nuclear-news

The 2015 Paris climate agreement – a weak ‘treaty’, but it is working up to a point.

 In many ways, the landmark climate accord, agreed to at a U.N. summit in 2015, is a weak treaty. Despite the fanfare that accompanied its signing, the agreement has no binding limits on emissions, relies on countries to set their own goals for slashing pollution, and rests on an assumption that they can be shamed into living up to their promises.

It’s not even a real treaty: To get the U.S. on board, the architects of the accord crafted it as an “executive agreement” — no Congressional approval needed.

And yet, somehow, the Paris Agreement is working. To a point. The most recent U.N. climate conference, which wrapped last weekend in Glasgow, Scotland, showed signs of progress that would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. Under the Paris Agreement, nations have to submit pledges (or
promises, or wishful thinking, depending on who you ask) for how much they will reduce emissions every five years.

That’s the core of the agreement:
Voluntary pledges enacted and reviewed in a soup of international peer pressure that, ideally, will push countries to steadily do more and more.The goal is to use this system of “pledge and review” to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius — or, ideally, 1.5 degrees Celsius.

 Grist 17th Nov 2021

https://grist.org/cop26/cop26-shows-the-paris-agreement-is-kinda-sorta-working/

November 22, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change