The Paris Agreement provides an indispensable framework for expanding global collaboration on climate change. But since countries’ initial pledges are not nearly sufficient to keep climate disruption within tolerable limits, its success depends on generating much stronger action over time. The conventional wisdom is that the climate agreement will do this through its “ambition mechanism,” which includes periodic stocktakes, coordinated pledging cycles, and enhanced transparency. But the ambition mechanism creates only weak incentives for countries to do more than they otherwise would to reduce their climate pollution. Despite the close scrutiny of the initial commitments, many high-emitting countries only pledged to do about what they would have done without an agreement. Moreover, the literature on solving collective action problems is clear that better reporting will not lead countries to make voluntary pledges that go much beyond their perceived interests.
For the climate agreement to generate much deeper emissions cuts, then, it must be supplemented with stronger incentives, largely from outside of the agreement. This paper explores three ways that the international community can create those incentives. First, the international community should prioritize helping countries to capture “socially beneficial” mitigation opportunities that are in their interest, even before climate impacts are considered. Second, countries should establish “climate protection” norms that set global expectations for responsible behavior. Third, countries should treat climate change like other threats to their vital interests, and use diplomatic “sticks” and “carrots” to encourage others to cooperate. Because governments will not necessarily be inclined to pursue these strategies on their own, civil society must pressure them to do so.