Ten Years of the Paris Agreement: Global Climate Policy between Ambition and Reality

International climate diplomacy often has a bad reputation in the media and in society - and wrongly so.

The Paris Agreement of December 2015 marks a major success in international diplomacy: for the first time since the signing of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, all countries have agreed to participate in global climate protection with their own measures.

Each country must submit a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the UNFCCC Secretariat, regularly review it and report on its implementation. These are legally binding requirements in order to jointly achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement with these NDCs: To halt the global rise in temperature caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The national climate contributions contain concrete reduction figures for the total national greenhouse gas emissions with the milestones of 2035, 2040 or 2050. Most countries are also aiming for a climate-neutral economy by 2050.

This is intended to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement "to keep the increase in the average global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to endeavour to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change" (excerpt from the Paris Climate Agreement).

Continuing the Climate Diplomacy Dialogue

A highlight of international climate diplomacy is the annual Conference of the Parties (COP), known in public discourse as the "World Climate Conference". The Parties are the countries that have ratified the UNFCCC. At the two-week conference, which has just ended in Belem, Brazil, the countries send their experts, delegates and, in some cases, their heads of state to discuss progress on climate protection. The Paris Agreement is a central point of negotiation. It is a binding treaty in its own right under international law within the framework of the UNFCCC or, in other words, its concrete implementation plan.

Since 2015, the paragraphs (known as articles) of the agreement have been repeatedly supplemented with specific wording. This is because many details had not been discussed when the hammer was brought down by the French COP President, Laurent Fabius, on 12 December 2015 in Paris. For example, the set of rules for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement (Article 6 PA) was finalised last year after nine years of negotiations. This fulfils the prerequisite for trading international emission credits (offsets) between countries, i.e. buying and selling them and offsetting them against the climate targets from the NDCs.

The enormous benefit of the Paris Agreement is primarily due to the fact that it gave a boost to actual climate protection, climate financing and climate adaptation.  It has also given new impetus to the annual COPs. After each COP, the next one is prepared again: in countless working groups and tough, small-scale negotiations by the negotiators throughout the year. At these working meetings, the focus is on the countries' positions on how they can best implement climate protection at home, i.e. nationally.

In the process, new coalitions are formed that often do not correspond to the current political dividing lines on the world stage. This means that countries that are currently engaged in fierce conflicts on other political issues are joining forces. This offers opportunities to hold talks that are no longer possible on other issues. The world climate conferences are therefore an important diplomatic tool of the present: not only to save the global climate, but also the political climate. The fact that issues of climate protection can no longer be separated from issues of world trade and financial support for countries of the Global South is favourable in this respect.

International Aviation and Shipping are not Part of the Paris Agreement

One fly in the ointment is the fact that the Paris Agreement excludes emissions from international aviation and shipping. These sectors account for around five per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions (for more information, we recommend our publications PtX Lab Analysis "On Course for Climate Neutrality - Regulatory Requirements and Implementation Paths in Maritime Transport" and the PtX Lab Analysis "Aviation").

This means that the countries' NDCs do not have to cover these emissions. On the other hand, emissions from purely domestic flights are included in some NDCs, such as that of the European Union. However, it is the long-haul flights and intercontinental ship transport that drive up emissions globally.

This special regulation has been in place since the Kyoto Protocol, the first implementation plan for the UNFCCC, i.e. for over 20 years. It states that the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the UN's International Maritime Organisation (IMO) are responsible for emissions from international flights and shipping. These organisations have presented their own reduction targets and timetables in recent years, with a delay compared to the Paris Agreement.

The IMO is relying on its "Strategy to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ships" from 2018 and 2023 with specific, ambitious reduction targets by 2030.

In spring 2025, it also adopted a global pricing mechanism for emissions, which is intended to provide significant incentives for implementing the reductions. However, when the action plan was adopted in autumn 2025, there was no secure majority and the decision was postponed.

In 2016, the ICAO adopted the market-based instrument CORSIA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is for airlines to offset or compensate for emissions that exceed a baseline emission level. CORSIA is the first ICAO measure to defossilise international aviation.

The ICAO's long-term goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, i.e. becoming CO2-neutral, will not be achieved with this alone. The CORSIA regulations are not ambitious enough for this and the system is only planned until 2035. Furthermore, some countries with the highest air traffic volumes are also hesitant to implement CORSIA effectively.

The Compass for a Climate-Proof Future

Conference offers meeting places for non-governmental organisations (NGOs), politicians, industry representatives and indigenous groups to exchange ideas on the fringes of the official negotiations.

Such informal meetings often give rise to new initiatives where government measures are not yet effective enough. One example is the "Clydebank Declaration", in which more than 20 countries agreed at COP 26 in 2021 to establish global shipping routes with a CO₂-reduced infrastructure.

The World Climate Conference, with its mandate to monitor and implement the goals of the Paris Agreement, is a key lever for (re)focussing climate diplomacy. The extent to which trading in carbon credits, which is now beginning, can help to reduce emissions in international aviation and shipping through the application of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is a hotly debated question. It also depends on the political negotiators, scientists, NGOs and other stakeholders.

How strictly will CO₂ trading be monitored? Or, how seriously do they take the goals of the Paris Agreement? Specifically: Where are they only fighting for national interests and where are they abandoning them in favour of the common global goal?

The Paris Agreement is their and our compass for a climate-safe future for all countries.