Paris Agreement and Climate Change Mitigation: Strategies for Reducing Global Warming Effects

Climate change is no longer a distant threat-it’s reshaping ecosystems, economies, and communities across the globe. To confront this challenge, the international community came together in 2015 to create the Paris Agreement, a landmark treaty aimed at limiting global temperature rise and building climate resilience. But how does this agreement actually work? What are countries doing to meet their commitments? And how is India-the world’s third-largest emitter-responding to these global climate goals?

What is the Paris Agreement? 🔗

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted in December 2015 at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris. The agreement’s primary aim is to hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. As of late 2024, global temperatures had already exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial averages, making ambitious action more urgent than ever.

Unlike its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement employs a bottom-up approach where countries set their own climate targets rather than having commitments imposed upon them. This allows nations to tailor their climate actions to their own circumstances and capabilities. The agreement has been credited with shifting projected warming trajectories-from an expected 3.7-4.8°C rise by 2100 (projected in 2010) to approximately 2.4-2.6°C under current pledges.

Key temperature and emissions goals 🔗

To stay below 1.5°C of warming, global emissions need to be cut by roughly 50% by 2030. The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024 found that nations must collectively commit to cutting 42% off annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 57% by 2035 in their next round of climate pledges. Without such action, the world is on course for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1°C over this century.

Article 7: Adaptation and resilience 🔗

Article 7 of the Paris Agreement establishes the global goal on adaptation, which focuses on enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. This article recognizes that adaptation is a global challenge with local, subnational, national, regional, and international dimensions. It emphasizes the urgent needs of developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate impacts.

Under Article 7, each country must engage in adaptation planning processes and implement actions that include developing relevant plans and policies, assessing climate impacts and vulnerability, monitoring and evaluating adaptation efforts, and building resilience of socioeconomic and ecological systems. The agreement emphasizes country-driven approaches while encouraging international cooperation on adaptation efforts.

Adaptation communications and support 🔗

Countries are encouraged to submit and periodically update adaptation communications that outline their priorities, implementation efforts, and support needs. The Paris Agreement also provides for continuous international support-including finance, technology, and capacity-building-for developing countries. Developed countries must provide information on financial, technology transfer, and capacity-building support provided to developing nations as part of the agreement’s transparency framework.

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) 🔗

Nationally Determined Contributions are national climate action plans submitted by each country under the Paris Agreement. An NDC outlines how a country plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate impacts. The Paris Agreement requires that NDCs be updated every five years with increasingly higher ambition. After the original NDCs in 2015 and the second round in 2020/2021, the third round is due in 2025 and will detail climate actions through 2035.

The emissions gap challenge 🔗

Despite the framework’s ambitions, current NDC commitments fall far short of what is needed. Implementing the NDCs submitted for the target year 2030 would result in only a 2.6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. The IPCC states that limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C requires a 43% reduction by 2030. The probability of staying below 2°C with current trends is estimated at only 5%-rising to just 26% if all NDCs were met.

The UNFCCC’s 2024 NDC Synthesis Report showed only marginal progress from 2023, far below expectations. As of mid-2024, the world is heading for warming of 2.6 to 3.1°C by century’s end if current policies continue.

Reporting and transparency mechanisms 🔗

Countries report adaptation information through three main vehicles: NDCs, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and National Communications to the UNFCCC. Each party must provide a national inventory of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks, along with information to track progress on achieving their NDCs. This transparency framework allows for technical expert review and feeds into a global stocktaking exercise that assesses collective progress every five years.

India’s climate change response framework 🔗

India has developed a comprehensive framework to address climate change while balancing its development needs. As the world’s third-largest emitter and a country highly vulnerable to climate impacts, India’s approach combines international commitments with domestic policy initiatives.

India’s Nationally Determined Contributions 🔗

India’s 2022 NDC update includes two main targets: reducing emissions intensity by 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and increasing the share of non-fossil power capacity to 50% by 2030. At COP26 in Glasgow, Prime Minister Modi also announced a 500 GW non-fossil capacity target and a commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.

