The Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC was adopted in December 2015 and entered into force in November 2016. This legally binding international treaty aims to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, scientific assessments, including the important work conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has brought into sharp focus the irreversible losses and damages that are presently accruing from climate change, as well as the cascading and compounding risks of overshooting the 1.5°C warming level – with the most vulnerable people and ecosystems being hit the hardest.
To achieve this goal, the science is clear: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions need to peak before 2025, and decline by 43% by 2030 from 2019 levels and reach global net zero emissions around the 2070s. Yet the latest UNFCCC synthesis report, taking into account the implementation of all the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement as of September 2022, estimates that GHG emissions will reduce by only 0.3% below the 2019 level by 2030. This underscores the major ambition gap that needs to be urgently bridged.
IUCN is an Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) Observer to the UNFCCC. For a number of years, IUCN has been actively engaging in various UNFCCC bodies and processes, including to secure greater policy recognition for the interlinkages between the climate change and biodiversity loss crises, the contribution that healthy ecosystems and nature-based solutions can make in delivering the goals of the Paris Agreement, and the importance of inclusive climate policy and action that takes into account the priorities and needs of the most vulnerable.
