Climate Treaties: The Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and the Nature of Bindingness of Climate Actions – A Functional Perspective

In 1992, the world’s governments adopted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the first international agreement on climate change, which became the foundation for future climate accords. The UNFCCC, which came into force in 1994, bases all climate action on the twin principles of equity and the Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR). Five years later, governments took a further step forward and adopted the Kyoto Protocol. Building on the framework of the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol broke new ground with its legally-binding constraints on greenhouse gas emissions and innovative “mechanisms” aimed at cutting the cost of curbing emissions. But the protocol did not mandate developing countries, to take action. This made the developed countries to increasingly argue for a bottom-up approach of responsibility sharing in the future climate governance involving all Parties. This argument culminated in a post-2020 climate governance in the form of Paris Agreement, involving all Parties, both developed and developing countries. Unlike Kyoto Protocol, there is no bindingness about the results in the Paris Agreement and rather the bindingness is about matters such as framing and submission of Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), reporting the results of implementation of NDCs, and so on. This paper functionally examines the application of the principle of CBDR to the relevant provisions, concerning the climate actions by the Parties, of the above three Treaties as also of some noteworthy Decisions made between 1994 and 2024 during their Annual Meetings, looking also at the related legal binding nature and compliance aspects; and ultimately reaching some Conclusions about the journey so far and how formal climate discourse is likely to proceed in the years to come.