8 Jul 2018
What Governance in a World Rattled by Climate Change ?
Session 27
The International Climate Conference held in Paris (COP 21) ended in December 2015 with the approval of the Paris Agreement by 195 States: the first universal agreement in this field. This marked a historic step-forward in climate geopolitics, with a consensus now reached on the reality of climate deregulation and the necessity to act rapidly to prevent global warming of more than 2°. However, USA’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement – in a grand gesture of defiance with regard to multilateralism – represents a “stress test” for the new strategy to combat climate change.
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This defection is all the more problematic in that, since the Agreement entered into force, numerous studies have confirmed how urgent action is needed – the UN’s Emissions Gap Report (2017), the EIA’s World Energy Outlook in 2017 – leading to the mobilisation of 15,000 scientists (BioScience, November 2017) in conjunction with COP 23.
These tensions raise questions on the governance of problems caused by climate deregulation:
- Can America’s defiance as a State be compensated by the leadership of other States (China, Europe, etc.) in preserving the dynamics behind the Agreement?
- Will non-state players (NGOs, cities and regions, companies and so on), highly prominent since COP 21 (including North American players during COP 23), play a decisive role in its implementation?
- How can solidarity be ensured, given the impending and ever-growing environmental migrations, even with vigorous action to contain emissions?
- How can the foundations be laid for a “climatic justice” (i.e. compensation for States that are victims of deregulation and have historically produced low emissions)?
Contributions
A threefold observation_LEPAGE
What kind of governance in a world profoundly affected by climate change_GEOFFRON
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