The international regime: UNFCCC, CBDR, Kyoto and the IPCC

Detail

1. The building blocks of the regime: how the parts fit together

• The climate regime means the set of global bodies, treaties and rules that countries use to deal with climate change together.
• It has two kinds of parts:
• The science body: IPCC. It tells governments what is known about climate change.

• The law and negotiation track: UNFCCC → Kyoto Protocol → (later) Paris Agreement. Countries agree here on who must act, and how much.

• The link between them:

• IPCC report (AR1, 1990) → shows warming is a real risk → countries negotiate the UNFCCC (1992).
• The UNFCCC is a "framework" (a general treaty that sets aims and principles but has no binding numbers) → the Kyoto Protocol (1997) adds binding numbers for rich countries.

Body / treaty	Year	What it is	Key feature
IPCC	1988	Science-assessment panel	Does no research of its own
UNFCCC	1992 (in force 1994)	Parent treaty	Article 2 objective; CBDR-RC in Article 3
Kyoto Protocol	1997 (in force 2005)	Protocol under the UNFCCC	Binding targets only for Annex B countries
Doha Amendment	2012 (in force 31 Dec 2020)	Change to Kyoto	Second period, 2013–2020

2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

• IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change): a UN body that reads and judges the published science on climate change and sums it up for governments.
• Set up: 1988, by two UN bodies:
• WMO (World Meteorological Organization: the UN agency for weather, climate and water).

• UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme).

• What it does not do: it carries out no research of its own. It does not run labs or take measurements. Thousands of scientists study the papers already published and write assessment reports (big reviews of all the known science).

• Why it matters: its reports are written for policymakers. They are the agreed scientific base for every COP negotiation.

Assessment reports (ARs)

Report	Year	Why it matters for the exam
AR1	1990	Its findings fed into the negotiation of the UNFCCC (1992)
AR4	2007	IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize (2007) with Al Gore
AR6	Working Group reports 2021–22; Synthesis Report March 2023	Said human influence has "unequivocally" warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land

• "Unequivocally" means "with no doubt at all". Earlier reports used words of likelihood ("likely", "very likely"). AR6 was the first to state human-caused warming as plain fact.
• Working Groups (WGs): the IPCC writes each AR in three parts. Roughly: WG I covers the physical science, WG II covers impacts and adaptation, and WG III covers mitigation (cutting emissions). A Synthesis Report then joins all three.

Special reports (sixth cycle)

• Global Warming of 1.5 °C (2018): what a world 1.5 °C warmer than pre-industrial times looks like, and the emission paths to stay within it.
• Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (2019). Cryosphere means the frozen parts of Earth: glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice and permafrost (ground that stays frozen all year).
• Climate Change and Land (2019): land degradation, desertification and food security.

The seventh cycle (AR7)

• Chair: Jim Skea (United Kingdom), elected in 2023.
• Special Report on Climate Change and Cities:
• The Panel chose this report back at its 43rd Session (Nairobi, Kenya, 11–13 April 2016), when it decided which products the sixth cycle would leave for the seventh [3].
• Its outline was agreed at the 61st Plenary Session in Sofia, Bulgaria (2024). The outline was one of the first two reports of the seventh cycle to be agreed [2].
• Approval and publication are scheduled for March 2027 [2].
• Unlike most reports, its scientific leadership is shared by all three Working Groups [3].

• Planned content: trends, challenges and opportunities for cities; actions to cut urban risks and emissions; how to speed up change in cities; and solutions by city type and region [2].

• Why cities: cities hold most people and produce a large share of emissions. Indian cities also face heat waves, floods and sea-level rise.

3. The UNFCCC: the parent treaty

• UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change): the basic global treaty on climate change. Every later deal, including Kyoto and Paris, is made under it.
• Timeline:
• May 1992: text adopted.
• June 1992: opened for signature at the Rio Earth Summit (UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

• 21 March 1994: came into force.

• Membership: near-universal. Almost every country in the world is a Party (a country that has formally joined the treaty).

