Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015 by 196 countries and was the first international climate agreement to include emission reduction targets for all countries. The Paris Agreement's central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5° Celsius. Under the agreement, countries are to put forward Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDC's) which communicate the actions they plan to take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of rising temperatures.

Impact on Climate Litigation

The Paris Agreement has played an enormous role in climate litigation because it provides a standard by which to measure government's actions to address climate change. In cases where NDC's are scientifically insufficient to meet the goal of keeping global temperature increases under 2°C, litigation can be brought to pressure the government to set bolder targets, as was successfully done in Urgenda Foundation v. State of the Netherlands. The Paris Agreement has also been used in cases seeking to block fossil fuel projects, as in EarthLife Africa Johannesburg v. Minister of Environmental Affairs, and to hold corporations accountable for the plans to reduce climate impacts as in Notre Affaire a Tous v. Total.

Cases

Cases Against Corporations

• Notre Affaire a Tous v. Total (France)
• Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell plc. (Netherlands)

Blocking Fossil Fuel Intensive Projects

• Plan B Earth v. Secretary of State for Transport (Heathrow 3rd runway case, United Kingdom)
• In re Vienna-Schwechat Airport Expansion (Austria)
• EarthLife Africa Johannesburg v. Minister of Environmental Affairs (Blocking coal-fired power plant, South Africa)
• Grez v. Environmental Evaluation Service of Chile (Chile)

Insufficient National Response to Climate Change

• Urgenda Foundation v. State of the Netherlands (Netherlands)
• Notre Affaire à Tous v. France (France)
• Future Generations v. Ministry of the Environment (Colombia)
• Thomson v. Minister for Climate Change Issues (New Zealand)
• Greenpeace v. Spain (Spain)
• Carvalho v. The European Parliament and the Council ("The People's Climate Chase" European Union)
• Sacchi et al. v. Argentina et al. (International, United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child)
• Pabai Pabai and Guy Paul Kabai v. Commonwealth of Australia

Resources

Climate Watch offers data and visualizations on a country's current and historical greenhouse gas emissions, Nationally Determined Contributions, and climate vulnerability.

Climate Action Tracker provides resources to assess how a country's policies and commitments stack up against the need to limit global temperature rise to less than 2°C in accordance with The Paris Agreement. The Climate Action Tracker considers both whether national and globally aggregated commitments are sufficient, as well as whether a country's current policies and actions are in accordance with its pledged emissions reductions. Understanding whether a country's Nationally Determined Contributions are sufficient and whether the country is on track to meet those commitments is an important part of climate litigation, both against governments and against corporations seeking to expand fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when drastic greenhouse gas emission reductions are needed.

The Paris Agreement. Full text (in English)

The Paris Agreement and Global Climate Litigation after the Trump Withdrawal by David Hunter, Wenhui Ji, & Jenna Ruddock explores the ways in which litigants and courts around the world are invoking the Paris Agreement to push for a stronger response to climate change.