Beyond the Paris Agreement: need for new thinking to tackle the climate crisis

The Paris Agreement was and remains the most advanced effort by states to tackle the climate crisis. Yet, as the crisis worsens year after year, it is increasingly clear that neither the original Agreement nor subsequent developments provide the answers that are needed. This can be ascribed to a variety of factors. The first is the lack of ambition of the Paris Agreement, itself linked to the fact that development, and economic growth in particular, are still seen as part of the answer despite being at the root of the problem. The second is the limited equity framing, which fails to recognize inequality as one of the greatest issues of the climate crisis, which needs to be tackled urgently through inter-state and intra-state redistribution, and through accountability. This chapter argues that the fight against the climate crisis will only start to be effective when it is built around environmental and social criteria, aiming to achieve environmental justice focused on nature and people’s needs and rights, rather than on energy and the economy that has marked climate policy for decades.