Paris at ten: climate talks stall as countries dodge emissio

A decade after Paris, climate negotiations are hitting a wall – and Brazil's refusal to put nationally determined contributions (NDCs) on the COP29 table exposes the real problem: countries aren't willing to bind themselves to concrete emissions cuts in public forums. The Paris agreement has failed its central temperature goal. Yet the article claims it remains a moral compass. That's inadequate framing for what's actually happening: the agreement set a 1.5°C target that's already breached in practice, and the mechanism designed to enforce progressive ambition – successive rounds of NDC tightening – is being sidestepped by major economies. Brazil's position reflects a broader retreat from accountability. If national governments control their own commitments and those commitments stay off the negotiating table, then COP summits become performance theatre rather than functional governance. The Guardian's reporting suggests frustration among Global South negotiators who recognise this impasse. The question isn't whether Paris remains relevant as moral framing. It's whether voluntary commitments, unverified and unrenegotiated in real time, can deliver the emissions reductions the climate science demands. Ten years in, that's still unanswered.

What’s the point? Ten years after the Paris treaty, are climate talks getting anywhere?

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