The Paris Agreement and the COPs since: NDCs, stocktake, loss and damage, finance

Detail

1. Key bodies and terms

• UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change): the main climate treaty, signed in 1992. All later climate deals are built on it.
• COP (Conference of the Parties): the yearly meeting of all countries that have joined the UNFCCC. COP21 means the 21st such meeting.
• CMA: the meeting of the countries that have joined the Paris Agreement. Its decisions are numbered, for example 1/CMA.5 = decision 1 of the 5th CMA (Dubai, 2023).
• CBDR-RC (Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities): all countries must act on climate. But rich countries polluted first and have more money, so they must do more.

2. The Paris Agreement (2015)

• Adopted at COP21, Paris (France) on 12 December 2015. In force on 4 November 2016.
• India ratified it on 2 October 2016 (Gandhi Jayanti). To ratify means to formally accept a treaty.
• Goal (Article 2):
• keep the rise in global temperature "well below 2 °C" above pre-industrial levels (before about 1850)
• "pursue efforts" to limit it to 1.5 °C
• make countries better able to adapt to climate impacts

• make finance flows match a low-emission path

• Key articles:

Article	Subject	What it does
2	Goal	well below 2 °C; aim for 1.5 °C
4	NDCs	each country sets its own pledge, every 5 years
6	Carbon markets	countries can work together, e.g. trade emission cuts (carbon credits)
7	Adaptation	Global Goal on Adaptation; national adaptation plans
8	Loss and damage	recognises harm that cannot be avoided
9	Finance	developed countries give money to developing countries
13	Transparency	Enhanced Transparency Framework: common rules for reporting
14	Global Stocktake	joint review of progress every 5 years

• Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF, Article 13): every country reports its emissions and progress in the same format. The first Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs) were due by the end of 2024. "Biennial" means every two years.
• How Paris differs from Kyoto:

Feature	Kyoto Protocol (1997)	Paris Agreement (2015)
Who must cut emissions	only developed (Annex I) countries	all countries
How targets are set	fixed from above, legally binding	each country chooses its own (NDC)
Differentiation	strict two groups	softer: CBDR-RC "in the light of different national circumstances"
What is binding	the targets themselves	the process: submit, report, review

• The USA and Paris:
• The first withdrawal under President Trump took effect in November 2020.
• The USA rejoined in 2021 under President Biden.
• In January 2025 it announced a second withdrawal, which took effect in January 2026. Under Paris rules, a withdrawal takes effect one year after notice.

3. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)

• NDC: each country's own climate plan. It says how much the country will cut emissions and how it will adapt.
• Ratchet mechanism:
• every country sends a new NDC every five years
• → each new NDC must be stronger than the last

• → over time, total ambition rises, like a ratchet that only turns one way

• India's updated NDC (approved by the Union Cabinet and sent to the UNFCCC on 26 August 2022) [2][3]:

• cut the emissions intensity of GDP by 45% by 2030, from the 2005 level. Emissions intensity means emissions for each unit of GDP. [2]
• reach about 50% of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030 [2]
• create an extra carbon sink of 2.5–3 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent by 2030 through more forest and tree cover [4]

• a long-term roadmap to net zero by 2070 [3]

• Progress: India's emissions intensity fell by about 36% between 2005 and 2020. India passed 50% non-fossil installed capacity in 2025, five years before the 2030 target [5].

4. Net zero

• Net zero: a country still emits some greenhouse gases, but removes the same amount from the air, through forests or carbon-capture technology. So the balance is zero.
• Net zero is now the long-term frame for climate goals:

Country/bloc	Net-zero year	Basis
European Union	2050	European Climate Law (legally binding)
China	2060	announced pledge (carbon neutrality)
India	2070	announced at COP26, Glasgow (2021)

5. The Global Stocktake (GST, Article 14)

• Global Stocktake: a review every five years of how far the world as a whole has moved towards the Paris goals.
• How it works:
• collect information from countries, the IPCC and other sources
• → hold technical talks
• → reach a political decision on the gaps

• → the result guides the next round of NDCs

• First GST ended at COP28, Dubai (UAE), 2023, as decision 1/CMA.5, known as the "UAE Consensus". It called for:

• "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems". This was the first time a COP text named all fossil fuels.
• tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030

• doubling the yearly rate of energy-efficiency improvement by 2030

• Next GST: 2028.

