Gigantic News. The agreement has been finalized and voted on. And the vote was UNANIMOUS.
As part of a concerted effort to avoid catastrophic climate change, the world unanimously committed to an ongoing effort of increasingly deeper emissions reductions aimed at keeping total warming “to well below 2°C [3.6°F] above preindustrial levels.” The full text of this Paris Agreement goes even further, with the parties agreeing “to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.”
Think about that. Think about how hard it is to get ANYTHING unanimously through this Congress.
How important is unanimity? One of the usual arguments against climate agreements is about how China and India “never follow them” or “never sign them”. Guess what. They did. Same with Russia.
So what’s in the deal? Per the New York Times, here are some highlights:
It calls for “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.” This language might be more aspirational than realistic — the national plans submitted for the conference, if adopted, would probably result in an increase above 3 degrees Celsius — but the goal of 1.5 could be a watershed.
The agreement asks all countries to update their national targets for reducing emissions by 2020 and every 5 years thereafter, a time frame that the United States and the European Union urged. India had initially sought a 10-year review cycle.
The agreement, which takes effect in 2020, calls on nations to establish “a new collective quantified goal” of at least $100 billion a year in climate-related financing by 2020. It avoids a specific number, and even the $100 billion-a-year aspiration is mentioned in the “decision” part of the document, not the “action” section, to avoid triggering a review by the United States Senate. But it makes clear that the $100 billion — promised in 2009 in Copenhagen — is the bare minimum going forward.
The deal requires a global “stocktake”— an overall assessment of how things are going — starting in 2023, every five years.
When countries update their commitments, they will commit to the “highest possible ambition,” but the agreement does not set a numeric target. It acknowledges “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.” This language is essential to a country like India, which believes it will need some time before it can reach peak emissions, given the need to provide 300 million people with electricity. The agreement calls on rich countries to engage in “absolute” reductions in emissions, while calling on developing ones to “continue enhancing their mitigation efforts.”
And much much more.
This is a game changer, and will have the Republicans howling. There is no way in hell they will respect the paper it’s printed on if they win the White House. The world will become clean, and we will regress to the horror pictures we see of Chinese smog. We will be the cesspit of the world, responsible for polluting the entire planet while the rest of the world tries to clean it up.
Elections matter, people.