ACORDUL DE LA PARIS – ETAPĂ MAJORĂ A ACȚIUNII GLOBALE PRIVIND SCHIMBĂRILE CLIMATICE ȘI A AFIRMĂRII DREPTULUI CLIMEI

Concluded on 12 December 2015, and entering into force on 4 November 2016, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change establishes the new international legal regime of the global response to threat of climate change. Contributing to the application of the Framework Convention of 1992, the Agreement adds the objective of adaptation and breaks the tradition of the Kyoto Protocol (1997), by imposing a new approach in this field, having in its center the limitation to 2°C and, whenever possible, 1,5°C of the growth of global average temperature, in relation to preindustrial levels, determined national contributions, and a transparency mechanism in ensuring the compliance of the self-assumed commitments. Accepting climate change as a „common concern of mankind” with scientific legitimacy of the conventional process and a specific legal value, being neither a „convention” nor a „protocol”, the Agreement has a universal nature, and it completes and transforms the international legal regime of the global climate action. Innovating principles are consecrated: intergenerational equity, climate justice or progression principle, new market mechanisms, with limited action, the facilitating mechanism, periodical evaluation, et al. An important role in imposing the new strategy and the new mechanism of action in climatic matters is held by the negotiations related to the post-2015 Conferences of Parties, designed to establish the „roadmap” and the proceedings for the preparation and enforcement, after 2020, of the Paris Agreement. Part of the new international conventional context regarding the new global challenges, the Agreement completes and updates the climate regime, as part of the international environmental law, bearing important specificities.