THE FINAL VERDICT ON THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT

By Rebecca Leber, Emma Foehringer Merchant, and Sasha Belenky  newrepublic.com

There was uncertainty to the very end of the Paris summit, down to the final moments when the U.S. delegation demanded a change to a single typo in the draft text. Then the confusion finally cleared. After running into overtime on Saturday, the two-week Paris climate conference ended with a deal. “We met the moment,” President Barack Obama said in a victory speech from the White House on Saturday.

Did the agreement save the world? As long as you had moderate expectations headed into Paris, you won’t be disappointed. The 31-page agreement did more than the relatively low bar set for it. Indeed, it represents a powerful step in curbing climate change as the first deal that covers every major polluter. “For the first time in history, the global community agreed to action that sets the foundation to help prevent the worst consequences of the climate crisis while embracing the opportunity to exponentially grow our clean energy economy,” the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune said. Some longtime climate advocates, such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, offered more qualified praise. “While this is a step forward it goes nowhere near far enough,” the presidential candidate said. Environmental groups with high expectations for Paris were sorely disappointed, however. “The Paris Climate Agreement is not a fair, just, or science-based deal,” Friends of the Earth said.

Ahead of the conference, Rebecca Leber outlined six keys to success in her feature article previewing the talks. Here we give you our final verdict on whether the COP21 agreement achieved those goals.

Progress Report   December 14, 2015

Commit to cut carbon emissions significantly by 2030.

You might hear Paris referred to as the “first truly universal agreement on climate change.” That’s because 187 countries responsible for 95 percent of emissions came forward with plans that would mitigate or cut their emissions growth, even though they still get us only halfway to the global goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages. Though it’s a considerable success to now count India and Brazil among the nations with plans on greenhouse gases and deforestation, these pledges won’t be legally binding. Instead, the hope is that international expectations and public pressure will be enough to get nations to deliver. The deal also omits a few obvious sources of pollution, like planes and ships.

Establish reporting and transparency requirements.

There was a scuffle over exactly how to handle transparency, with China leading the campaign for more flexibility for developing nations and less oversight. So what you see in the deal is a rather vague call for a framework that is “non-intrusive” and “non-punitive,” repeating more than once the need for “flexibility.” But it will require all nations to publish national inventories of their emissions by source and also share updates on implementing their domestic climate plans to a “technical expert review” that will track progress.

Create a payment system to finance climate adaptation.

Developed nations came forward with many more financial pledges to try to convince poor ones they’re taking seriously their responsibility for climate change. But the agreement itself didn’t ease many of those concerns. It reaffirmed a goal of mobilizing $100 billion in finance a year from 2020 to 2025, requiring developed nations to contribute an unset amount. In the non-binding decision portion of the text, nations promised to reconvene in 2025 to consider a more ambitious goal. It also encouraged developing countries to contribute to their peers. The deal recognized that some countries will suffer losses and damage from a problem they did not create, but it also absolved developed nations of any financial liability.

Put past disagreements aside.

Clearly, the Paris talks reached a middle ground if it ended with a deal. The text’s clunky nature is a testimony to the heavy compromises required to get to an agreement, and it does make allowances for developing nations in nearly every section. Yet the success of the deal is that it finally unites developed and developing nations under a similar framework for transparency and reporting, even if the expectations are still adjusted for unique economic circumstances.

Agree to return to the negotiating table regularly.

Every five years, countries will need to take stock of their emissions and put new national climate pledges on the table—starting with the first formal “stocktake” in 2023. Each successive climate pledge “will represent a progression over time,” a nod to the reality that one-time action on pollution won’t be enough. 2023 is on the late side to reassess new targets. To compensate, the deal also sets up an interim “dialogue” in 2018.

Rethink the 2-degree target.

The deal calls for keeping global average temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages, and it is the first time the international community has formally recognized that staying under 1.5 degrees is ideal. To get there, it spells out an ambitious, if vague, long-term goal for countries to reach peak emissions “as soon as possible” and to reach a “balance” of emissions in the atmosphere and forests to remove carbon after 2050.  It also points out the obvious: Developing nations won’t get there as fast.

 

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Permalink Reply by P.G. on December 16, 2015 at 3:28

Crops don't grow well without Nitrates. Especially Corn.

Permalink Reply by olddog573 on December 16, 2015 at 0:54

If MM climate change is real, what is the ideal temperature?

Permalink Reply by P.G. on December 16, 2015 at 3:23

How could that even be determined?
I mean it could be 115 in Shreveport but -40 in canada but averaged together the numbers might say comfortable....
I was snowed in Indiana during the Blizzard of 77/78. On the radio, they were having folks call in (guess giving those snowed in something to do) and someone called in a question, which was how cold is Zero? I think that kept folks busy calling in for 3 days trying to answer it.

Permalink Reply by John Cooper on December 16, 2015 at 3:35

To your point, PG - I believe the entire climate change effort is a house of cards, based on flawed or fraudulent statistical models with questionable data gathering methods.  Also, the 97% consensus number that is so frequently quoted is flawed - a quick bing search on 97% bought up this article (hope the link works!)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405270230348030457957846281355...

As a geologist myself I constantly ask 2 questions.  First, why aren't these so called scientists looking at the 4.6 billion years of data that refutes their theory?  And second, why are geologists left out of the discussion?

I could go on and on, but bottom line is this MMCC thing is going to fail due to bad science, it's just a matter of when...

Permalink Reply by P.G. on December 16, 2015 at 4:02

But CO2 is such a great substance to blame. It's everywhere in everything.
What is suspicious is how they are blaming one source for green house gas emissions while not so much others.
Imagine how poor Monsanto would do if they scrapped ethanol production?
Looking more and more like it's all about the money.

Permalink Reply by P.G. on December 16, 2015 at 4:09

Are all those poor countries truly signing up for climate change or a World Welfare program?

Permalink Reply by P.G. on December 16, 2015 at 7:17

Environmental Damage

Corn uses the most fertilizer of all major U.S. crops—more than half of all commercial fertilizer applied to U.S. cropland (195 pounds of fertilizer per acre of corn). Nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas that is released from the fertilizers used to grow corn, has 298 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide and is the single largest source of pollution to the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone” and the second largest source of impairments to wetlands.

http://smarterfuelfuture.org/blog/details/what-it-means-to-grow-eth...

Permalink Reply by P.G. on December 16, 2015 at 7:20

If this Climate Change stuff is so important, why isn't there some kind of summit on that?

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