As the ink dries on the Paris Agreement concluded in December, the significance of the event is now being weighed up. At one and the same time, it is an ‘historic moment of hope for humanity’; it goes ‘nowhere near far enough’; and it is even a ‘fraud’. Which is correct? For Christiana Figuerres, Executive Director of UNFCC, the Agreement, “establishes a new model of 21st century diplomacy”. The global problems of the 21st century are different; they are not zero-sum; they invite the tragedy of the commons through national free-loading. If the ‘deficits’ of the Paris Agreement are also its ‘greatest strengths’ in the new form of global governance, then we are in for an exciting ride. Inviting 196 parties to save the planet rather than requiring them to do it is a nice way of playing roulette. And experience suggests that naming-and-shaming will not do it. If change does not come from governments, in the name of Paris, and within the next five years, not fifteen, then it will require the peoples of the world to revolutionise their governments – in the name of Paris.
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