The Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda

The Paris Agreement (UNFCC) and the UN 2030 Agenda were both adopted in 2015 but represent two different types of international agreements:

• The Paris Agreement aims at limiting global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change.
• The 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals and principles like the one to leave no one behind is a lot more ambitious and complex. Countries are expected to take ownership and establish a national framework for achieving the 17 Goals. However, the SDGs are not legally binding.

Also, the Paris Agreement and the Agenda 2030 work in two distinctively different ways:

• The Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation, based on the best available science and plans for climate action known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). The Paris Agreement works on a 5- year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by countries aiming at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building resilience to adapt to the impacts of rising temperatures.
• The 2030 Agenda also shall be implemented by all countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership. Part of the means of implementation were agreed at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Addis Ababa from 13-16 July 2015. A UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development is responsible to monitor the implementation and recommend modifications. However, the implementation mechanism is compared to the Paris Agreement is rather weak. Probably in awareness of this the Agenda 2030 includes as SDG 17 the goal to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

With its clear goal to limit global warming and its legally binding status the Paris Agreement seems to be more appealing and implementable while many get lost between the 17 SDG with their 176 targets to be translated into national plans and activities. Climate change policies are essentially focusing on emission reduction in relation to policy sectors including electricity, transportation, buildings, industry, agriculture and lands. While this is still a very complex challenge it has a clear focus on emission reduction and this makes seems easier to rally support for.

I could continue analysing differences between Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda but the purpose of this blog post is to underscore how interdependent they are and that implementing them on two separate paths bears risks for both.

The Leader’s Summit on Climate - almost ignored the SDG [1]

As the U.S. Government reenters the global climate fight, President Biden convened the Leader’s Summit on Climate early in his presidency on 22-23 April 2021 to ensure close coordination with key players in the international community at the highest levels of government. The summit aimed at setting the world up for success on multiple fronts to address the climate crisis, including emissions reductions, finance, innovation and job creation, and resilience and adaptation. The theme of the Leader’s Summit is to raise ambitions. Ambitions are indeed raising but “We are not where we have to be” as it was said by the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.

Reentering the global climate fight could have been done in a humbler way after four years of dismissive politics by the former US administration. However, world leaders were so glad that about 40 of them spoke at the summit, making it an important milestone on the road to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November 2021 in Glasgow.

At the Leaders’ Summit on Climate hosted by the United States on Earth Day, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres said that leaders everywhere must take action. He summarized the challenge as follows:

“First, by building a global coalition for net-zero emissions by mid-century – every country, every region, every city, every company and every industry.

Second, by making this a decade of transformation. All countries – starting with major emitters – should submit new and more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions for mitigation, adaptation and finance, laying out actions and policies for the next 10 years aligned with a 2050 net-zero pathway.

Third, we need to translate those commitments into concrete, immediate action.

So far, only 18 to 24 per cent of pandemic recovery spending is expected to contribute to mitigating emissions, reducing air pollution or strengthening natural capital.

The trillions of dollars needed for COVID-19 recovery is money we are borrowing from future generations. We cannot use these resources to lock in policies that burden them with a mountain of debt on a broken planet.”[2]

The Climate Change Action cannot be successful without the broader and even more ambitious  2030 Agenda

Although the Secretary General is as much responsible for the Paris Agreement as the 2030 Agenda he didn’t stress the interdependency between the two agreements. This was done by other world leaders. The President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin pointed in his contribution to the fact that the fight against climate change has to be linked with other fundamental challenges including the fight against poverty and to reduce the wealth gap between nations. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany underscored that the fight against climate change requires a transformation of our entire way of living.

And this is the point: It is not possible to achieve the Paris Agreement aiming at limiting global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius without transforming the way of life of billions of people on earth.

Therefore, the fight against climate change cannot be fought as if it would be a stand along single issue. In addition, the policy environment is too much loaded with other conflicts and challenges which also require attention on the way to goal achievement:

-     The Paris Agreement requires close multilateral cooperation but at the same time the great-power rivalry is between US, China, Russia, Europe and others is risking to drive countries further apart then intensifying cooperation.

-     In addition, climate change, the Corona pandemic, inequality in the world affect individuals around the world in very different ways. At the same time their support is needed for climate action.

Therefore, transforming the way billions live without considering other needs and challenges of the people would risk to leave them behind.

The constellation of multiple crises and interests in the world is easily overwhelming for individual citizen and political leaders at the local, national or international level. The global system and societies around the world may even collapse if world leaders focus in future on a single agenda like the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Well, that all sounds dramatic but there is a solution: World leaders should not only intensify Climate Change Action but they should also intensify the implementing of the 2030 Agenda. While the Paris Agreement is about reducing emissions, the agenda is about improving the situation of people and nature. Therefore, the agreements are complimentary.

In addition, Climate action is already a formal part of the 2030 Agenda (SDG 13). Thus, the interdependency of the agreements and their goals is already laid down in the agreements of 2015. It’s just that the different paths which Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda took in 2015 distracted from their interrelations and interdependency. We just have to revitalize the awareness for the interrelation and interdependency. Indeed, chances for success are likely to be increased for both agreements if Climate Change Action would be better linked with the fight against poverty, pandemic, inequalities and for more resilient cities, life below water and on land, better institutions and international partnership. At the end, the goals of both agreements address the life on one and the same planet earth. Therefore, climate action and leaving no one on the way to an increasing sustainable world are two sides of the same coin.   

[1] https://www.state.gov/leaders-summit-on-climate/

[2] https://unfccc.int/news/climate-ambition-builds-at-leaders-summit-on-earth-day