1 THE UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE In 1990, the UN General Assembly established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to negotiate a framework convention on climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) First Assessment Report was the main scientific basis for the INC’s work. Between February 1991 and May 1992, five INC sessions were held, culminating in the adoption of the Convention on 9 May 1992. Some 150 states and numerous intergovernmental and non-governmental organiza- tions participated in these sessions. The INC met in two parallel groups that submitted draft treaty elements to the full INC session. Working Group I focused on issues relating to commitments (limiting and reducing green- house gas emissions; protecting and enhancing sinks and reservoirs; financial mechanisms; technology transfer; and ‘common but differ- entiated’ responsibilities of developed and developing countries). Working Group II focused on legal and institutional mechanisms. One of the key issues, and areas of disagreement, was whether the agreement should include binding commitments. This affected how the agreement would be structured; and two models were considered. 18 The first was a comprehensive framework that included specific targets and timetables, and the second was a step-by-step approach whereby a framework agreement with general obligations could be followed up by a more comprehensive protocol or other legal instrument.
eBook - PDF- Rosemary Lyster(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Warning that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies, future generations and the planet, that continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system and that limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of green- house gas emissions. 15 11 Available at www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=78&Arti cleID=1163 (accessed 1 August 2014). 12 Available at http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf (accessed 1 August 2014). 13 Available at www.cbd.int/convention/text/default.shtml (accessed 1 August 2014). 14 A/CONF. 151/26 (Vol III) available at www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126- 3annex3.htm (accessed 31 January 2015). 15 Further advancing the Durban Platform, Decision 1/CP.19, FCCC/CP/2013/10/Add.1 avail- able at http://UNFCCC.int/resource/docs/2013/cop19/eng/10a01.pdf (accessed 1 August 2014). 54 international climate change negotiations Why is it also that the decisions under the UNFCCC have moved in recent years from an almost exclusive focus on mitigation to equal concerns about climate change adaptation and a mechanism for the loss and damage associated with climate change? The ensuing analysis attempts to provide some explanation of these developments. 2.1.2. The key International Law principles underlying the UNFCCC Although the UNFCCC was negotiated as a separate multilateral envir- onmental agreement, it, and indeed all of the documents established at the Rio Conference, incorporated many well-recognised principles of International Law, which have continued to dominate, and some might say limit the reach of, the negotiations under the UNFCCC.
- Olav Schram Stokke, Oystein B. Thommessen(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Objectives• to stabilize greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system, within a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change;• to ensure that food production is not threatened; • to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner. Scope Legal scope Open to all member States of the UN, or of its specialized agencies, or that are Parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice, and to regional economic integration organizations. Geographic scope Global. Time and place of adoption 9 May 1992, New York. Entry into force 21 March 1994. Status of participation 186 Parties, including the European Economic Community by 1 July 2002. Two Signatories without ratification, acceptance, or approval. The Secretary-General of the UN acts as depositary of both the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. Affiliated instruments and organizationsAnnex I lists developed-country Parties that had to adopt measures aimed at returning their greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. It includes the 24 original OECD members, 11 countries with economies in transition, and the European Union.Annex II lists developed-country Parties which have a special obligation to help developing countries with financial and technological resources. It includes the 24 original OECD members and the European Union.Berlin MandateThe Berlin Mandate was adopted at the first Conference of the Parties (COP) on 7 April 1995. It acknowledges that the commitment of developed countries to take measures aimed at reducing their GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 is not adequate to achieve the Convention’s objective. The main objective of the Mandate was to strengthen the commitments for the developed-country Parties after the year 2000 without introducing any new commitments for developing countries, while reaffirming existing commitments of all Parties contained in Article 4.1 and continuing to advance their implementation. The ad hoc
eBook - PDF- Jeremy Moss(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
At the same time the convention is quite broad: it includes nearly every state in the process. In the case of the UNFCCC, this feature is obvious from the fact that it is a UN-based treaty organisation. The framework convention provides for 18 Thomas Christiano procedures for developing further treaties or agreements that may be more demanding. The UNFCCC provides for the regular meetings of the conference of the parties. These conferences can then develop further agreements that impose requirements on states. The procedure of agreement at least for the basic elements of subsequent treaties is usually that of consensus, although we will need to explore this condition a bit more carefully. The Kyoto Protocol is the main product of this process in the case of the UNFCCC. And the protocol itself imposes deeper commitments, although its commitments were also not very deep, and it too states further areas in which cooperation is to be deepened. But the Kyoto protocol says little about enforcement. The mechanism of enforcement that is in place is very weak. The parties do intend to develop some mechanism of enforcement as time goes along. But they have left this problem to be solved at a later date. Indeed many problems were left for a later date. This is not necessarily a flaw, it is a crucial feature of the method. The idea is to get everybody on board and then slowly deepen the commitments of each party. The aim is to have an inclusive process of decision-making and then to get each to make greater and greater sacrifices over time. The club method The club method of treaty making is one which tends to start with deeper commitments among a select group of states. 1 It can then expand outwards to include more and more states by means of accession agreements that new states make in order to join the treaty body. The paradigm case of this method is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
eBook - PDFNetworks in Contention
The Divisive Politics of Climate Change
- Jennifer Hadden(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
the UNFCCC heads to Paris for its 2015 meeting. It may also lead to more tactical similarity between the two sides of the network in the next few years, offering more opportunities for coordination and joint actions. We may also see a shift in the targets favored by the move- ment. Climate activists increasingly perceive the UNFCCC as less central to the climate debate and have been targeting corpor- ations, national governments, and individuals to a greater extent. As one campaigner explained it: “I think Doha was a real low point in terms of engaging with the UNFCCC . . . there were some clear limitations there. So it seemed clear that we need to scale down our activities there and work more on this movement building” (Interview, Oxfam International, 2013). The idea that the UNFCCC will not produce an acceptable climate change agreement – once considered a radical position even within the climate justice movement – now seems to be a fairly mainstream view. As an activist explained it to me, “it’s time for us to get over our Stockholm Syndrome” (Interview, Climate Justice Now, 2013). Activists may be moving on to other arenas of struggle on climate change. Many activists have decided to focus more on domestic targets in the post-Copenhagen period. Scholars know that powerful transnational movements have deep roots in domestic politics (Bülow 2010; Tarrow 2005b); thus, building stronger domestic ties may allow the movement more flexibility when transnational political opportunities are closed off. It may also expand the resource base for future transnational action. The North Ameri- can struggle against the Keystone pipeline is a good example of this kind of shift in targets. But this transformation does not amount to an abandonment of international activism. Many climate organizations have also been highly mobilized around the UN post-2015 Sustainable Development agenda, working to integrate climate concerns into broader discussions about sus- tainable development.
