International Agreements and Efforts

Environmental problems such as ozone depletion, climate change and biodiversity loss ignore national borders, and the atmosphere, oceans and many species are global commons, so no country can solve them alone. International environmental law works in a typical sequence: a framework convention sets the objective and institutions (for example the Vienna Convention, the UNFCCC and the CBD), and later protocols or agreements add binding commitments (the Montreal Protocol, the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement). The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme body of each convention and meets regularly. Several principles run through these treaties: common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), because developed countries caused most historical emissions and have more capacity, the precautionary principle, the polluter pays principle, sustainable development, and intergenerational equity.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was adopted on 16 September 1987 (observed as World Ozone Day) under the Vienna Convention and entered into force on 1 January 1989. It controls the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances (ODS): CFCs, halons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, HCFCs (transitional substitutes with lower ozone depletion potential) and methyl bromide. The reference substance for the Ozone Depleting Potential scale is CFC-11 with a value of 1. The Protocol works through differentiated timetables, with developing countries (Article 5 parties) given a grace period, and through the Multilateral Fund (set up under the London Amendment of 1990) which pays the agreed incremental costs of developing countries. It was the first treaty ratified by every UN member state and is widely regarded as the most successful environmental treaty, with the ozone layer expected to recover to 1980 levels around the middle of the century (about the 2060s over Antarctica).

• Amendments: London 1990 (Multilateral Fund), Copenhagen 1992 (faster phase-out, HCFCs and methyl bromide added), Montreal 1997 (licensing), Beijing 1999, Kigali 2016

• The Kigali Amendment (adopted October 2016, in force 1 January 2019) phases down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which do not harm ozone but are potent greenhouse gases; India ratified in 2021 and its schedule begins with a freeze in 2028 and reaches about an 85 per cent reduction by 2047

• India phased out CFC production and consumption by 2010 and is now phasing out HCFCs under the Protocol

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the Earth Summit, was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3 to 14 June 1992, with Maurice Strong as Secretary-General, to link environment with development twenty years after Stockholm. It produced the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (27 principles), Agenda 21 (a non-binding action plan with 40 chapters), a non-binding Statement of Forest Principles, and opened two treaties for signature: the UNFCCC and the Convention on Biological Diversity. A third Rio Convention, the UNCCD on desertification, followed in 1994. The Commission on Sustainable Development was created to monitor follow-up and was later replaced by the High-Level Political Forum.

• Rio Declaration: Principle 7 (CBDR), Principle 10 (public participation and access to information), Principle 15 (precautionary approach), Principle 16 (polluter pays and internalizing environmental costs), Principle 17 (environmental impact assessment)

• Follow-up: Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002), Rio+20 (2012, The Future We Want), which launched the SDG process

• Not an outcome of Rio: the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Montreal Protocol (1987)

The CBD text was adopted in Nairobi in May 1992 (22 May, observed as the International Day for Biological Diversity), opened for signature at Rio in June 1992 and entered into force on 29 December 1993. It has three objectives: conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components, and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. Its Secretariat is in Montreal. Parties meet at COPs, and the 11th COP was held in Hyderabad in 2012.

• Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (adopted 2000, in force 2003): safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms (LMOs) from biotechnology

• Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (adopted at COP10, Nagoya, 2010; in force 2014)

• Aichi Biodiversity Targets (2011 to 2020): 20 targets under a strategic plan adopted at Nagoya

• Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (adopted 2022 at COP15): 23 targets for 2030, including the '30 by 30' goal to protect 30 per cent of land and sea and restore 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems

• India: Biological Diversity Act, 2002 gives effect to the CBD, with the National Biodiversity Authority (Chennai), State Biodiversity Boards and local Biodiversity Management Committees

• Related conventions: Ramsar (wetlands, 1971), World Heritage (1972), CITES (trade in endangered species, 1973), Bonn Convention on migratory species (1979), Basel (1989), Rotterdam (1998), Stockholm POPs (2001), Minamata Convention on Mercury (adopted 2013, in force 2017)

The Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC was adopted in December 1997 at COP3 in Kyoto, Japan, and entered into force on 16 February 2005 after Russia's ratification brought it over the required threshold. It set legally binding emission targets only for developed (Annex I) countries, averaging about 5 per cent below 1990 levels over the first commitment period 2008 to 2012, and it covered six greenhouse gases: CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, PFCs and sulphur hexafluoride. Developing countries, including India and China, had no binding targets, reflecting CBDR. The United States signed but never ratified, and Canada withdrew in 2011. The Doha Amendment (2012) set a second commitment period from 2013 to 2020.

• Three flexibility mechanisms: Emissions Trading, Joint Implementation (JI) between Annex I countries, and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), under which an Annex I country invests in an emission-reduction project in a developing country and earns Certified Emission Reductions (CERs)

• India ratified Kyoto in 2002 and was a major CDM host country

• Approach: top-down, with targets negotiated and assigned to countries

The Paris Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015 at COP21 and entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its long-term goal is to hold the rise in global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Unlike Kyoto, every country submits its own Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), updated every five years with the expectation of increasing ambition (a ratchet), and progress is reviewed through a Global Stocktake every five years (the first concluded in 2023). It also covers adaptation, loss and damage, climate finance (developed countries' goal of mobilizing 100 billion US dollars a year from 2020), an enhanced transparency framework, and Article 6 on carbon markets and cooperative approaches.

• India's commitments: Panchamrit announced at COP26 (Glasgow, 2021): 500 GW non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, 50 per cent of energy requirements from renewables by 2030, reduce projected emissions by 1 billion tonnes by 2030, cut the emissions intensity of GDP by 45 per cent by 2030 from the 2005 level, and reach net zero by 2070; Mission LiFE promotes sustainable lifestyles

• Later COP milestones: Glasgow 2021 (COP26), Sharm el-Sheikh 2022 (COP27, agreement to create a loss and damage fund), Dubai 2023 (COP28, first Global Stocktake and a call for transitioning away from fossil fuels), Baku 2024 (COP29, new collective climate finance goal and carbon market rules)

The International Solar Alliance was launched jointly by India and France on 30 November 2015 at COP21 in Paris. It is a treaty-based intergovernmental organization headquartered in Gurugram, India; its Framework Agreement opened for signature in 2016 and entered into force on 6 December 2017. It focuses on 'sunshine countries' lying fully or partially between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, and a later amendment opened membership to all UN member states. Its aim is to reduce the cost of solar technology and finance, promote large-scale solar deployment and energy access, and mobilize about 1 trillion US dollars of investment by 2030 under the 'Towards 1000' vision. India also proposed the 'One Sun, One World, One Grid' (OSOWOG) initiative to interlink solar power grids across regions.