UNFCC, Kyoto Protocol, & Paris Agreement: Best Global Governance to Address Climate Change for Now - Fall 2019

1. Individual Paper:
UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, & Paris Agreement: Best Global
Governance to Address Climate Change for Now
Daphne Saul
October 4, 2019
I. Introduction
UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement are the framework for global
governance that address climate change, and even though the plan is not perfect yet, the efforts
towards engagement of all member states ensures that all parties have a say in the discussion and
agreements for action towards the mitigation of climate change.1
The current state of global
climate crisis, as protested in the September 19th
2019 Youth Climate Strike2
, highlights the
extreme importance of this topic at the current moment with reference to the IPCC’s most recent
report,3
which requires a radical departure from business as usual (BAU)4
especially from the
world’s top polluting countries including the reluctant United States.
1
THE PARIS AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE: ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY (Daniel Klein et al. eds., 2017).
2
Business & Human Rights Resource Center, ‘Young people stage global climate strike in 125 countries against
climate inaction as CEOs voice their support’ https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/young-people-stage-global-
climate-strike-in-125-countries-against-climate-inaction-as-ceos-voice-their-support
3
IPCC, ‘Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 ºc’ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
4
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 13.

2. Government leaders come together to address the complex issue of climate change, and many
factors determine whether the outcomes will be positive or negative. Negative outcomes of
discussions impact state actors’ abilities to be held accountable to target goals. Since the current
state of science on climate change is at a justifiable level with social and ethical implications of
policy choices, despite major hurdles in the process, and some strengths and weaknesses of the
bottom-up approach in the Paris Agreement, mechanisms for compliance today serve as the best
global governance architecture for now.
This paper is about the UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, and Paris Agreement, how they work,
how they fit together, and their strengths and weakness on the global scale to address climate
change. Section II contains a brief overview of the history of UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, and
Paris Agreement Development, starting with the IPCC. Section III contains an analysis of the
UNFCCC, primarily concerning what defines it, how it governs, and its strengths and
weaknesses. Section IV contains similarly an analysis of the Kyoto Protocol, also addressing its
defining features, what it expects of member states, and its strengths and weaknesses. Section V
lastly contains an analysis of the Paris Agreement, in which main parts are identified, also well
as what is expected of its member parties and its overall strengths and weaknesses. Finally,
Section VI of this paper holds the conclusion, which summarizes the main topics and restates the
main point.
II. A Brief Overview of the History of UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, and Paris
Agreement Development

3. Successful global climate governance outcomes started with the 1988 Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the subsequent science-policy interface. 5
The IPCC
publishes reports on the science of climate change designed specifically for the world’s leaders
and top policy makers, creating an innovative science-policy interface that has vastly improved
collaboration with the scientific community6
. The IPCC plays a critical role in linking science to
policy7
, as IPCC Reports fostered the production of UNFCCC documents such as the IPCC
Second through Fifth Reports which have inspired UNFCCC to produce important documents,
including the Kyoto Protocol and subsequent Rulebook, the Bali Roadmap 2007, and most
recently the Paris Agreement8
. Therefore, a negotiation that directly follows an IPCC report is
more likely to be successful, based on the previous successful outcomes following IPCC reports.
The buildup, pressure, and moment that a new IPCC report pushes on world leaders sets the
stage for new ideas and collaboration, all coming together for the common goal to address
climate change.
Formation of the UNFCCC followed creation of the IPCC, and IPCC inception gave birth to
UNFCCC due to IPCC’s robustly authoritative presence in global decision making9
. IPCC
reports stick to a scientific basis, so that UNFCCC can make secure policy choices10
. UNFCCC
parties come together to address the complex issue of climate change, and many factors
determine the outcome. Negative outcomes of negotiations impact state actors’ abilities to be
held accountable to target goals, for example, when the Copenhagen Accord was negotiated,
most parties were absent and thus felt no connection to the accord as a binding legal document
5
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 8.
6
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 1.
7
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 8.
8
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 9.
9
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 8-9.
10
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 8.

