Sanjoli Sharma & Anushka Sahai, Manav Rachna University
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the development of international environmental agreements-from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2015 Paris Agreement-and assesses how such agreements have shaped global climate policy. Issues related to climate change have passed through tremendous international cooperation in the last thirty years, including these some very significant establishments of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the legally-binding Kyoto Protocol, and the landmark Paris Agreement. This paper traces the developments within these agreements which focus on their structure, goals, and mechanisms of implementation.
It is against this background that the Rio Earth Summit put forth the basic principles of sustainable development as a reference point for environmental negotiations in the future. One of the major by-products of the Earth Summit was the UNFCCC, which became a mainstay for global climate talk. The first treaty to introduce legally binding targets for emission reductions on developed countries had existed since the Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997, which not only introduced mechanisms like carbon trading but also compelled industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through the international binding targets for their domestic emissions. However, that was short-lived since major countries withdrew and developing nations were exempted from binding commitments.
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