6. Loss and damage

• Loss and damage: harm from climate change that adaptation cannot prevent. Examples are land lost to sea-level rise in small island states (Tuvalu, Maldives), and homes and crops lost in extreme floods, as in Pakistan in 2022.
• Adaptation = getting ready (sea walls, drought-proof crops).

• Loss and damage = what still happens after getting ready.

• This was a long-time demand of small island states and the poorest countries.

• Timeline of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD):
• COP27, Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt, at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula on the Red Sea), 2022: fund agreed (decision 2/CP.27)
• COP28, Dubai, 2023: set up and made to work on the first day of the conference (decision 1/CP.28)
• June 2024: the World Bank's Board approved the Bank's role as host and interim trustee. The fund runs as a World Bank-hosted fund for an interim period of four years [7]. A trustee is the body that holds and manages the money.
• July 2024: the Philippines was chosen to host the fund's Board, at the Board's second meeting [6]

• 25 October 2024: the trustee agreement with the World Bank came into effect [7]

• Gap: pledges add up to only a few hundred million dollars. The yearly need is estimated in the hundreds of billions.

7. Climate finance

• Climate finance: money for cutting emissions (mitigation) and for adaptation, mainly from developed to developing countries (Article 9).
• Green Climate Fund (GCF):
• set up at COP16, Cancún (Mexico, on the Yucatán Peninsula), 2010; its governing instrument was approved in 2011
• headquarters: Songdo, Incheon, South Korea

• the largest multilateral climate fund. Multilateral means many countries pay into one shared fund.

• The $100 billion goal: promised at Copenhagen (2009) and Cancún (2010) as $100 billion a year by 2020. According to the OECD, it was met only in 2022, two years late.

• New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), COP29, Baku (Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea), 2024:
• NCQG: the new climate-finance target that replaces the $100 billion goal
• developed countries are to take the lead in mobilising at least $300 billion a year by 2035, about three times the old goal [8]

• this sits inside a wider call to raise all climate finance, from all public and private sources, to $1.3 trillion a year by 2035 [8]

• India's objection at COP29:

• India called the sum "paltry" (far too small) [9]
• India said the goal should be $1.3 trillion, with $600 billion as grants or grant-like money [10]

• India said the decision was adopted without consensus, because its objection was not heard before the gavel came down

• "Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T": a report requested at COP29 on how to grow finance to $1.3 trillion. It was presented at COP30 [8][11].

8. COP30, Belém (Brazil), November 2025

• Location: Belém, capital of Pará state, near the mouth of the Amazon River, just south of the Equator. This was the first COP held in the Amazon. The conference closed on 22 November 2025 [11].
• "Global Mutirão" decision:
• Mutirão is a Portuguese word for a community working together on a shared task [13]
• the main text put mitigation, finance and trade issues into one package, agreed by consensus [11]
• it called for at least tripling adaptation finance by 2035 [11][12]. Vulnerable countries had asked for this by 2030 [11].
• it repeated the call to mobilise at least $1.3 trillion a year by 2035 [12]

• it recognised the need to tackle climate disinformation, meaning false information about climate [12]

• Just-transition mechanism:

• Just transition means moving away from fossil fuels without leaving workers and communities (for example, coal-mining areas) behind

• the mechanism is meant to improve cooperation, technical support and capacity-building, so that the energy shift is fair [11]

• Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF): a fund that pays tropical countries for keeping their forests standing. About $5.5 billion was pledged at COP30, with 53 countries endorsing it [11].

