It took several months of record global heat, hundreds of air pollution warnings, two decades of talks, and the threat of more than 6 million premature deaths a year, but the world’s leaders have finally chose to do something about climate change.
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After years of buildup and nearly a month of negotiations, world leaders reached a deal Saturday on controlling climate change that the French Foreign Minster said was “fair… and legally binding”.
The Paris Agreement calls on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to produce a technical paper on the global emissions pathways associated with a 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature limit and sets up a facilitative dialogue in 2018 for countries to review progress towards the Agreement’s long-term goal.
According to the Guardian, the agreeing countries, including the USA and China, have pledged to reach peak global emissions as soon as possible, and reach net zero emissions, i.e. having carbon emissions be balanced with the amount the earth can naturally absorb, between 2050 and 2100.
The countries had been negotiating the pact for four years after earlier attempts to reach such a deal failed.
She says it “can map a turning point to a better and safer world” but she added that developed countries still have to cut emissions more and help poorer nations to counter the effects of global warming.
“History will recall this day”, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said after the pact was gaveled through to thunderous applause. It also lists 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) as an aspirational goal, but leaves a lot of the decision-making for that until a future date.
While some elements of the agreements are legally binding, others are intentionally voluntary.
“No nation, not even one as powerful as ours, can solve this challenge alone”, the president said.
“Investors and businesses alike are leaving Paris with a clear market signal”, said Bob Keefe of Environmental Entrepreneurs, a nonprofit group that promotes green companies and investment.
The agreement, which follows two weeks of negotiations, sets the goal of limiting the world’s rise in average temperature to “well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius”.
“It is the moment of truth”, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius as he released a draft agreement text he fifth and the last one that had come out during the course of this climate meet.
In a victory for small island nations, the agreement includes a section highlighting the losses they expect to incur from climate-related disasters that it’s too late to adapt to.
-TRANSPARENCY: There is no penalty for countries that miss their emissions targets. We’re leading with the pacific coast with California, Oregon and British Columbia in the fight against climate change.
An “historic” worldwide deal has been agreed by 195 countries in a bid to avoid risky climate change.
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Among those slamming the deal was Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who said in a statement that the accord “goes nowhere near far enough” to commit nations to lower planet-warming carbon emissions.
