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9 J. Hum. Rts. & Env't. 1 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/jhre9 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Vol. 9 No. 1, March 2018, pp. 1-5 Editorial Beyond the Paris Agreement - ambitions, hopes, fears and flaws The first global stocktake required under Article 14 of the Paris Agreement will take place in 2023.1 In the interim, the contributions to this edition of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment (JHRE) reflect upon the efficacy of the Agreement since it was negotiated in December 2015. As expected, 2017 is on course to be one of the hottest years on record.2 The Agreement contains a ratcheting up mechanism designed to encourage increased ambition from state parties to close the emissions gap between their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and the objective in Article 2 of preventing the average global temperature from increasing by more than 2 oC above pre-industrial levels and the accompanying exhortation - more consistent with climate science - to limit the increase to no more than 1.5 oC (necessary to prevent the inunda- tion of several small island developing states).3 The Paris Agreement is a flawed document that reflects the compromises necessary to reach agreement in a forum based upon consensus such as the UN Framework Con- vention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).4 Its voluntarist, bottom-up nature means that the Agreement is legally binding but unenforceable, made clear by the Trump admin- istration's intention to withdraw from it (leaving the United States isolated following the signatures of Nicaragua and Syria). What the Agreement gives with one hand it takes away with the other, the most conspicuous example being the first reference to human rights in a legally binding multilateral climate agreement that however appears in the Preamble rather than in the operative part of the text.5 Four of the con- tributions to this issue of the JHRE (by Birrell and Godden, Atapattu, Maguire and Lewis, and Savaresi) view this as a spumed opportunity to include the stronger pro- tection of human rights in earlier drafts of the Agreement.6 Developed countries were determined to confine human rights to the Preamble (along with a reference to the importance of the concept of climate justice for some), with the aim of limiting their use to establishing liability through climate 1. UNFCCC, Decision 1I/CP.21, Adoption of the Paris Agreement FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1 (29 January 2016) (opened for signature on 22 April 2016, entered into force 4 November 2016). 2. World Meteorological Organization, 'WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2017' <https://public.wmo.int/en/wmo-statement-state-of-global-climate-2017> accessed 8 November 2017. 3. United Nations Environment Programme, The Emissions Gap Report 2017 <https://wedocs. unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/22070/EGR_2017.pdf?> accessed 13 November 2017. 4. For an extended analysis of the Agreement see S Adelman, 'Human Rights in the Paris Agreement: Too Little, Too Late?' (2017) Transnational Environmental Law, doi:10.1017/ S2047102517000280. 5. The 2010 Canctn Agreements acknowledged the link between climate change and human rights but they are not legally binding. 6. Maguire and Lewis note that draft texts contained stronger language, calling on states 'to ensure gender equality and the full and equal participation of women'. 0 2018 The Author Journal compilation 0 2018 Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd The Lypiatts, 15 Lansdown Road, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 2JA, UK and The William Pratt House, 9 Dewey Court, Northampton MA 01060-3815, USA

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