The 2015 Paris agreement represents a deep-rooted change in global climate governance. While existing scholarly assessments highlight central institutional features of the Paris shift, they tend to overlook its symbolic and discursive dimensions. Our analysis shows that the Paris architecture combines two core elements: an iterative pledge and review process to stimulate global climate action, and a ‘performative’ narrative aimed at aligning actors’ expectations on the prospect of a low-carbon future. We therefore suggest calling it an incantatory system of governance. We then examine the origins of the new approach and find that the rise of ‘soft law’ approaches and communicative techniques in global climate governance are both indicative of a broader process: the entry of management culture in international organisations. Against this backdrop, we examine the prospects, limitations and caveats of the new approach and discuss its wider implications for global politics.

2015 年的巴黎协定代表了全球气候治理的根深蒂固的变化。虽然现有的学术评估突出了巴黎转变的核心制度特征，但他们往往忽视了它的象征性和话语维度。我们的分析表明，巴黎架构结合了两个核心要素：一个旨在刺激全球气候行动的迭代承诺和审查过程，以及一个旨在协调参与者对低碳未来前景的预期的“执行性”叙述。因此，我们建议称其为咒语治理体系。然后，我们研究了新方法的起源，发现全球气候治理中“软法”方法和交流技术的兴起都预示着一个更广泛的过程：管理文化进入国际组织。在此背景下，我们研究了新方法的前景、局限性和警告，并讨论了其对全球政治的更广泛影响。