Political Science: The Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement

Name

Institution

Date

The Paris Agreement

Introduction

The world we live in has witnessed a lot of developments and while at it, it has struggled to deal with several issues. Some of these issues have been natural while many have been self-implicated. One of the issues that the world has been trying to curb is the drastic climate change being witnessed as the days go by. There have been attempts to try and get wraps on the issue of climate control, and this is because, at some point, experts saw it as a matter that was quickly getting out of hand. In order to try and control this issue, the world through national representatives came up with a treaty which would later be referred to as the Paris Agreement on climate control. This paper will aim to narrow down on this treaty, its origin, its need, its purpose, and among many other things, how it is performing many years later after its inception.

Agreement

This is an agreement that involves the United Nations, signed in the year 2016 and is bound to mitigate matters that directly affect the overall climate of the entire world. Some of the issues that this agreement aims to address include the following;

Gas emissions
Adaptation to the forces of the world
Financing of relevant projects

These were some of the key issues that this treaty aimed to address hoping that in the process, it would control the climate conditions that the world is receiving, and somehow find a way of restoring normality as it had become a long-gone story in some part of the world.

Years later after the inception of the agreement, there have been both ups and downs to the entire agreement. This paper will aim to shed light on the difficulties and problems that the climate agreement has had. While at it, it will also aim to discuss and explain in detail how the agreement has been misused bad manipulated by a few agents to their favor and therefore compromising its due course. The following is, therefore, an explanation of why the Paris Agreement on climate change has been struggling to fulfill its purpose;

Manipulation

Time and again, there have been accusations thrown at influential countries for manipulating the agreement and using it to push their agendas. To understand exactly how this happens, it is important to underline the fact that the pioneers of this agreement were some of the most influential nations on the globe. It is also for this same reason that the idea of having an agreement for climate control sold and appealed to many[1]. This however came at a cost and that is the fact that these same nations wanted to use the agreement to push their agendas. When it was mentioned that the climate control agreement would extensively dwell on gas emissions, many feathers were rubbed the wrong way. Many countries were concerned because of how they dealt with the entire issue of gas emissions in their countries.

What this meant was that even the type of fuel used would vary from country to country and this collateral effect would consequently move from what countries chose to import and what they could export. In the end, the trade that existed between countries was affected and it was at this point that many influential countries saw it as an opportunity to use the influence to push for their agendas and what meant to them.

In the long run, it was realized that some countries rode on the influence and trust they had, to go against the stipulations of the climate agreement. Gases that were not supposed to be used as per the agreement, ended up being used again. This was driven by the fact that trade had to go on, and the amounts of money that this trade raked in could never be easily foregone because of long-term consequences. Emissions which were supposed to be treated before being released into the environment, were soon being released again and all this happened because there were some few powerful nations that had found a way to manipulate the entire agreement and bent its stipulations to their own accord and favor hence the failures being experienced to date on climate control.

Politics and Beurocracy

As mentioned in the previous point, the inception of this agreement was a brainchild of what a few powerful political dynasties thought was best for the entire world. What was however not mentioned is the fact that neither of these countries was ready to suffer the economic and political consequences that would be brought forth by the stipulations of this same agreement on climate control[2].

As soon as the agreement was signed and it was approved to be operational all over the world, there came the problem of the number of sittings and benchmarks needed to fully enact it in several countries. In order to understand how this happened, it is important to acknowledge the fact there are different countries bound to this agreement and the difference lies in how the countries are economically stable, what the country believes in terms of climate control and its importance altogether, and many other areas of diversity.

In the end, the workability of the agreement was impeded by these kinds of variables and what was more complicated was the fact that there was no specific way of addressing these issues. While still stalling, there came the problem of politics, and no country was willing to have its political power undermined by an external agreement. Months later, the agreement was impeded from achieving its ultimate goal, which is to make sure that the globe is protected from climatic explosions in the form of unsustainability that comes from human misbehavior. The agreement is still struggling to appeal to as many people as possible and the progress is not a commendable one.

This is because in many countries, the Paris Agreement has had to come against strong political objections, and in areas where politics is not the issue, it has had to fifth a lot of bureaucracy, and in the process, it has failed to address the global issues it was supposed to be doing in the very first place and it is therefore important to underline this as a valid and authentic point.

Dominance by Wealthy Countries There is also the problem of wealthy countries dominating the proceeds of the agreement. Wealth has always meant one thing in all spheres of life, and that is it comes with a lot of influence. In the contemporary world, more than anything, influence matters the most, and it is what many wealthy countries are using to cripple the entire agreement and hence rendering it as ineffective as possible[3]. It is however important to underline the fact that he can be directly or indirectly but either way, it still goes ahead to stop the agreement of Paris from being effective and from fulfilling its ultimate goal, and that is to make sure that there is a control over all the human activities that could go all the way to affecting the climate we all live in.

In the agreement, there are directives, just as mentioned earlier, on what should be used as fuel or gas, to make sure that the climate is protected. In areas where the discouraged agents are still being used by these wealthy nations, or rather yet, in wealthy countries, dealing I the export of discouraged products, this has never been taken on a lighter note, and instead, it has been ignored to bits.

