Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

There are two actions on how to tackle climate change at the international level that are worth discussing: the 2015 Paris Agreement and the Global Pact for the Environment (“GPE”). (1) In relation to the Paris Agreement: besides mitigation, it is necessary to assess how adaptation measures are being taken, or not, especially in relation to the effects of climate change on human health. This is a complex issue not only from technical point of view (definition of what actions to take - information, education, planning, emergency systems, inter alia) but from a political and legal point of view as well: adaptation measures must be taken at all levels (international, regional, national and local), so that coordination is essential. (2) The GPE is a project developed through an international network of experts chaired by Laurent Fabius (President of the French Constitutional Court and former President of the COP21), and mobilized by the Environment Commission of the Club des Juristes (the first legal think tank in France) aiming at having an “umbrella” international environmental treaty that includes the basic principles applicable to any environmental concern, notably climate change. A United Nations resolution opening the negotiations towards such a GPE was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on May 10, 2018. Certain steps towards this goal will be taken in 2019; the International Conference on Climate Change will be a timely forum to discuss on where this project stands and make suggestions for its actual completion.