eBook - PDF- Joyeeta Gupta(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
This disagreement arose from a strong devel- oped country belief that the GEF established by the World Bank, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) could manage the financial issues arising under the convention, and devel- oping-country distrust of an environmental fund located under the auspices of the World Bank (Gupta 1995). There remained some stress regarding the exclusion of the developing countries’ ‘right to development’ (Bodansky, 1993 ). INC6 in May 1992 adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (see 4.3.2 ), which was opened for signature at UNCED in June. The rapidity with which the convention was drawn up and adopted is remarkable given the scientific complexity, the high economic stakes, the perceived abstract nature of the future impacts and the differing interests of the global com- munity. Normally, when a convention is adopted, countries wait until that convention enters into force before taking further action. However, countries decided not to wait for the entry into force of the convention and to continue the INCs until such time that the convention entered into force. Parallel to the climate negotiations, there were negotiations on a biodiversity convention (CBD, 1992 ); the two conventions avoided overlapping conversa- tions. UNCED was also expected to lead to a forest convention; and so forests were down-played within the INC negotiations. During the climate negotiations, a deal was made to remove desertification and land degradation from the purview of climate change and discuss these in a different convention. Furthermore, GHG emissions from the international aviation and maritime transport sectors were left The chronology of events 61 to the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization, respectively. This would ensure that key issues were managed by the appropriate UN agencies.
eBook - PDFOzone Depletion and Climate Change
Constructing a Global Response
- Matthew J. Hoffmann(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- SUNY Press(Publisher)
49 This resolution, among other things: 1. Recognizes that climate change is a common concerns of mankind, since climate is an essential condition which sustains life on earth; 2. Determines that necessary and timely action should be taken to deal with climate change within a global framework. 50 Thus, the international community embarked on a course of research and policymaking with the goal of conceiving ways to address the cli- mate change problem within an entrenched political context stressing 136 Ozone Depletion and Climate Change universal participation. This normative context was made manifest at two major conferences in 1989 and 1990, in the actions of UNEP, as well as in the transfer of negotiating authority from UNEP to the UN General Assembly. At a 1989 conference in Noordwijk, Netherlands, sixty-eight states (roughly half North and half South) convened the first ministerial-level meeting on climate change. This meeting was designed to lay a founda- tion for convention negotiations and to increase the participation in the convention process. 51 The Ministerial Declaration reflected the partici- pation concerns and recommended: that [a climate change] convention will be framed in such a way as to gain the adherence of the largest possible number and most suitably balanced spread of countries. 52 In addition, by this time, development issues were already high on the agenda—a clear signal of the existence and importance of universal par- ticipation. The Noordwijk meeting specifically addressed the issues of fi- nancial assistance and technology transfer, further acknowledging in the final declaration that “developing countries will need to be assisted fi- nancially and technically.” 53 This followed directly from the understand- ing of a global response developed in the ozone depletion negotiations. The South was at Noordwijk, and their issues were on the agenda from the political beginning.
eBook - PDF- Karen Hulme(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
276 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992 6 .In the implementation of their commitments under paragraph 2 above, a certain degree of flexibility shall be allowed by the Conference of the Parties to the Parties included in Annex I undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, in order to enhance the ability of these Parties to address climate change, including with regard to the historical level of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol chosen as a reference .7 .The extent to which developing country Parties will effectively implement their commitments under the Convention will depend on the effective implementation by developed country Parties of their commitments under the Convention related to financial resources and transfer of technology and will take fully into account that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country Parties .8 .In the implementation of the commitments in this Article, the Parties shall give full consideration to what actions are necessary under the Convention, including actions related to funding, insurance and the transfer of technology, to meet the specific needs and concerns of developing country Parties arising from the adverse effects of climate change and/or the impact of the implementation of response measures, especially on: (a) Small island countries; (b) Countries with low-lying coastal areas; (c) Countries with arid and semi-arid areas, forested areas and areas liable to forest decay; (d) Countries with areas prone to natural disasters; (e) Countries with areas liable to drought and desertification; (f) Countries with areas of high urban atmospheric pollution; (g) Countries with areas with fragile ecosystems, including mountainous ecosystems; (h) Countries whose economies are
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