In the end, it is these wealthy nations that go all the way to using both their wealth and their influential machinery to stop the Paris Agreement on Climate control from being as effective as it should be. This is therefore another pillar that has made sure that the agreement on climate control doesn’t remain to be as effective as it should be in the first place.

Just as also mentioned earlier, In the long run, it was realized that some countries rode on the influence and trust they had, to go against the stipulations of the climate agreement. Gases that were not supposed to be used as per the agreement, ended up being used again. This was driven by the fact that trade had to go on, and the amounts of money that this trade raked in could never be easily foregone because of long-term consequences.

The following are some of the areas where these wealthy nations have impeded the functionality and effectiveness of the Paris Agreement;

Misusing their influence
Misusing their wealth
Financing lawsuits
Stalling the actions of the agreement

The Pledge and Review Strategy

This is a strategy that is aimed at giving each country the volition to come up with its own rules of emissions. From the go, some were against this notion while some championed the notion. It is, however, important to underline the fact that it was only a matter of time before it became clear to many that it was a mistake to give this kind of power to every country. This is because with each country coming up with its own rules, there will be cases of countries having rules that are relatively less strict. There will be those countries that have poisonous gases as their main source of revenue through exporting and this may pose a conflict of interest. Asking them to set up rules that could go a long way to crippling their own internal and local economies is a huge ask, and therefore it is partly the reason why the pledge to review strategy has since been cited as a major weakness of the agreement. There have been countries that have even gone a notch higher and set up no rule to restrict them on the type of gas they emit or they release into the atmosphere.

In the end, it is this same strategy that is leaving behind loopholes to be exploited by those who care less about the stipulations of the Paris Agreement. It is only rational to acknowledge the fact that this has since been a one-sided debate and hence one weakness that has worked its way around making sure that it makes the agreement as ineffective as possible and one worthy of serious intervention. It has even been cited before that there are countries that have gone ahead and set Hence countries could set emission reduction goals which are inadequate, insane, and detrimental to the environment.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

This is a convention, that just as its name suggests, is constructed around making sure that there is enough focus and effort put in place to help in trying to control the environment and monitoring its change at all times. This is a convention that is composed of a representative from all the relevant and interested countries on a matter concerning climate change. Above all is the fact that in this same convention, there have been issues that have gone a long way to affecting the workability of what the Paris Agreement dictates[4].

There have been constant and regular disagreements among the members of this same convention, whose main goal is supposed to be supporting the Paris Agreement and making sure that it has a backup. With these agreements in place, the agreement has found itself isolated, and with this kind of isolation, it has not managed to reach the level of effectiveness that it was supposed to reach as per its dates of inception. One of the areas within which there have been a lot of disagreements is the fact that there are various climate rules and laws that are not received well by some members of the same convention. There have been accusations based on favoritism[5]. Countries that are deemed to be wealthy and influential have been favored by the stipulations of this agreement, and this has consequently been a major source of disagreements among the many members of this convention and hence another weakness. This, coupled with other related optics has gone a notch higher to not only cripple the agreements but has also managed to paint it in a bad light, and this has been another collateral damage done to the agreement. With this kind of internal environment, the Agreement has had a difficult time becoming stronger and hence its consequent failure.

Conclusion

In the end, as much as the Paris Agreement was supposed to come and be a game changer in terms of how the climate, we all live in is protected, it has been crippled on its course by several factors that have been made clear in this paper. Just as a reminder of what has been talked about in this paper, the following are some of the reasons why the Paris Agreement has had a difficult time in performing and reaching its ultimate goal;

Politics and Beurocracy
Manipulation of the agreement by Wealthy nations
Weakness in Climate Laws
The failure of the UNFCCC due to disagreements
Failure of the ‘pledge and review strategy’

It is the following reason, coupled with many other minor reasons why the Paris Agreement on climate control failed and has continued to do so. The issue of climate change being a global concern because of its progression to the worse has been a pinch in everyone’s shoes and in the end, there have to be mechanisms in place to help in saving on the situation. This paper has managed to address and clearly point out the failures of the Paris Agreement, which is an agreement that the entire world counted on to help in saving itself from climate destruction which would end up affecting each and every person. Through the factors that made the Paris Agreement fail, the proper recommendations can be made and through them, better mechanisms can be fronted to help in covering for the same issue and hence a valid and commendable paper.

Bibliography

Bodansky, Daniel, Jutta Brunnée, and Lavanya Rajamani. International Climate Change Law. 2017.

Miller, Shirley. The 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change: Elements and Related Matters. 2017.

Klein, Daniel. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change: Analysis and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Popovski, Vesselin. The Implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. 2019.

Stern, Nicholas, Alex Bowen, and John Whalley. The Global Development of Policy Regimes to Combat Climate Change. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company, 2014. <http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1692747>.

[1] Klein, Daniel. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change: Analysis and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

[2] Miller, Shirley. The 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change: Elements and Related Matters. 2017.

[3] Popovski, Vesselin. The Implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. 2019.

Miller, Shirley. The 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change: Elements and Related Matters. 2017.

[4] Stern, Nicholas, Alex Bowen, and John Whalley. The Global Development of Policy Regimes to Combat Climate Change. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company, 2014.

[5] Bodansky, Daniel, Jutta Brunnée, and Lavanya Rajamani. International Climate Change Law. 2017.

Place your order