As also visually shown by the so-called climate stripes, in the last two decades the average global temperatures have been the highest ever. Every year they hit a new alarming record. As a result, extreme meteorological phenomena associated with climate change (e.g. glaciers melting, floods, droughts, wildfires, etc.) are becoming increasingly frequent and severe, with well documented negative impacts on nature and humankind. For this reason, climate change is among the most urgent issues that have to be addressed and tackled.
Nowadays it is unequivocally acknowledged that the climate crisis has anthropogenic origins, that is, global warming and its ensuing phenomena have been directly caused by human-related activities: they have led to an excessive accumulation of greenhouse gases emissions in the atmosphere over time. This also means that humankind (still) has the power and capacity to reverse the adverse trend.
However, being a global issue, in order to be solved, climate change requires a high level of international cooperation. In other words, it seems unlikely that unilateral actions, although likewise essential, will produce no relevant shift in the trend. Therefore, policymakers and nations have often collectively committed to limit or reduce greenhouse gases emissions through specific abatement targets. The major formal commitment device has been the negotiation of multilateral international environmental agreements. Nevertheless, after more than four decades of international negotiations and various agreements to establish limits, greenhouse gases emissions – and temperatures – continue to increase. This is because, so far, nations insisted on negotiating abatement targets established on the idea of voluntary (i.e. not enforced through monitoring and sanctioning) compliance. An approach that, given the unsatisfactory results, can be considered outdated.
In synthesis, nations have generally failed to commit and comply with the target emissions established through international environmental negotiations and agreements, resulting in not stopping – if not even worsening – the global warming escalation and the risks associated with climate change.
Faced with the evidence of this collective failure lasting several decades now, the urgency of the climate crisis demands a reassessment of the standard structure of international environmental negotiations and agreements.
Acknowledging this state of affairs, the main objective of the SECCAPEA project is to propose and promote a new way to approach the collective solution to the climate change problem. Specifically, the project proposes to focus the efforts of international environmental negotiations and agreements towards designing self-enforcing procedures (or mechanisms) for greenhouse gases emissions reduction. Negotiating self-enforcing procedures will positively impact participation and compliance rates with international environmental agreements. In turn, this will produce tangible results in terms of greenhouse gases emissions abatement, temperatures reduction, and, therefore, climate change risks limitation.
