Navigating the Climate Crisis: Exploring International Law's Evolution and Application
Keywords:
Climate Crisis, International Climate Law, International Frameworks, Paris Agreement, Emission Reduction Targets, Compliance Mechanisms
Abstract
The climate crisis demands a global effort to mitigate its impact and adapt to the changing environment. International law is essential in addressing this crisis, enabling cooperation and providing a framework for action. This study explores the evolution and effectiveness of international law in navigating the climate crisis. It examines the historical development of international environmental law, highlighting key milestones like the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. The study evaluates the effectiveness of international law in driving climate action through mechanisms such as emission reduction targets, reporting obligations, financial assistance, and technology transfer. It also addresses challenges within the existing legal framework, including enforcement mechanisms, compliance issues, and equitable treatment of developing countries. Furthermore, the study explores the evolving role of non-state actors in shaping climate governance and influencing international legal norms. It investigates transnational networks, voluntary initiatives, and corporate social responsibility as complementary to international legal instruments. Finally, the research identifies pathways for future development and enhancement of international climate law, emphasizing more ambitious emission reduction commitments, integrating climate considerations into other areas of international law, and exploring innovative legal approaches like climate litigation and climate-related trade measures.
References
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Benoit Mayer, International Law Obligations Arising in relation to Nationally Determined Contributions, 7 TRANSNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 251-275 (2018).
Radoslav Dimitrov et al., Institutional and environmental effectiveness: Will the Paris Agreement work?, 10 WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS: CLIMATE CHANGE (2019).
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David Victor, Climate change: Embed the social sciences in climate policy, 520 NATURE 27 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1038/520027a.
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Karin Bäckstrand et al., Non-state actors in global climate governance: from Copenhagen to Paris and beyond, 26 ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 561 (2017).
Angel Hsu et al., Beyond states: Harnessing sub-national actors for the deep decarbonisation of cities, regions, and businesses, 70 ENERGY RESEARCH & SOCIAL SCIENCE 101738 (2020).
Hashmi M Anaam, Amal Damanhouri & Divya Rana, Evaluation of Sustainability Practices in the United States and Large Corporations, 127 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ETHICS 673 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1007/s1055101420564.
CHIARA FALDUTO & MARCIA ROCHA, Aligning short-term climate action with long-term climate goals Opportunities and options for enhancing alignment between NDCs and long-term strategies, WWW.OECD.ORG 9 (2020), https://www.oecd.org/environment/cc/LEDS-NDC-linkages.pdf (last visited Jun 20, 2023).
Harro van Asselt, Tim Rayner & Åsa Persson, Climate policy integration, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON CLIMATE GOVERNANCE 388 (Karin Bäckstrand & Eva Lövbrand eds., 2015).
JOANA SETZER & CATHERINE HIGHAM, Global trends in climate change litigation: 2022 snapshot, HTTPS://WWW.LSE.AC.UK/GRANTHAMINSTITUTE/ (2022), https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/global-trends-in-climate-change-litigation-2022/ (last visited Jun 20, 2023).
2021 JAMES ROAF ET AL., CARBON PRICING: WHAT ROLE FOR BORDER CARBON ADJUSTMENTS? 1 (2021).
Rie Watanabe & Guy Robinson, The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), 5 CLIMATE POLICY 10 (2005).
PANEL ON, GLOBAL WARMING OF 1.5°C: IPCC SPECIAL REPORT ON IMPACTS OF GLOBAL WARMING OF 1.5°C ABOVE PREINDUSTRIAL LEVELS IN CONTEXT OF STRENGTHENING RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AND EFFORTS TO ERADICATE POVERTY (2022), https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/globalwarmingof15c/D7455D42B4C820E706A03A169B1893FA. (last visited Jun 9, 2023).
Daniel Bodansky, The Paris Climate Change Agreement: A New Hope?, 110 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 288 (2016).
Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, UN Doc. A/CONF.48/14/Rev.1 (June 16, 1972); Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, UN Doc. A/CONF.151/26/Rev.1 (June 14, 1992).
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, May 9, 1992, 1771 U.N.T.S. 107 (entered into force Mar. 21, 1994).
Paris Agreement, U.N. Doc. FCCC/CP/2015/L.9/Rev.1 (Dec. 12, 2015).
HARRIET BULKELEY & PETER NEWELL, GOVERNING CLIMATE CHANGE (2023).
Bodansky, supra note 2.
Jonathan W. Kuyper, Björn-Ola Linnér & Heike Schroeder, Non-state actors in hybrid global climate governance: justice, legitimacy, and effectiveness in a post-Paris era, 9 WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS: CLIMATE CHANGE (2017); Karin Bäckstrand, Jonathan Kuyper & Naghmeh Nasiritousi, From collaboration to contestation? Perceptions of legitimacy and effectiveness in postParis climate governance, 9 EARTH SYSTEM GOVERNANCE 100115 (2021), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589811621000197.
Lisa Benjamin, International and Transnational Climate Change Law and Policies, in COMPANIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE: THEORY AND LAW IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 78–112 (2021).
United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 5-16 June 1972, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.48/14/Rev.1.
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Principle 15.
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Principle 15.
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Principle 3 and Principle 4.
Steffen Bauer, United Nations Environment Programme, in AMANDINE ORSINI 3 (2014).
Christopher J. Rhodes, The 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference: COP21, 99 SCIENCE PROGRESS 97 (2016), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3184/003685016X14528569315192 (last visited Jun 19, 2023).
Lee Chung Lau, Keat Teong Lee & Abdul Rahman Mohamed, Global warming mitigation and renewable energy policy development from the Kyoto Protocol to the Copenhagen Accord—A comment, 16 RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY REVIEWS 5280 (2012).