India has already achieved its 50% non-fossil capacity target, ranking fourth globally in cumulative renewable energy capacity installations in 2024, after China, the US, and Germany. The share of renewable energy capacity (including large hydro) reached 45% in 2024. As of 2023, over 43% of India’s total electricity capacity came from non-fossil fuel sources, and the country achieved its initial 33% emissions intensity reduction goal by 2019-well ahead of schedule.

Challenges ahead 🔗

Despite progress, challenges remain. Coal still generates about 75% of India’s electricity, and the country continues to build new coal plants. India’s renewable growth is struggling to keep pace with surging electricity demand driven by extreme heatwaves. The Climate Action Tracker rates India’s overall climate action as “Highly insufficient” for limiting warming to 1.5°C, though it notes India needs international support to get onto a 1.5°C pathway.

The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) 🔗

India launched the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) on June 30, 2008, as a comprehensive framework for climate adaptation and mitigation. Published under the guidance of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change, the NAPCC focuses on eight national missions covering key sectors of the economy.

The eight national missions 🔗

The NAPCC’s core missions address diverse aspects of India’s climate response:

National Solar Mission: Launched in 2010 as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, this initiative promotes solar energy development with a target later revised to 100 GW by 2022. The mission aims to make solar energy competitive with fossil fuel options.

National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency: This mission mandates specific energy consumption decreases in large energy-consuming industries, creates a system for trading energy-saving certificates, and promotes public-private partnerships for demand-side management.

National Mission on Sustainable Habitat: This focuses on promoting energy efficiency in urban planning through the Energy Conservation Building Code, automotive fuel economy standards, and incentives for public transportation use.

National Water Mission: Sets a goal of 20% improvement in water use efficiency through pricing and other measures to address water scarcity resulting from climate change.

National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem: Focuses on building scientific capacity to assess the vulnerability of the Himalayan region to climate change and monitor the health status of this critical ecosystem.

Green India Mission: Aims at afforesting 6 million hectares of degraded forest lands and expanding forest cover from 23% to 33% of India’s territory.

National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture: Supports climate adaptation in agriculture through climate-resilient crops, weather insurance mechanisms, and sustainable farming practices.

National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change: Focuses on building human and institutional scientific capacities in climate science, developing climate modeling capabilities, and establishing research networks.

State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC) 🔗

Recognizing India’s geographic and climatic diversity, the government has also developed State Action Plans on Climate Change. These region-specific plans allow each state to address local climate vulnerabilities and implement adaptation measures suited to their particular circumstances. India is currently developing a National Adaptation Plan (NAP) to provide more comprehensive guidance for climate adaptation across sectors.

International cooperation and the path forward 🔗

India has committed to engaging actively in multilateral negotiations in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in a positive and forward-looking manner. The country’s approach emphasizes that developed nations, as historical emitters, must take the lead in emissions reductions while providing support to developing countries.

The road ahead requires balancing India’s development needs with its climate commitments. Achieving ambitious targets requires significant scaling up of action, which depends on the availability of international climate finance. India must continue to reduce emissions while simultaneously building climate resilience-especially at the local level where impacts are most severe.

What do you think? Given that current global pledges are insufficient to meet Paris Agreement targets, how can countries balance immediate development needs with long-term climate goals? And what role should international climate finance play in helping developing nations like India accelerate their clean energy transitions?

References

1. https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/parisagreement_publication.pdf
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement
3. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/nations-must-close-huge-emissions-gap-new-climate-pledges-and
4. https://genderclimatetracker.org/gender-mandates/annex-paris-agreement-article-7
5. https://careclimatechange.org/adaptation-communications-under-article-7-of-the-paris-agreement/
6. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48504
7. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/all-about-ndcs
8. https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/en/topics/climate-energy/nationally-determined-contributions-ndc
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationally_determined_contribution
10. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/reports
11. https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/targets/
12. https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/
13. https://www.greenpeace.org/india/en/story/17565/india-misses-un-deadline-for-2035-climate-targets/
14. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2822162/
15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Action_Plan_for_Climate_Change
16. https://dst.gov.in/climate-change-programme
17. https://www.adaptation-undp.org/projects/building-climate-resilience-india-initiating-national-adaptation-plan-process-and-scaling
18. https://www.drishtiias.com/to-the-points/Paper2/national-action-plan-on-climate-change
19. https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/cop28-assessing-indias-progress-against-climate-goals/