THE FINAL PARIS CLIMATE DEAL

The temperature goal

The final draft of the Paris deal includes a temperature limit of “well below 2C”, and says there should be “efforts” to limit it to 1.5C. This is stronger than many countries had hoped just months previously, but falls short of the desires of many island and vulnerable nations, which had pushed for 1.5C as an absolute limit

Long-term goal

To give practical relevance to the temperature limit, the deal also includes a long-term emissions goal. The draft wording aims to peak global greenhouse gas emissions “as soon as possible” and to achieve “balance” between emissions and sinks in the second half of the century.

This is similar to the “emission neutrality” language, which appeared in the previous draft, but more specific and tightly defined. It effectively means reaching net-zero emissions after 2050, though the lack of a specific timeline is a blow to those that wanted the clearest possible message for investors.

Ambition

The text provides essentially a two-stage process to increase ambition over time, acknowledging that the current provisions are not going to be enough to reach the long-term 2C temperature limit.

In 2018, there will be a facilitative dialogue to take stock of the collective efforts of countries, which should inform the efforts of future commitments. Countries which have submitted targets for 2025 are then urged to come back in 2020 with a new target, while those with 2030 targets are invited to “communicate or update” them.

This process will essentially repeated every five years, with the first post-2020 stocktake occurring in 2023.

Finance

The agreement places a legal obligation on developed countries to continue to provide climate finance to developing countries. It also encourages other countries to provide support voluntarily — a compromise between the highly polarized positions that have taken centre stage at the negotiations.

Many of the details have been moved out of the legally binding agreement and into the more flexible decisions. This includes the provision that, prior to 2025, countries should agree a “new collective quantified goal” from the floor of $ 100 bn per year, which is the current aspiration. The notion of short-term collective goals has been cut from the text

Mitigation

On mitigation, binds  Parties to prepare and regularly update climate commitments. Each subsequent pledge must be more ambitious, and developing countries are “encouraged” to move towards stricter goals.

Countries would be required to “pursue…policies…with the aim of achieving” their climate pledges (INDCs), a tougher than expected provision. The decision text “invites” countries to write long-term low-emissions strategies by 2020, while the legal agreement says they should “strive” to do this.

The deal would set out “flexible” rules for reporting, but all countries would be bound to report “regularly” on their emissions and efforts to reduce them. A “facilitative, non-intrusive, non-punitive” system of review will track countries’ progress

Loss and damage

Loss and damage has its own Article in the agreement — an important political statement that it is now seen on a par with mitigation and adaptation. It sets out important details about what needs to be considered under loss and damage, but the clear trade off appears in the decisions: liability and compensation are explicitly excluded

Other

The draft would allow voluntary use of “international transferred mitigation outcomes”, in other words emissions trading, with provisos including “environmental integrity” and no double counting. The text does not mention international aviation or shipping emissions.

The deal would enter force once at least 55 parties, covering at least 55% of global emissions have signed up. In 2012 China, the US, India, Brazil, Russia and Japan topped this minimum alone.