Paris Agreement

US President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement once again. What is the Paris Agreement? How can a country withdraw from it?

The White House has confirmed that President Donald Trump will once again withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. He has repeatedly referred to climate change as a “hoax” and seeks to free US oil and gas industries from environmental regulations. Interestingly, Trump had previously pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement during his first term, but his successor, Joe Biden, had rejoined four years later.

1. Trump did not mention the Paris Agreement in his inauguration speech on Monday. However, he committed to reversing some climate-friendly energy policies implemented in last few years and reiterated his promise to increase oil and gas extraction to meet America’s energy needs.

2. Trump’s decisions threaten to jeopardise global climate action even further. Notably, the US is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. Its decision to extract, use, and export more fossil fuels could negate actions towards achieving the Paris Agreement targets.

3. Currently, it appears that the world is almost sure to miss its 2030 emission reduction targets by a substantial margin. While the science says that global emissions need to be cut by at least 43 per cent by 2030 from 2019 levels to keep alive hopes of arresting global warming within the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, however, recent assessments indicate that current actions and policies may only lead to a reduction of about 2 per cent.

1. The Paris Agreement is an international accord that was adopted by nearly every country in 2015 to address climate change and its adverse effects.

2. Its primary goal is to substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a bid to limit global warming in this century to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels while pursuing the means to curb warming to 1.5 degrees.

3. The agreement mentions the safer limit of 1.5 degrees based on a fact-finding report which found that breaching the threshold could lead to “some regions and vulnerable ecosystems” facing high risks, over an extended, decades-long period.

4. The treaty also requires all Parties (countries which have joined the agreement) to state every five years what they are doing to tackle climate change — what is known as their nationally determined contribution (NDC). Each successive NDC is meant to reflect an increasingly higher degree of ambition compared to the previous version, according to the website of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

1. Article 28 of the Paris Agreement outlines the process and timeline for a country to withdraw from the treaty. It says, “[a]t any time after three years from the date on which this Agreement has entered into force (this happened in 2016) for a Party, that Party may withdraw from this Agreement by giving written notification to the Depositary”.

2. The Article also states, “[a]ny such withdrawal shall take effect upon expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal, or on such later date as may be specified in the notification of withdrawal.”

3. If a member state wants to withdraw from the treaty, it has to submit the notification of a withdrawal to the Office of Legal Affairs of the UN, based at UN Headquarters in New York.

4. Once the withdrawal notification has been received, it only becomes effective after one year (or later if the member state so says in the notification). Until the withdrawal comes into force, the member state remains in the Paris Agreement and has to fully participate in all activities under it, according to the UNFCCC website.

The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the annual meeting of the members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international agreement established in 1992 that serves as the foundation for climate negotiations. Currently, there are 198 parties to the UNFCCC, which includes 197 countries and the European Union, representing almost universal membership.

COP3 in Kyoto, 1997: The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in this COP. It placed obligations on the set of rich and industrialised countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by assigned amounts. It did not last long as the rich and powerful countries were not happy with its provisions.

COP21 in Paris, 2015: It led to the landmark Paris Agreement — a legally binding international treaty to limit global temperatures to below 2 degree Celsius, and preferably below 1.5 degree Celsius.

COP26 in Glasgow, 2021: The Glasgow pact made a commitment to “phase down” the use of coal (this language was weakened from “phase out” late in the negotiations) and to phase out “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”. This was the first time that a UN climate agreement explicitly mentioned coal.

COP28 in Dubai, 2023:  A Loss and Damage fund was officially launched in Dubai. The fund is meant to provide financial help to countries struck by climate disasters.

1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

2.The main objectives of IPCC are to produce assessment reports, special reports, and methodology reports that assess scientific knowledge on climate change and provide potential response strategies.