In 1992, President George H.W. Bush joined 107 other heads of state at the Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil, to adopt a series of environmental agreements, including the UNFCCC framework, which is still in force today. The international treaty aims to prevent dangerous human interference in Earth`s climate systems in the long term. The Pact does not set greenhouse gas emission limits for individual countries and does not include enforcement mechanisms, but provides a framework for international negotiations on future agreements or protocols to set binding emission targets. Participating countries meet annually at a Conference of the Parties (COP) to assess their progress and continue discussions on how best to tackle climate change. The NRDC is working to make the Global Climate Action Summit a success by inspiring more ambitious commitments to the historic 2015 agreement and increased initiatives to reduce pollution. The president`s promise to renegotiate the international climate agreement has always been a smog screen, the oil industry has a red phone inside, and will Trump bring food trucks to Old Faithful? Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which sets legally binding emission reduction targets (as well as sanctions for non-compliance) only for developed countries, the Paris Agreement requires all countries – rich, poor, developed and developing – to do their part and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To this end, greater flexibility is built into the Paris Agreement: the commitments that countries should make are not otherwise worded, countries can voluntarily set their emission targets (NDCs) and countries are not subject to any penalty if they do not meet the proposed targets. What the Paris Agreement requires, however, is monitoring, reporting, and reassessing countries` individual and collective goals over time in order to bring the world closer to the broader goals of the agreement. And the agreement stipulates that countries must announce their next set of targets every five years – unlike the Kyoto Protocol, which aimed at that target but did not contain a specific requirement to achieve it. No one expects the Paris Agreement to solve climate change in one fell swoop. But after a rigorous analysis, experts estimated that the impact of the agreement would reduce global warming by nearly 2 degrees Celsius compared to the status quo. Currently, 197 countries – every nation on earth, the last signatory being war-torn Syria – have adopted the Paris Agreement.
Of these, 179 have solidified their climate proposals with formal approval – including the US for now. The only major emitting countries that have not yet officially joined the deal are Russia, Turkey and Iran. It is rare that there is consensus among almost all nations on a single issue. But with the Paris Agreement, world leaders agreed that climate change is driven by human behavior, that it poses a threat to the environment and all of humanity, and that global action is needed to stop it. It also created a clear framework for all countries to make emission reduction commitments and strengthen these measures over time. Here are some key reasons why the agreement is so important: The world has a narrow window of opportunity to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The NRDC`s new roadmap outlines how leaders can act decisively to implement 24 realistic climate action measures and set the world on a path to a more secure climate future. The Paris Agreement significantly reduced the projected increase in global temperature from 7° Fahrenheit to 5° Fahrenheit (3.9° Celsius to 2.8° Celsius). Thanks to this agreement, there will be less climate destruction.
While more action is needed, this agreement can further limit catastrophic climate damage through the climate commitments it has made. Following a campaign promise, Trump – a climate denier who claimed climate change was a « hoax » committed by China – announced in June 2017 his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. Yet, despite the president`s statement from the rose garden that « we`re going out, » it`s not that easy. .