Although the agreement was welcomed by many, including French President François Hollande and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,[67] criticism also surfaced. For example, James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and climate change expert, expressed anger that most of the deal is made up of "promises" or goals, not firm commitments. [98] He called the Paris talks a fraud "without deeds, only promises" and believes that a simple flat tax on CO2 emissions, which is not part of the Paris Agreement, would reduce CO2 emissions fast enough to avoid the worst effects of global warming. [98] The second climate change agreement was the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which introduced a sophisticated regulatory system to limit emissions from Annex I Parties. The important elements of the regulatory approach of the Kyoto Protocol were as follows: In order to achieve these targets, Article 4 sets out a number of legal obligations for the parties, including: The implementation of the agreement by all member countries is evaluated every 5 years, with the first assessment taking place in 2023. The result will serve as a contribution to new Nationally Determined Contributions by Member States. [30] The assessment is not a contribution/achievement of individual countries, but a collective analysis of what has been achieved and what still needs to be done. Report of the Conference of the Parties on its sixteenth meeting in Cancún from 29 November to 10 December 2010, Part II: Actions of the Conference of the Parties at its sixteenth meeting (FCCC/CP/2010/7/Add.2, 15 March 2011). Statement by Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Durban, South Africa, 6 December 2011. Report of the Conference of the Parties on its seventeenth meeting in Durban from 28 November to 11 December 2011, part two: Actions of the Conference of the Parties at its seventeenth session (FCCC/CP/2011/9/Add.1, 15 March 2012). Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action on the first part of its first meeting, held in Bonn from 17 to 25 May 2012 (FCCC/ADP/2012/2, 6 July 2012). Report of the Conference of the Parties on its eighteenth meeting in Doha, 26 November-8 December 2012, part two: Actions of the Conference of the Parties at its eighteenth meeting (FCCC/CP/2012/8/Add.1, 28 February 2013).

Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action on the first and second parts of its second meeting, held in Bonn from 29 April to 3 May 2013 and from 4 to 13 June 2013 (FCCC/ADP/2013/2, 30 July 2013). Report of the Conference of the Parties on its nineteenth meeting in Warsaw from 11 to 23 November 2013, part two: Actions of the Conference of the Parties at its nineteenth session (FCCC/CP/2013/10/Add.1, 31 January 2014). Submission of Australia to the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Enhanced Platform for Action (ADP) on the 2015 Agreement, May 2014. Presentation by Greece and the European Commission on behalf of the European Union and its Member States (Communication supported by Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia), 28 May 2014. Submission of views on the work of ADP, Coalition for Rainforest Nations, 2 June 2014. African Capacity Building Group Intervention for the ADP Contact Group, 10 June 2014. Canada ADP Submission, June 2014. Submission of Mexico to the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Enhanced Platform for Action (ODA). Report of the Conference of the Parties on its twentieth meeting in Lima, 1-14 December 2014, part two: Actions of the Conference of the Parties at its twentieth meeting (FCCC/CP/2014/10/Add.1, 2 February 2015). Ad Hoc Working Group on the Enhanced Durban Programme of Action, negotiating text, second meeting, part eight, 8-13 February 2015, Geneva (FCCC/ADP/2015/1, 25 February 2015). Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action on the eighth part of its second meeting in Geneva from 8 to 13 February 2015 (FCCC/ADP/2015/2, 1 April 2015). Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action on the ninth part of its second meeting in Bonn from 1 to 11 June 2015 (FCCC/ADP/2015/3, 11 August 2015).

Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Enhanced Durban Programme of Action on the tenth part of its second session, to be held from 31 to 4 August. September 2015 in Bonn (FCCC/ADP/2015/4, 8 October 2015). Draft agreement and draft decision on tracks 1 and 2 of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, Bonn, 23 October 2015. Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action on the eleventh part of its second meeting in Bonn from 19 to 23 October 2015 (FCCC/ADP/2015/5, 20 November 2015). Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action on the twelfth part of its second meeting, held in Paris from 29 November to 5 December 2015 (FCCC/ADP/2015/6, 29 January 2016). Draft Outcome of Paris, Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, Second Meeting, Part XII, Paris, 29 November to 5 December 2015 (FCCC/ADP/2015/L.6/Rev.1, 5 December 2015). Report of the Conference of the Parties on its twenty-first sessions, from 30 to 13 November. December 2015 in Paris, Part I: Consultations (FCCC/CP/2015/10, 29 January 2016). Conference of the Parties, twenty-first session, Paris, 30 November to 11 December 2015, adoption of the Paris Agreement, presidential proposal (FCCC/CP/2015/L.9/Rev.1, 12 December 2015). Further information and documents (including audio-visual) on the Paris Agreement are available on the official website of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The negotiations that led to the Paris Agreement were launched in 2011 by the Durban Enhanced Programme of Action (Decision 1/CP.17).

The negotiations were motivated by the desire of some parties – in particular the European Union and small island developing states – to develop a legally binding agreement, unlike both the Copenhagen Accord, which was a political agreement, and the Cancun agreements, which were adopted as a decision of the COP and therefore had no legal value. The Durban Platform established an ad hoc working group (ADP) to negotiate a new instrument by 2015, but States could not agree on the legal form of the instrument, so the Durban Platform instead used the intentionally ambiguous phrase "a protocol, other legal instrument or agreed outcome with res judicata" (Decision 1/CP.17, by. 2). In contrast to the Berlin Mandate (decision 1/CP.1), which launched the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol and detailed the content of the instrument to be negotiated (the 1995 Berlin Mandate, decision 1/CP.1, stipulated that the agreement to be negotiated set quantitative emission limitation targets for Annex I Parties and no new commitments for non-Annex I Parties), The Durban Platform defined the content of the Paris Agreement left completely open. .