IPCC, INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE, GLOBAL WARMING OF 1.5 OC AN IPCC SPECIAL REPORT ON THE IMPACTS OF GLOBAL WARMING OF 1.5°C ABOVE PRE-INDUSTRIAL LEVELS AND RELATED GLOBAL GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION PATHWAYS, IN THE CONTEXT OF STRENGTHENING THE GLOBAL RESPONSE TO THE THREAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AND EFFORTS TO ERADICATE POVERTY (Masson-DelmotteValérie et al. eds., 2022).
Bodansky, supra note 2.
Tim Cadman, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in THE PALGRAVE HANDBOOK OF CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY 359 (Timothy M Shaw et al. eds., 2019), https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137454430_23.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Article 2.
Thomas Cottier & Tetyana Payosova, Common concern and the legitimacy of the WTO in dealing with climate change, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND TRADE LAW 9 (Panagiotis Delimatsis ed., 2016).
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Article 3(1).
See United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Article 4(1).
Daniel Puig, James Arthur Haselip & Fatemeh Bakhtiari, The mismatch between the in-country determinants of technology transfer, and the scope of technology transfer initiatives under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 18 INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS: POLITICS, LAW AND ECONOMICS 659 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-018-9405-1 (last visited Jun 19, 2023).
See United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Articles 4(3), 4(4), and 11.
A Kaya & Lynne Steuerle Schofield, The Determinants and Importance of States’ Attendance at Conferences of the. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in 9TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (2015).
Saheed Matemilola, Oluwaseun Fadeyi & Timothy Sijuade, Paris Agreement, in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT 1 (Samuel Idowu et al. eds., 2020).
IPCC, INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE 2022, supra note 18.
Paris Agreement, art. 2.1(a).
Paris Agreement, art. 4.2
Paris Agreement, art. 13.
Paris Agreement, art. 9.
Jamal Srouji, Nate Warszawski & Hannah Roeyer, Explaining the First “Global Stocktake” of Climate Action, WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE (2022), https://www.wri.org/insights/explaining-global-stocktake-paris-agreement (last visited Jun 20, 2023).
Benoit Mayer, International Law Obligations Arising in relation to Nationally Determined Contributions, 7 TRANSNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 251-275 (2018).
Radoslav Dimitrov et al., Institutional and environmental effectiveness: Will the Paris Agreement work?, 10 WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS: CLIMATE CHANGE (2019).
Daniel Bodansky, The Paris Climate Change Agreement: A New Hope?, 110(2) AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 288-319 (2016).
Id.
David Victor, Climate change: Embed the social sciences in climate policy, 520 NATURE 27 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1038/520027a.
Meinhard Doelle & Sara Seck, Loss & damage from climate change: from concept to remedy?, in THE THIRD PILLAR OF INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY: ON “LOSS AND DAMAGE” AFTER THE PARIS AGREEMENT (Morten Broberg & Beatriz Martinez Romera eds., 2021).
Dug Cubie & Tommaso Natoli, Coherence, Alignment and Integration: Understanding the Legal Relationship Between Sustainable Development, Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction, in CREATING RESILIENT FUTURES: INTEGRATING DISASTER RISK REDUCTION, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AGENDAS 45 (Stephen Flood et al. eds., 2022), https://doi.org/10.1007/9783030807917_3.
Jörg Cortekar et al., Why climate change adaptation in cities needs customised and flexible climate services, 4 CLIMATE SERVICES 42 (2016).
Blake Morgan, 101 Companies Committed To Reducing Their Carbon Footprint, FORBES (2019), https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/08/26/101-companies-committed-to-reducing-their-carbon-footprint/?sh=27fce02f260b (last visited Jun 20, 2023).
Karin Bäckstrand et al., Non-state actors in global climate governance: from Copenhagen to Paris and beyond, 26 ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS 561 (2017).
Angel Hsu et al., Beyond states: Harnessing sub-national actors for the deep decarbonisation of cities, regions, and businesses, 70 ENERGY RESEARCH & SOCIAL SCIENCE 101738 (2020).
Hashmi M Anaam, Amal Damanhouri & Divya Rana, Evaluation of Sustainability Practices in the United States and Large Corporations, 127 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ETHICS 673 (2015), https://doi.org/10.1007/s1055101420564.
CHIARA FALDUTO & MARCIA ROCHA, Aligning short-term climate action with long-term climate goals Opportunities and options for enhancing alignment between NDCs and long-term strategies, WWW.OECD.ORG 9 (2020), https://www.oecd.org/environment/cc/LEDS-NDC-linkages.pdf (last visited Jun 20, 2023).
Harro van Asselt, Tim Rayner & Åsa Persson, Climate policy integration, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON CLIMATE GOVERNANCE 388 (Karin Bäckstrand & Eva Lövbrand eds., 2015).
JOANA SETZER & CATHERINE HIGHAM, Global trends in climate change litigation: 2022 snapshot, HTTPS://WWW.LSE.AC.UK/GRANTHAMINSTITUTE/ (2022), https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/global-trends-in-climate-change-litigation-2022/ (last visited Jun 20, 2023).
2021 JAMES ROAF ET AL., CARBON PRICING: WHAT ROLE FOR BORDER CARBON ADJUSTMENTS? 1 (2021).
Rie Watanabe & Guy Robinson, The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), 5 CLIMATE POLICY 10 (2005).
Published
2024-01-01
How to Cite
Aloamaka, P. C. (2024). Navigating the Climate Crisis: Exploring International Law’s Evolution and Application. GLS Law Journal , 6(1), 48 - 58. https://doi.org/10.69974/glslawjournal.v6i1.127
Section
Articles
