The Edexcel 9PL0 Paper 3 Global Politics specification places the environment at the heart of two strands: Global Governance: Environmental, and the cross-cutting questions about sovereignty, north-south inequality and the role of non-state actors. The marking is, in practice, an essay about how a regime built on voluntary national pledges responds to a problem whose physics ignores borders.
The instruments that anchor the regime, with the strength / weakness students need to evaluate:
| Agreement / Body | Year | Headline commitment | Strength / weakness |
|---|---|---|---|
| UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm) | 1972 | First UN conference to make the environment a global concern; led to UNEP. | Foundational and norm-shaping; produced no binding obligations. |
| Brundtland Report · Our Common Future | 1987 | Defines “sustainable development” - meeting the needs of the present without compromising future generations. | The vocabulary every subsequent treaty uses; unenforceable on its own. |
| Earth Summit (Rio) | 1992 | Produced the UNFCCC (climate), the CBD (biodiversity), Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration. | Created the architecture; left the targets to later COPs. |
| Montreal Protocol | 1987 | Phased out CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances. Universal ratification. | The single most successful environmental treaty: the ozone layer is on track to recover by 2066. Use it as the “it can work” counter-example. |
| Kyoto Protocol | 1997 (in force 2005) | First binding emissions targets, applied only to Annex I (developed) states. | US never ratified; Canada withdrew (2011). Common-but-differentiated responsibilities became a structural fault line. |
| Paris Agreement (COP21) | 2015 (in force 2016) | Limit warming to well below 2°C, pursuing 1.5°C; delivered through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) updated every five years. | 197 parties. Binding process, non-binding targets. The defining current instrument and the centre of any 2024-2026 essay. |
| Glasgow Climate Pact (COP26) | 2021 | Phase-down of unabated coal; first explicit reference to fossil fuels in a COP outcome. | Language softened from “phase-out” at India’s insistence in the closing plenary - a textbook sovereignty / equity moment. |
| Sharm el-Sheikh (COP27) | 2022 | Loss and Damage Fund agreed in principle, after 30 years of small-island state advocacy. | Initial pledges <$700m. Operational details deferred to COP28. |
| Dubai (COP28) | 2023 | First-ever COP text calling for “transitioning away from fossil fuels”. Loss and Damage Fund operationalised. | Hosted by the UAE, chaired by the head of ADNOC; revealed the political economy of the regime. |
| Baku (COP29) | 2024 | New Collective Quantified Goal: $300bn / year in climate finance from developed to developing countries by 2035 (up from $100bn). | Rejected as “an insult” by India and the Africa Group, who demanded $1.3 trillion. |
| Belem (COP30) | Nov 2025 | Brazil-hosted; key test of NDC submissions for 2035 targets. | First COP after US re-withdrawal from Paris. |
| UN Convention on Biological Diversity | 1992 | Three goals: conservation, sustainable use, fair benefit sharing. | Kunming-Montreal Framework (Dec 2022) added the 30-by-30 target. US is not a party. |
| UN High Seas Treaty (BBNJ) | 2023 (signed) | First binding treaty on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction; covers 64% of the ocean. | Needs 60 ratifications to enter into force; passed 50 in early 2026. |
| UN General Assembly resolution 76/300 | 2022 | Recognises a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. | Non-binding; influential at regional courts (see KlimaSeniorinnen 2024). |
The post-Paris years are unusually example-rich for an A-level essay. Below are the best ones for marking purposes - chosen to span states, IGOs, NGOs, courts and citizen movements.
2,500 elderly Swiss women won at the ECtHR on the grounds that Switzerland’s climate policy was inadequate to protect them from heatwaves. First binding international human rights judgment on climate inaction. Sets a precedent across all 46 Council of Europe states.
For more than three decades, small island states (AOSIS) and the V20 group of climate-vulnerable countries demanded compensation for climate impacts they did not cause. The Sharm el-Sheikh COP (2022) finally agreed the fund in principle. COP28 (December 2023) made it operational, with $700m pledged by donor states and the World Bank confirmed as interim host.
In a remote area of Arkhangelsk region, plans to construct a massive landfill receiving Moscow’s waste triggered a sustained civil-society response - long-term protest camps, regional petitions, and thousands of participants despite the location. The project was cancelled in 2020.
Multiple regions around Moscow saw repeated protests against poorly regulated landfills and methane emissions causing public health incidents (notably Volokolamsk, 2018). Some regional governors resigned, several landfills were closed, and modernisation funds were redirected.
In Bashkortostan, plans to mine limestone from a culturally and ecologically significant peak produced large protests, clashes with police, and a national social-media campaign rooted in regional identity. President Putin personally halted the project in August 2020 and granted Kushtau protected status.
Smaller-scale protests have continued against export-driven deforestation, much of it linked to Chinese demand. Regulatory tightening in 2018 and a ban on round-log exports from January 2022 came largely from federal economic concerns rather than environmental campaigning. Domestic activists have had very limited policy impact.
China’s emissions appear to have peaked in 2024, ahead of its 2030 target, on the back of the world’s largest renewables build-out (379 GW added in 2024). Coal still produces 60% of electricity. China’s NDC, due in 2025, will be a critical signal at COP30.
The Inflation Reduction Act 2022 channelled around $369bn into clean-energy tax credits, the largest single climate spending package in US history. In January 2025 the Trump administration began its second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, repealed methane regulations, and began rescinding IRA grants.
JSO ran more than 350 actions between 2022 and 2024, including disruptions of art galleries, motorways and the Wimbledon final. Polling at the 2024 General Election suggested the campaign moved Green Party voting intention by less than 0.5%. Following the Public Order Act 2023 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, sentences for protest-related offences rose sharply.
UN General Assembly resolution 77/276 (March 2023) - led by Vanuatu - asked the ICJ for an advisory opinion on states’ obligations to protect the climate system. Hearings in December 2024; opinion delivered July 2025. The ruling held that states have binding obligations under existing law to prevent significant climate harm.
The 2025 ER on Paper 3 Global notes that the strongest essays argue clearly that the post-Paris regime is “simultaneously the most ambitious and the most fragile in environmental history”. Three workable lines of argument: