International Law in the Era of Climate Change: Emerging Issues and Responses

Abstract

The global climate crisis has made a body of international climate change law one of the most complex and rapidly changing fields of international legal scholarship. This research critically assesses the development, effectiveness and shortcomings of international environmental and climate change law, focusing on some major legal instruments like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. It also examines the new legal issues that have arisen such as displacement due to climate change, state responsibility, loss and damage, climate litigation and ocean governance in the context of sea level rise.The study is qualitative and analytical, while its type of research is secondary sources such as UN reports, IPCC assessment reports, scholarly literature and policy documents. The results indicate that international climate law, despite its considerable evolution in institutional structures and norms, is still not well implemented because of the lack of effective enforcement and the need for voluntary compliance. Although there is almost universal commitment under the Paris Agreement, current national commitments put the world on a projected pathway of 2.4-2.9°C warming by 2100, which is well below the 1.5°C target, meaning there is a significant gap in implementation (UNEP, 2023).The analysis also shows that global GHG emissions (around 37 billion tons of CO₂ per year) are still increasing, despite current legal commitments, and that these are currently not leading to actual reductions of emissions (Global Carbon Project, 2023). Moreover, internally displaced persons (IDPs) are affected by climate-related disasters, with an average of more than 26 million IDPs per year, and leave behind growing legal and humanitarian issues not sufficiently addressed by existing international refugee law frameworks (IDMC, 2023).The study demonstrates that international climate law is structurally imbalanced with respect to ambition and to capacity to enforce. It has been successful in setting up global norms and institutional procedures, but it is not adequate to guarantee scientific emission reduction requirements. The study emphasises the importance of better legal commitments, more effective compliance systems, a more rights-focused approach and new legal typologies for climate migration in order to better enable global climate governance.