4. since not all aspects were negotiated and agreed upon.11
From the ashes of the Copenhagen
Accord, the UNFCCC has learned what factors need to be in place to produce positive outcome
in negotiations, which in turn helped in the Paris Agreement’s success.
III. UNFCCC Analysis
The UNFCCC is the governing body that holds the COP (and other versions of the COP)
meetings that have produced agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement.12
The
COP (and other versions) meet at different cities around the world to make decisions about new
agreements or to follow up with the goals provisioned in previous sessions, and usually name the
documents they have produced after the city in which they have met. The subsidiary body for
scientific and technological advice (SBSTA) is an important part of the UNFCCC, which
maintains science work streams in permanent agenda items,13
alongside the Subsidiary Body for
Implementation (SBI) and secretariat. UNFCCC’s Article 2 requires a quantitative long-term
global goal (LTGG), which was easier said than done, but that nonetheless through countless
effort has finally been achieved.14
As the overarching body of the climate regime, the UNFCCC
passes on and renames some of its components when meeting for different reasons, such as the
Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement.
The UNFCCC governs with a sort of global peer-pressure in that member states and nonstate
actors hold each other accountable to goals set in treaties and track each other’s progress through
11
Kyle Ash (2010) Greenpeace ‘Was the Copenhagen Accord an abject failure or a smashing success?’
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/was-the-copenhagen-accord-an-abject-failure-or-a-smashing-success/
12
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 31.
13
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 10.
14
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 11.

5. transparent mandatory reports that detail what they have done to meet their agreed goals and
their current national level of GHG emissions.15
Member countries under the UNFCCC are
expected to attend meetings and to participate in negotiations for the development and follow-up
of agreements. Members are divided into sections including Annex I as developed countries and
non-Annex I as developing countries.16
To strive for global equity, Annex I and non-Annex I
Parties have common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDRRC),17
which maintain that developed countries have more responsibility and capability under the
UNFCCC than do countries that are still developing.
The strengths of the UNFCCC are that it is backed by the science of the IPCC and supporting
SBSTA as well as its use of the Structured Expert Dialogue (SED) for policy makers.18
Science-
policy interface allows parties to the UNFCCC to make solid policy choices based on scientific
climate projections made specifically to be used in policy choices (the policy implications of
different temperature goals). Without this use of science, policy makers would be scrounging for
information to support policy ideas and the UNFCCC would not have made such success in
previous years without this innovative connection with the science reports from the IPCC.
The weaknesses of the UNFCCC include the categorization of countries from global north
and global south (as Annex I and non-Annex I), because it polarizes the countries against each
other and creates tension between the groups. In 2010 at the Cancun Agreements, most of the
parties thought the 2-degree limit was too high,19
which made it difficult to agree on this goal
since it felt like they were putting all this effort for not that much outcome, and this feeling has
15
UNFCCC eHandbook, “Climate: Get the Big Picture” https://unfccc.int/resource/bigpicture/
16
UNFCCC eHandbook.
17
UNFCCC eHandbook.
18
UNFCCC eHandbook.
19
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 11.

6. been carried with countries through the following negotiations. This disagreement made it
difficult for dissenting members, who mostly consisted of developing countries most effected by
climate change, to want to fulfill goals, and it is important for all member’s input to be
considered for a positive outcome to come out.
IV. Kyoto Protocol Analysis
The main articles and provisions of Kyoto Protocol, heavily and long-windedly hashed out,
serve as a building block for the Paris Agreement. When the COP is meeting to discuss the
Kyoto Protocol, the COP is then known during the meeting as the Conference of Parties serving
as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and is known in abbreviated form as the
CMP, alongside the other core institutions that transfer from UNFCCC including the SBSTA,
SBI, and secretariat.20
In interesting part of the Kyoto Protocol is a new introduced topic called
“land-use change and forestry sector” (LULUCF) which created a global emissions trading
system as a new mechanism for implementation.21
This could potentially be problematic due to
the fact that the most emissions would be likely traded from the most highly polluted areas,
creating in turn areas of high emission areas in places with at-risk populations.
The approach to countries’ contributions to manage the climate crisis and expectations for
member countries under the Kyoto Protocol were one-sided. The Kyoto Protocol focused on
more stringent goals Annex I Parties but allowed non-Annex I parties to participate on merely a
voluntary basis.22
The expectations for member countries under the Kyoto Protocol included
20
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 31.
21
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 33-34.
22
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 33.

