Lessons from Montreal: How the Paris Agreement can Learn from the World’s Most Successful International Environmental Treaty

The climate crisis facing Earth will be decided by the unilateral actions taken by governments across the world.  To create policy interventions powerful enough to address worldwide climate change, governments everywhere will undoubtably have to come together and act together through international treaties.

Currently, the major international agreement guiding worldwide climate efforts is the Paris Agreement.  Almost 200 nations across the world have signed on in an effort to limit global temperature rise by 2 degrees Celsius, which is the threshold scientists have determined that the world must not cross in order to prevent catastrophic global warming.  All countries have agreed to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and take other steps to address climate change in order to make a better world for tomorrow.

While it is great that the world has agreed to tackle climate change in unison, major international environmental agreements have not always been successful.  The Paris Agreement has many positives, it is especially significant that the entire world has universally agreed on addressing climate change, but it is not without its flaws.  If the Paris Agreement cannot confront its shortcomings, it is doomed to fail, and unfortunately, the world cannot afford for this agreement to fail.

The Montreal Protocol is definitively the world’s most successful international climate effort, and current governments can learn from this landmark treaty to address the flaws within the Paris Agreement.

Before climate change emerged as the world’s most pressing environmental concern, the world had another highly dangerous international environmental threat: the hole in the ozone layer.  Chemicals such as CFCs and HFCs were causing the ozone layer, which protects the world from the suns dangerous UV rays, to disintegrate and a giant hole in the ozone had developed over Antarctica.  But in 1987, every single country in the world ratified the Montreal Protocol which banned ozone depleting substances such as CFCs and HFCs.  This monumental achievement has prevented over 2 million global deaths from skin cancer per year and the hole in the ozone, once thought to be permanently destroyed and unsalvageable, has steadily recovered and will be fully restored to pre-1980 levels by 2060.  

There were a variety of unique features embedded into the Montreal Protocol that made the agreement so successful where other international environmental efforts had failed.  The sections below will outline key elements that made the Montreal Protocol a success and how the Paris Agreement can follow suit.

1. The Montreal Protocol included a Multilateral Fund specifically for aiding developing countries.

The Multilateral Fund was a centralized fund that provided financial and infrastructure support to help developing countries comply with the Montreal Protocol.  Many developing countries initially struggled with the transition away from CFCs and HFCs, but the Multilateral Fund provided direct financial support to help countries transition to safer alternative technologies.  In addition to monetary assistance, the Multilateral Fund coordinates with other agencies to help physically implement the infrastructure needed to phase out dangerous ozone depleting chemicals.

The Paris Agreement has substantial financial resources for developing countries as well, as the Special Climate Change Fund, Least Developed Countries Fund, and the Green Climate Fund can all be used to help developing countries meet their Paris Agreement emission targets.  While it is great to have three large, international funds supporting the Paris Agreement, the success of the Multilateral Fund was partially aided by its centralization.  Having one giant fund to specifically finance and guide the physical adaption of the Montreal Protocol was crucial to its success.  With the Paris Agreement, the many different funds can lead to a lack of a clear, unilateral protocol to finance and then physically implement climate change mitigation efforts.  The Paris Agreement may be better served by following the Montreal Protocol and establishing its own independent fund to finance and implement its own solutions for developing countries.

2. The Montreal Protocol had a strict, Non-Compliance Procedure to help countries stay on track to meet their goals.

The Non-Compliance Procedure in the Montreal Protocol was very simple.  If a country was not meeting proper requirements to eliminate CFCs and HFCs, they would face a variety of fines and sanctions.  Once a country re-established compliance, the fines and sanctions would be lifted.  The Paris Agreement is non-legally-binding, meaning there are no repercussions if countries do not follow through on their goals.  

Since there are no real penalties for not meeting Paris Agreement greenhouse gas emission reductions, countries have no sense of urgency to transition away from fossil fuels.  The Montreal Protocol was successful because countries did not want to pay fines or suffer other international sanctions, so they made a swift, decisive shift away from ozone depleting chemicals.  The Paris Agreement should consider financial punishments for countries who fail to meet their emission targets, because without the threat of fines or other sanctions, countries will continue to tout their symbolic participation in the Paris Agreement without enough real action to stop climate change.   

3. The Montreal Protocol was beneficial to the chemical industry.

While this is not exactly a policy feature of the Montreal Protocol, it is important to recognize that chemical companies worked with the Montreal Protocol to transition away from harmful CFCs and HFCs.  The chemical manufacturing sector realized there were other technological innovations that were better products and less harmful to the ozone than CFCs and HFCs, which were old and outdated chemicals.  Thus, the private sector worked within the Montreal Protocol standards to develop new and more efficient chemicals that did not destroy the ozone layer. 

Unfortunately, while the Montreal Protocol and chemical industry had a symbiotic relationship, the same cannot be said for the Paris Agreement and the fossil fuel industry, since the fossil fuel industry vehemently opposes decarbonization efforts. Although it is a monumental task with no immediate answer, the Paris Agreement needs to figure out how to alleviate this opposition.  Mitigating climate change will require some level of cooperation from fossil fuel industries to change their practices, so it is crucial that the Paris Agreement figure out how to work in tandem with the industry causing climate change, however difficult that may be.  

Conclusion

Overall, there are very promising aspects of the Paris Agreement, but it is far from a perfect agreement.  By mimicking policy interventions from successful international environmental agreements, such as the Montreal Protocol, the Paris Agreement has a better chance at stopping climate change.  A more centralized fund to help developing countries and a non-compliance clause to hold countries accountable could greatly bolster the success of the Paris Agreement. 

International treaties are a crucial component of global climate change mitigation strategies.  By learning from the Montreal Protocol, world leaders can implement global environmental legislation that can successfully tackle the worldwide problem of climate change.

How to Help

There are two easy ways to get involved with supporting the Paris Agreement.  Since the Paris Agreement is highly politicized in the United States (and a few other countries), voting for politicians committed to backing legislation that will help the United States (or any country for that matter) meet its Paris Agreement goals is an incredibly important way to help!  Additionally, volunteering and donating to environmental organizations that are working on helping the world follow the Paris Agreement is a great way to show support for the Paris Agreement.

Bibliography

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Ian Rae Honorary Professorial Fellow, et al. “Saving the Ozone News, Research and Analysis.” The Conversation, 18 Sept. 2012, theconversation.com/us/topics/saving-the-ozone-3785. 

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