• Fossil fuels:
• no fossil-fuel transition roadmap entered the formal text
• instead, the COP30 President, André Corrêa do Lago, announced that the presidency would prepare its own roadmap outside the formal text, to "transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner" [11]

9. What comes next

• COP31 (2026): hosted by Türkiye in Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast [14]. Under a special deal, Australia leads the negotiations, and a pre-COP meeting is planned in the Pacific.
• COP33 (2028): India has bid to host it. That is also the year of the second Global Stocktake.

10. COP timeline at a glance

COP	Year	Place	Key outcome for this section
COP16	2010	Cancún, Mexico	Green Climate Fund set up
COP21	2015	Paris, France	Paris Agreement adopted
COP26	2021	Glasgow, UK	India's net-zero-by-2070 pledge
COP27	2022	Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt	Loss and damage fund agreed
COP28	2023	Dubai, UAE	First GST; L&D fund made operational; "transition away from fossil fuels"
COP29	2024	Baku, Azerbaijan	NCQG: $300 bn by 2035, call for $1.3 tn
COP30	2025	Belém, Brazil	Global Mutirão; tripling adaptation finance; TFFF; just-transition mechanism
COP31	2026	Antalya, Türkiye	Australia leads negotiations

Prelims Hooks

• Paris Agreement articles: 2 – temperature goal; 4 – NDCs; 6 – carbon markets; 7 – adaptation; 8 – loss and damage; 9 – finance; 13 – transparency; 14 – Global Stocktake.
• Dates: adopted 12 December 2015 → India ratified 2 October 2016 → in force 4 November 2016.
• Fund–host pairs: Green Climate Fund – Songdo, South Korea; Loss and Damage Fund Board – Philippines; L&D Fund interim trustee – World Bank.
• COP–outcome pairs: COP16 Cancún – GCF; COP27 Sharm el-Sheikh – L&D fund agreed; COP28 Dubai – first GST ("UAE Consensus"); COP29 Baku – NCQG; COP30 Belém – Global Mutirão and TFFF.
• Net-zero order (earliest to latest): EU 2050 → China 2060 → India 2070.
• India's updated NDC (2022): 45% cut in emissions intensity of GDP from the 2005 level by 2030; about 50% non-fossil installed power capacity by 2030 (reached in 2025); 2.5–3 billion tonnes CO₂-equivalent extra carbon sink.
• Trap: the NCQG's $300 billion is the developed-country-led core goal. $1.3 trillion is the wider call from all sources. Both are for 2035.
• Trap: the first GST called for "transitioning away from" fossil fuels in energy systems, not "phase-out". COP30's formal text had no fossil-fuel roadmap.
• Trap: the $100 billion-a-year goal (target 2020) was met only in 2022 (OECD).

Mains Points

• From Kyoto to Paris – trading strength for reach: Paris swapped binding top-down targets for universal, self-chosen NDCs, with transparency (Article 13) and the five-yearly stocktake–ratchet cycle. This brought in every country. But the sum of current NDCs still falls short of the 1.5 °C goal, and US exits (2020 and 2026) show how weak enforcement is.
• The finance gap is the core North–South fault line: the $100 billion goal came two years late. The NCQG's $300 billion is far below India's demand of $1.3 trillion (with $600 billion in grants). Adaptation finance will triple only by 2035. Equity (CBDR-RC) and trust are therefore at the centre of talks (GS-III environment; GS-II international relations).
• Loss and damage – from a demand to a fund: small island states and least-developed countries won the FRLD (agreed 2022, made operational 2023, World Bank trustee, Board in the Philippines). Pledges remain tiny compared with the damage from sea-level rise and floods. This is relevant to India's own disaster-prone coasts and Himalayan states.
• India's position: it argues for climate justice (CBDR-RC, finance in grants, a just transition for coal regions). It has also over-delivered on its NDC (50% non-fossil capacity in 2025, five years early). Its 2070 net-zero target and its bid to host COP33 support its role as a voice of the Global South.