7. time limits on temperature goals, specifically for Annex I parties to reach specific targets by
2012, and a second target timeframe will likely occur as some point in the future if the next
session is accepted.23
Success of the Kyoto Protocol followed the IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR) 1996.24
The Kyoto Protocol’s long development period set up the structure leading up to the Paris
Agreement.25
The goals of the Kyoto Protocol were to introduce new targets for Annex I parties,
but not for non-Annex I parties26
, and Annex I parties did not seem to want to act if not everyone
was also acting accordingly. In the words of Meinhard Doelle, “…sovereign states are more
likely to take action in the collective interest of the global community if they are assured that
other countries will do the same.”27
Member Parties only want to do good if everyone else is
doing good, and it all comes down to the “fairness” aspect of expected contributions, since there
is no real global governance, just voluntary actions in an anarchic system driven by realism.
Leading to a long road of development before entry into force, and to a slow acceptance rate of
the latest Doha Amendment, the Kyoto Protocol provided too many new elements at once, no
defining top-down impositions of protocol articles or amendments, and uncertainty about
implementation flexibility rules for Annex I parties.28
The US did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol
due to these reasons, in a similar way that it has not ratified the Paris Agreement which is
discussed in the following section.
23
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 33
24
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 9.
25
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 34.
26
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 33.
27
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 375.
28
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 33-34.

8. V. Paris Agreement Analysis
The main provisions of the Paris Agreement obtain much of their structure from previous
UNFCCC developments such as the Kyoto Protocol. Article 2.1(a) and Article 4.1 of the Paris
Agreement are the articles that aim to limit warming.29
Member states had to finalize nationally
determined contributions (NDCs) before entering into the agreement, which ensure that all states
are a part of the agreement, although many NDCs are not stringent enough to curb the dangerous
effects of climate change and it is emphasized that transformations must accelerate to in order to
reach a global GHG peak and achieve net neutrality by 2050 (the second half of the century).30
A
key pillar of the Paris Agreement is the support to help developing countries detailed in Article
9, which states in section 1 that “Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to
assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation
of their existing obligations under the Convention.”31
This is different from the expectations of
Annex I countries in the Kyoto Protocol.
It is then a key expectation under the Paris Agreement for Annex I Parties to finance flows
from the larger private sector to developing states, as stated in Article 9 above. A global set
temperature limit to be met with policy choices outlined by the IPCC AR5 sets the global
expectation for all member states to take the most stringent policy decisions to meet the
collective goal.32
Before the Paris Agreement was created, all Parties must have submitted their
nationally determined contributions (NDCs),33
and since they are created by the individual
countries, parties will be more likely and able to meet and reach these goals.
29
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 127.
30
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 127.
31
UNFCC, ‘Paris Agreement’ https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf
32
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 11
33
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 127.

9. Strengths of Paris Agreement guiding principles including “…demonstrated domestic
progress, full transparency, non-party engagement, a collective commitment to progression and
ambition, and regular review of the collective effort34
” are the elements of the Paris Agreement
that make it successful in motiving parties into action. Long-term and low GHG emission
development strategies,35
are also a strength of the Paris Agreement’s guiding principles.
The Paris Agreement should have stricter goals, as highlighted by the disagreement of
temperature goals in 2010, when the 2/1.5 degree temperature goals were settled upon as a
compromise between small island states and nonstate actors and heavy polluting states.36
The 2
and 1.5 degree limits were not made by the scientific body, the IPCC, and therefore are imperfect
because 1.) the issue is non-linear 2.) transboundary 3.) multi-dimensional in evaluation.37
Another disadvantage is that countries do not have to ratify the agreement after signing it, for
example the United States, with the reasoning that the Paris Agreement was “absent the
identification of terms that are more favorable to the American people.”38
VI. Conclusion
UNFCCC is the framework within which the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement were
created and offers a structure within which science and policy are used together effectively
through the IPCC to negotiate attainable temperature goals at the government level. The Kyoto
Protocol is still active despite slow and reluctant acceptance of a second commitment period, but
34
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 376
35
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 8.
36
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 11.
37
THE PARIS AGREEMENT, at 9.
38
Janet A. Leggett, ‘Potential Implications of U.S. Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change’
Congressional Research Service (April 2019) https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF10668.pdf

10. its structure and long preliminary process still carry through into the Paris Agreement. The Paris
Agreement is not perfect, but it is the best international governance for now as it has no end date.
Predictively, when the IPCC releases a new report, that might spur another important pillar of
global climate governance, but until then, the Paris Agreement holds all member parties
accountable through their pre-written NDCs that are more achievable than a given flat goal.
The IPCC’s science-policy interface with urgency its reports for immediate action, even
though there are large obstacles in the process of global agreements, and despite the inherent
faults of the current Paris Agreement, what has been decided on between the parties to the
UNFCCC is the most sound action plan in the world currently to combat the climate crisis in all
its complexity.