What makes a UNFCCC resolution “legally binding?”

 A common question when considering a UNFCCC resolution is: how can this resolution be enforced and made legally binding? This was a difficult question to answer even in the early days of the UNFCCC, most notably the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 which failed to be legally binding. Formally, the UNFCCC itself is not a legally binding treaty, but protocols produced by the UNFCCC can be legally binding. Since the Earth Summit, landmark climate deals produced from the UNFCCC such as the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the more recent Paris Agreement of 2015 have developed mechanisms of enforcement. We’ll take a look at these two agreements to outline potential ways to incorporate legal and non-legal binding terms into a UNFCCC resolution.

Kyoto Protocol:

The Kyoto Protocol is a legally binding protocol of the UNFCCC and was ratified by 192 countries (ratification is the formal and legal process by which a country agrees to abide by the protocol). For enforcement, the protocol established a Compliance Committee with 2 branches: a facilitative branch and an enforcement branch. The presence of the two branches reflects the goal of the Kyoto Protocol to both make sure countries meet their target emission goals but also to assist those who need the advice to meet their commitments. Upon determining that a country has not been compliant, the enforcement branch takes a specific course of action, such as suspending the eligibility of the country to participate in emissions trading or mandate the country make up for its emissions in a separate commitment period. 

While an important step forward for its time, the Kyoto Protocol was not entirely successful. For example, it failed to bring in the United States, the largest greenhouse gas emitter at the time. There is also concern that the penalty of making up for excess emissions in the next commitment period would become “debt” that simply cycles through time without being repaid. The biggest takeaway for delegates here is being able to strike a balance between stringentness and feasibility. The ideal resolution would need to be effective but also provide some incentive to abide by it. 

Paris Agreement:

The Paris Agreement takes a different approach from Kyoto in that it isn’t focused on penalizing countries for non-compliance nor is it strict about targets. The Paris Agreement allows countries to set their own nationally determined contributions (NDCs). However, it does have a robust system of monitoring, reporting, and reassessing country targets. In some ways, the Paris Agreement is not a fully legally binding agreement and does not require legal ratification. Instead, the Paris Agreement more strongly follows a path of flexibility and relies on transparency between countries as to whether they are meeting their targets to incentivize compliance.

Like Kyoto, the Paris Agreement still has downsides. While the agreement has mostly remained intact, it did witness the US leave the agreement, although the US is soon expected to rejoin. Some critics also claim that the Paris Agreement does not go far enough in combating climate change and that its goals need to be more ambitious. Nevertheless, the Paris Agreement still presents an important contrast in enforcement mechanisms from the Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto and Paris are 2 major climate agreements produced by the UNFCCC. We highly encourage you to further research what they did right and how they can improve in order to make your resolutions during conference both effective and agreeable!

Links for Further Reading

• https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/02/23/a-%E2%80%9Clegally-binding%E2%80%9D-climate-agreement-what-does-it-mean-why-does-it-matter/#:~:text=Under%20Article%2018%20of%20the,the%20parties%20that%20ratified%20it.
• https://unfccc.int/process/the-kyoto-protocol/compliance-under-the-kyoto-protocol/introduction#:~:text=The%20Kyoto%20Protocol%20compliance%20mechanism%20is%20designed%20to%20strengthen%20the,the%20commitments%20under%20the%20Protocol.
• https://naei.beis.gov.uk/about/why-we-estimate?view=unfccc#:~:text=The%20United%20Nations%20Framework%20Convention,majority%20of%20the%20world's%20countries.&text=The%20treaty%20is%20not%20legally,set%20legally%20binding%20emissions%20limits.
• https://www.nrdc.org/stories/paris-climate-agreement-everything-you-need-know#:~:text=United%20Nations%20Framework%20Convention%20on%20Climate%20Change&text=The%20pact%20set%20no%20limits,to%20set%20binding%20emissions%20targets.