Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-14 (section)

=== Box 14.1 | Key Features of the Paris Agreement Relevant to Mitigation ===

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The Paris Agreement’s overall aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty. This aim is explicitly linked to enhancing implementation of the UNFCCC, including its objective in Article 2 of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’. The Agreement sets three goals:

i. '''Temperature:''' holding the global average temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

ii. '''Adaptation and climate resilience:''' increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production.

iii. '''Finance:''' making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

In order to achieve the long-term temperature goal, Parties aim to reach global peaking of emissions as soon as possible, recognising that peaking will take longer for developing countries, and then to undertake rapid reductions in accordance with the best available science. This is designed to reach global net zero GHG emissions in the second half of the century, with the emissions reductions effort to be determined on the basis of equity and in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty. In addition, implementation of the Agreement as a whole is expected to reflect equity and Parties’ ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’, in light of different national circumstances.

The core mitigation commitments of Parties under the Paris Agreement centre on preparing, communicating and maintaining successive ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs), the contents of which countries determine for themselves. All Parties must have NDCs and pursue domestic mitigation measures with the aim of achieving the objectives of their NDCs, but Parties’ NDCs are neither subject to a review of adequacy (at an individual level) nor to legally binding obligations of result. The compliance mechanism is correspondingly facilitative.

The Paris Agreement establishes a global goal on adaptation, and recognises the importance of averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change.

The efficacy of the Paris Agreement in achieving its goals is therefore dependent upon at least three additional elements:

i. '''Ratcheting of NDCs:''' Parties must submit a new or updated NDC every five years that is in line with the Paris Agreement’s expectations of progression over time and the Party’s highest possible ambition, reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respecti ''v'' e capabilities in light of different national circumstances.

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ii. '''Enhanced transparency framework:''' Parties’ actions to implement their NDCs are subject to international transparency and review requirements, which will generate information that may also be used by domestic constituencies and peers to pressure governments to increase the ambition of their NDCs.

iii. '''Collective global stocktake:''' The global stocktake undertaken every five years, starting in 2023, will review the collective progress of countries in achieving the Paris Agreement’s goals, in light of equity and best available science. The outcome of the global stocktake informs Parties in updating and enhancing their subsequent NDCs.

These international processes establish an iterative ambition cycle for the preparation, communication, implementation and review of NDCs.

For developing countries, the Paris Agreement recognises that increasing mitigation ambition and realising long-term low-emissions development pathways can be bolstered by the provision of financial resources, capacity building, and technology development and transfer. In continuation of existing obligations under the Convention, developed countries are obliged to provide financial assistance to developing countries with respect to mitigation and adaptation. The Paris Agreement also recognises that Parties may choose to voluntarily cooperate in the implementation of their NDCs to allow for higher ambition in their mitigation and adaptation actions and to promote sustainable development and environmental integrity.

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