{"id":4617,"date":"2017-01-10T12:34:07","date_gmt":"2017-01-10T17:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/?p=4617"},"modified":"2017-01-10T12:34:07","modified_gmt":"2017-01-10T17:34:07","slug":"taking-account-of-national-circumstances-in-environmental-instruments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2017\/01\/10\/taking-account-of-national-circumstances-in-environmental-instruments\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Account of National Circumstances in Environmental Instruments"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

The Sabin Center has just published a new working paper by Susan Biniaz<\/a>, the lead climate change lawyer for the U.S. Department of State since 1989 – I Beg to Differ: Taking Account of National Circumstances under the Paris Agreement, the ICAO Market-Based Measure, and the Montreal Protocol’s HFC Amendment<\/a>. The following excerpt introduces the key issues covered in her paper. <\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Within less than a year, States reached agreement on three major climate change-related instruments:\u00a0 the Paris Agreement<\/a>,<\/a> the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Resolution<\/a> on a global market-based measure to address international aviation emissions, and the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol<\/a> to phase down production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs<\/a>).\u00a0 What is remarkable about these three instruments is not only the short period of time in which they were all completed (and, in the case of the Paris Agreement, entered into force), but the variety of methods by which negotiators took account of different national circumstances in formulating commitments and other aspects of cooperation.<\/p>\n

The issue of \u201cdifferentiation,\u201d or the extent to which an instrument makes distinctions among States in setting out commitments and other features, has been a particularly salient and controversial one in the climate change arena.\u00a0 The foundational UN Framework Convention on Climate Change<\/a> set forth a general principle regarding \u201ccommon but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities\u201d and established several categories of countries, including those that are or are not listed in Annexes I and II.<\/a>\u00a0 However, all Parties had commitments and, except with respect to finance, the distinctions among such commitments were relatively minor.\u00a0 The Kyoto Protocol<\/a> radically changed the differentiation narrative by placing legally binding emissions commitments on \u201cAnnex I\u201d Parties and essentially excluding all other Parties from any new commitments.<\/a>\u00a0 Kyoto\u2019s stark divide between the two categories of Annex I and non-Annex I Parties (also referred to, somewhat less accurately, as \u201cdeveloped\u201d and \u201cdeveloping\u201d countries) was a major reason why the United States did not join the Protocol and led to many years of diplomatic wrangling.\u00a0 Even the word \u201cdifferentiation\u201d was a source of contention; some used it as shorthand for the proposition that \u201cdeveloped countries must take on binding commitments, while developing countries may engage in voluntary actions,\u201d which irritated others.<\/p>\n

Nearly twenty years later, the Paris, ICAO, and HFC instruments all fall far from the Kyoto tree.\u00a0 They reflect a wealth of approaches to addressing various national circumstances, including in relation to participation in the regime per se, the nature of commitments, the timing of commitments, the need for assistance, and other features.<\/p>\n

There is substantial variety in approaches to differentiation both within each of the three instruments and among them.\u00a0 What all of them have in common is how they pragmatically answered the need for accommodation, whether demanded by logic, fairness, limited capacity, or simple negotiating leverage.\u00a0 Further, they have significantly expanded the arsenal of differentiation tools available to negotiators in the future, in the climate world and other spheres where appropriate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sabin Center has just published a new working paper by Susan Biniaz, the lead climate change lawyer for the U.S. Department of State since 1989 – I Beg to Differ: Taking Account of National Circumstances under the Paris Agreement, the ICAO Market-Based Measure, and the Montreal Protocol’s HFC Amendment. The following excerpt introduces the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5671,584,9324],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-international","7":"category-publications","8":"category-unfccc","9":"czr-hentry"},"yoast_head":"\nTaking Account of National Circumstances in Environmental Instruments - Climate Law Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2017\/01\/10\/taking-account-of-national-circumstances-in-environmental-instruments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taking Account of National Circumstances in Environmental Instruments - Climate Law Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Sabin Center has just published a new working paper by Susan Biniaz, the lead climate change lawyer for the U.S. Department of State since 1989 – I Beg to Differ: Taking Account of National Circumstances under the Paris Agreement, the ICAO Market-Based Measure, and the Montreal Protocol’s HFC Amendment. 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