Paper On The Analysis Of The Role Of International Environmental Agreements In Addressing Climate Change

Josna Ann Bino & Diya Devanand, BA LLB (Hons.), Christ (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru

ABSTRACT

The global community is asked to come together under the cover of Public International Law to face this unprecedented threat posed by climate change.

This research investigates the connection between Public International Law and climate change, citing the Paris Agreement as a case in point. Taking a predominantly doctrinal approach, this study examines academic works, treaties, legal documents, and judicial precedents on international law and climate change. Within the Public International Law sphere lies the legal framework employed by countries in tackling transboundary problems like climate change.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) witnessed an important step towards global efforts for climate governance when it adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015. In striving for a more ambitious target of capping global temperature increase at 1.5 degrees celsius, this treaty aims to avoid any increment beyond 2 degrees celsius from pre-industrial levels. Moreover, PIL incorporates accountability, transparency, and international cooperation as provided for in the Paris Agreement.

In order to allow peer review and collective assessment of international efforts to combat climate change, parties must periodically submit reports on their progress towards the National Development Decisions (NDCs) that they adopted.

However, there are still challenges that demonstrate the complexity of operationalizing and enforcing the Paris Agreement. This, therefore, necessitates international legal processes like arbitration and adjudication that can resolve NDC compliance, technology transfer, and financial support conflicts. In short, the Paris Agreement is an example of how law interacts with climate change as well as how global legal approaches to pressing environmental issues keep changing. The paper sets out these complex technicalities underpinning the Paris Agreement as well as their implications for addressing climate change in public international law.

Keywords: Public International Law, Paris Agreement, NDC, global governance, climate change