• Secretariat (the permanent office that runs the treaty): Bonn, Germany.
• COP (Conference of the Parties): the top decision-making meeting of all Parties. It meets every year.
• COP1: Berlin, Germany, 1995.
• COP3: Kyoto, Japan, 1997, where the Kyoto Protocol was adopted.

Objective: Article 2

• Its aim is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous human interference with the climate system.
• Greenhouse gases (GHGs): gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide that trap outgoing heat from Earth and warm the planet.
• "Stabilise concentrations": stop the amount in the air from rising. Cutting yearly emissions slows the rise. Concentrations only stop rising when emissions fall very low.
• Article 2 gives no number (no temperature or ppm limit). Paris later turned it into "well below 2 °C".

Annexes: the groups of countries

Group	Who	Duty
Annex I	Industrialised countries + "economies in transition" (former Soviet-bloc countries moving to market economies)	Take the lead in cutting emissions
Annex II	The richer part of Annex I (OECD members of 1992)	Also provide finance and technology to developing countries
Non-Annex I	Developing countries, including India and China	No binding cut targets under the UNFCCC; report and act with support

• Article 4 sets out these commitments. All Parties must report emissions and take steps. Annex I has extra duties, and Annex II also has finance duties.
• Trap: every Annex II country is also in Annex I, but not every Annex I country is in Annex II. Transition economies such as Russia are Annex I but not Annex II.

4. Common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR-RC)

• CBDR-RC (common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities), Article 3: a principle of fairness in the UNFCCC.
• Breaking down the name:
• Common: climate is shared by all, so all countries must act.
• Differentiated: but duties are not equal.

• Respective capabilities: each country acts according to its own wealth and technology.

• The reasoning, step by step:

• Developed countries industrialised first → they emitted most of the historical GHGs now in the air.
• They are also richer and have better technology.

• So they must lead in cutting emissions and support developing countries with money and technology.

• India's position: CBDR-RC is India's constant negotiating anchor, along with:

• Equity: fair shares of the remaining "carbon space" (how much more CO₂ the world can still emit).

• Climate justice: poor people and poor countries did least to cause the problem but suffer most, so the burden must be shared fairly.

• How the principle changed: Kyoto used a firewall model (rich countries bound, poor countries not). Paris (2015) kept CBDR-RC but added "in the light of different national circumstances", and now every country sets its own target.

5. The Kyoto Protocol

• Kyoto Protocol: the first treaty under the UNFCCC to set legally binding emission-cut targets.
• Adopted: COP3, Kyoto (Japan), December 1997.
• In force: 16 February 2005. It needed enough ratifications to come into force, which took 8 years.
• Who had targets: only the industrialised countries listed in Annex B of the Protocol. Annex B is almost the same list as UNFCCC Annex I.
• First commitment period target: an average cut of about 5% below 1990 levels during 2008–2012.
• 1990 is the base year: the year whose emissions are used to measure each cut.

• (NCERT: the protocol set targets for 35 industrialised countries and was ratified by 141 nations. These are the 2005 figures, from when it came into force.)

• Model: top-down (targets set in the treaty), binding (legally required), differentiated (only rich countries had targets).

Market mechanisms ("flexibility mechanisms")

These let a country meet its target more cheaply by cutting emissions wherever it costs least.

Mechanism	How it works	Who is involved
Emissions trading	A country that cuts more than its target sells the spare allowances to a country that is short of its target	Annex B ↔ Annex B
Joint Implementation (JI)	An Annex B country pays for an emission-cutting project in another Annex B country and earns credits	Annex B ↔ Annex B (often transition economies)
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)	An Annex B country or company funds a clean project in a developing country and earns Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), i.e. carbon credits	Annex B ↔ non-Annex I

• CDM, step by step:
• A firm builds a wind farm in India instead of a coal plant → it emits less than it otherwise would.
• The saved tonnes are checked and issued as CERs (1 CER = 1 tonne of CO₂-equivalent).

