Dr. Nadia Lytem
Professor Lecturer “A” of Public International Law
Faculty of Law and Political Science
Badji Mokhtar University, Annaba, Algeria

Abstract:

This research paper deals with the study and analysis of the development of the international legal system designed to confront climate change and its effects and the problems raised by the commitment of states to implement signed agreements. The paper acquires its importance from the increasing effects of the climate crisis in the world, and from the international dimension in programmes planned to confront the effects of climate change and its repercussions, through international agreements and protocols in particular, represented in the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, and the Paris Agreement of 2015. In order to discuss the research problem represented in the effectiveness and feasibility of these agreements and legal frameworks, the paper relied on the historical, descriptive, and analytical approaches. It also included two main axes: the first axis relates to the international legal system for climate change which was formed by joint efforts before the Paris Climate Agreement, while the second axis deals with the legal rules regulating the phenomenon of climate change in the Paris Climate Agreement, which constituted an important legal development that contributed to strengthening the international legal system in this field.
The research paper concluded that climate change is an environmental crisis and a global challenge which we must adapt to its risks and mitigate its effects and future repercussions through treaties and practical programmes. The responsibility of the countries of the world on the climate issue is a shared responsibility of all humanity,
but it falls more on the developed countries by virtue of their capabilities, their direct responsibility for pollution and the threat to the environment and climate. The research also concluded that the absence of a real and serious international will would aggravate this problem in severity and complexity. The paper recommended the necessity of agreeing to amend the Paris Climate Agreement, or at least to complete it, as it is the only tool that governs international climate action at the present stage, by including appropriate international sanctions when its provisions are violated. It also recommended the need to use modern technology, especially satellites, to measure the rates of global reduction in carbon gases, to abandon or reduce the use of fossil fuels, and to rationalize energy consumption.

Key words: the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1992 Earth Summit, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, greenhouse gases.

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