Ten Years on From Paris: Does the UN Climate Regime Need Reform?

​About the event

Ten years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the Earth continues to warm, and communities around the world are experiencing the accelerating impacts of climate change—from extreme heat and rising seas to food insecurity and displacement. While the Paris Agreement created a durable framework for collective climate ambition, the current pace of implementation is falling short of what the science demands. To achieve the 1.5 degrees C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, the UN climate regime can and should evolve to drive more effective, cooperative, and impactful climate action. This evolution must be radical in ambition but solutions-oriented in execution—not a revolution, but a strategic evolution and recalibration of the system we already have.

​Join C2ES for a panel discussion that will examine how the United Nations’ broader architecture, across the UNFCCC and beyond, can be leveraged to support the evolution, particularly in the context of intensifying climate risks, shifting geopolitical dynamics, and the growing pressure of financial constraints, including ongoing UN budget cuts. As demands on the multilateral system grow, so too must its ability to deliver.

​The 30th Conference of Parties in Belém could present a critical opportunity to reorient the UNFCCC toward delivering transformational climate action. Taking place after full turn of the Paris Agreement’s ambition cycle, following the completion of first global stocktake as well as the submission of biennial transparency reports and new nationally determined contributions, COP30 should serve as a moment for reckoning and reflection. This panel discussion will explore how to make COP30 not just another checkpoint, but a catalyst for strengthening implementation and enhancing international cooperation across the UN climate regime.

At 16:30, please join us for a second panel event on A 2030 Vision for the Climate Action Agenda at the UNFCCC, with a networking reception to follow, in the same location. Both events will be livestreamed.

Resources

 

Confirmed speakers (in alphabetical order) include

​Liliam Chagas
Director for Climate at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
​Patricia Espinosa
former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Ambassador Patricia Espinosa is Founding Partner and CEO of onepoint5, a climate and sustainability-focused consulting firm. She is a globally respected diplomat with over 35 years of experience in international relations and multilateral negotiations. She previously served as Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC (2016–2022), Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs (2006-2012),…

​Emmanuel Guérin
Fellow and Senior Advisor at the European Climate Foundation
Cecil Haverkamp
Director at the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network

Cecil Haverkamp is a director at the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network where he is overseeing work focused on action tracking and implementation, for the purpose of enhanced accountability and accelerated policy learning across climate, nature and development. He has worked for the UN (on UN and aid reform) at…

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal
former COP20 President
Kaveh Guilanpour — Moderator
Vice President for International Strategies, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

Kaveh Guilanpour is the Vice President for International Strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, overseeing the international aspects of the work of C2ES including in relation to the United Nations negotiations process and implementation of the Paris Agreement. Mr. Guilanpour has worked in the environmental sector in…