Editing IPCC:Wg1:Chapter:Chapter-1-comments (section)

==== 1.2.2.2 The Paris Agreement (PA) ====

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Parties to the PA commit to the goal of limiting global average temperature increase to ‘well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C in order to significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change’. InAR6, as in many previous IPCC reports, observations and projections of changes in global temperature are expressed relative to 1850–1900 as an approximation for pre-industrial levels (Cross-Chapter Box 1.2).

The PA further addresses mitigation (Article 4) and adaptation to climate change (Article 7), as well as loss and damage (Article 8), through the mechanisms of finance (Article 9), technology development and transfer (Article 10), capacity-building (Article 11) and education (Article 12). To reach its long-term temperature goal, the PA recommends ‘achieving a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century’, a state commonly described as ‘net zero’ emissions (Article 4) ( [[#1.6|Section 1.6]] and Box 1.4). Each Party to the PA is required to submit a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and pursue, on a voluntary basis, domestic mitigation measures with the aim of achieving the objectives of its NDC (Article 4).

Numerous studies of the NDCs submitted since adoption of the PA in 2015 ( [[#Fawcett--2015|Fawcett et al., 2015]] ; [[#UNFCCC--2015|UNFCCC, 2015]] , 2016; [[#Lomborg--2016|Lomborg, 2016]] ; [[#Rogelj--2016|Rogelj et al., 2016]] , 2017; [[#Benveniste--2018|Benveniste et al., 2018]] ; [[#Gütschow--2018|Gütschow et al., 2018]] ; [[#UNEP--2019|UNEP, 2019]] ) conclude that they are insufficient to meet the Paris temperature goal. In the present IPCC Sixth Assessment Cycle, a Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5, [[#IPCC--2018|IPCC, 2018]] ) found, with ''high agreement'' , that current NDCs ‘are not in line with pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century.’ The PA includes a ratcheting mechanism designed to increase the ambition of voluntary national pledges over time. Under this mechanism, NDCs will be communicated or updated every five years. Each successive NDC will represent a ‘progression beyond’ the ‘then current’ NDC and reflect the ‘highest possible ambition’ (Article 4). These updates will be informed by a five-yearly periodic review including the Structured Expert Dialogue (SED), as well as a ‘global stocktake’, to assess collective progress toward achieving the PA long-term goals. These processes will rely upon the assessments prepared during the IPCC Sixth Assessment Cycle (e.g., Cross-Chapter Box 1.1; [[#Schleussner--2016b|Schleussner et al., 2016b]] ).

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