Remember when the Paris climate agreement was called “historic” non-stop? And nations hailed joining in, patting themselves on the back? And they were all going to Do Something Important? Funny how we keep reading this same thing
Paris climate deal: world not on track to meet goal amid continuous emissions
Carbon dioxide emissions rose weakly this year as the use of coal declined but natural gas took up the slack, a comprehensive study of the global “carbon budgetâ€Â has found.
The rise in emissions was much smaller than in the last two years, but the continued increase means the world is still far from being on track to meet the goals of the Paris agreement on climate change, which would require emissions to peak then fall rapidly to reach net-zero by mid-century.
Emissions for this year will be 4% higher than those in 2015, when the Paris agreement was signed. Governments are meeting this week and next in Madrid to hammer out some of the final details for implementing the Paris deal and start work on new commitments to cut emissions by 2030. But the new report shows the increasing difficulty of that task.
Wait, it’s difficult to get people to cut down on their use of energy, especially those in developing nations who would like to have the same standard of living and modern lifestyles of those in 1st World nations? Huh.
“Current climate and energy policies are too weak to reverse trends in global emissions,†she said. “Policies have been successful to varying degrees in deploying low-carbon technologies, such as solar and wind power and electric vehicles. But these often add to existing demand for energy rather than displacing technologies that emit CO2, particularly in countries where energy demand is growing.â€
Because solar and wind are rather unreliable at this time, so, still need reliable energy.
