The Issues that Never Die

Abstract

This article analyses three overarching issues that have bedevilled the climate negotiations right from the start and options for addressing them in the ongoing Paris Agreement Work Programme negotiations. These issues are: (1) How legally binding should the United Nations (UN) climate change regime be? (2) How prescriptive should the UN climate change regime be, and how much should it leave to national discretion? (3) To what extent should the rules of the UN climate change regime be common or differentiated and, if the latter, on what basis and how?