• A buyer in a rich country uses the CERs to meet its Kyoto target. India gets investment and clean technology.

• India was among the largest CDM hosts in the world, with projects in renewable energy, energy efficiency, fuel switching, industrial processes and waste.

Weaknesses

• USA never ratified the Protocol, although it was then the largest emitter.
• Canada withdrew in 2011.
• China and India had no targets as non-Annex I countries, while their emissions grew fast.
• As a result, the countries actually bound covered a shrinking share of world emissions.

The Doha Amendment: the second commitment period

• Adopted: 8 December 2012 at Doha, Qatar, by decision 1/CMP.8 of the eighth CMP [4].

• CMP = Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (the COP's session for Kyoto Parties).

• Second commitment period: 2013–2020.

• Entry-into-force rule: acceptance by three-fourths of Kyoto Parties, which meant 144 instruments of acceptance [4].
• Entered into force: 31 December 2020, the very last day of the period it covered [4]. By 15 June 2022, 148 Parties had deposited acceptance [4].
• The lesson: slow ratification showed the limits of the top-down binding model.

6. From Kyoto to Paris: the shift in model

Feature	Kyoto Protocol (1997)	Paris Agreement (2015)
Direction	Top-down: targets written in the treaty	Bottom-up: each country sets its own NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution, its self-chosen climate pledge)
Who must cut	Only Annex B (rich) countries	All countries
Targets binding?	Yes, legally binding	The duty to submit NDCs is binding; meeting the numbers is not
CBDR	Strict firewall	CBDR-RC "in the light of different national circumstances"

• The Paris model is covered in Section 8.

Prelims Hooks

• IPCC was set up in 1988 by WMO and UNEP. It assesses science and does no original research.
• AR4 (2007) → Nobel Peace Prize shared with Al Gore. AR6 Synthesis Report → March 2023, "unequivocal" human warming.
• IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities: outline agreed at IPCC-61, Sofia (2024). Due March 2027. Led jointly by all three Working Groups [2][3].
• UNFCCC: opened at Rio 1992; in force 21 March 1994; secretariat Bonn; COP1 Berlin 1995.
• Trap: Annex II ⊂ Annex I. Transition economies are Annex I but not Annex II. India is non-Annex I.
• CBDR-RC is in Article 3. The objective (stabilise GHG concentrations) is in Article 2.
• Kyoto: adopted COP3, 1997; in force 16 Feb 2005; about 5% below 1990 in 2008–12; only Annex B countries bound.
• Mechanism match: CDM = rich country ↔ developing country. JI = rich ↔ rich. Emissions trading = trading allowances among Annex B countries.
• Doha Amendment (2012): second period 2013–20; needed 144 acceptances; in force 31 Dec 2020 [4].
• USA never ratified Kyoto. Canada withdrew in 2011.

Mains Points

• CBDR-RC as India's anchor (GS-III):
• Historical emissions came mostly from developed countries, and India's per-capita emissions are low.
• So India argues for equity, climate justice, and finance and technology transfer from Annex II countries.

• The difficulty: the Annex I/non-Annex I split of 1992 is now dated, because large developing emitters have grown.

• Why Kyoto fell short:

• The biggest emitter (USA) stayed out, Canada left, and fast-growing emitters had no targets.
• Ratification was slow: the Doha Amendment came into force only on 31 Dec 2020, the day its period ended.

• Together these weaknesses pushed the world from a top-down model to Paris's bottom-up NDCs.

• Role of science in policy:

• Each IPCC cycle has shaped a treaty step: AR1 → UNFCCC, and SR1.5 → the push for 1.5 °C.

• The coming Special Report on Cities (2027) is relevant to India's fast-growing cities, which face heat waves and floods.

• CDM and India:

• CDM brought investment into renewable energy and efficiency projects, and India was among the largest hosts.
• It showed that market tools can link climate action with development. This idea carried into Paris Article 6 carbon markets.