The Paris Climate Agreement was totally, super duper historic! Climate elites pledging to pledge to force their serfs to do stuff. How’s it going 5 years in?
After five years, here are five things the Paris Agreement achieved — and didn’t
In the early hours of 13 December, 2015, Christiana Figueres walked into a sports bar in Paris and down the steps to the dance floor. The cheers were deafening.
Climate campaigners, negotiators and journalists were letting off steam, after a fortnight of intense negotiations had yielded a long overdue international climate pact.
The Costa Rican diplomat who led the UN climate body was greeted as a hero. Arms around each other’s shoulders, the throng belted out the Queen hit “We are the championsâ€.
Um, why were journalists involved in negotiations? Anyhow
Here are five things the Paris Agreement has achieved — and five things still to work for.
1) Political resilience
There is no doubt that president Donald Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement was a body blow.
For his four-year term, the world’s second highest emitter would not pull its weight in carbon cuts, giving cover to others to slack off.
But the move did not, as some feared it would, lead to an exodus of like-minded nationalists from the pact. Even Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s deforester-in-chief, was persuaded to stay in. The US stood alone — and is set to rejoin under president-elect Joe Biden.
So, squishy stuff. The other 4 “achievements” are
- Normalising 1.5C
- Normalising net zero
- Clean energy shift
- Institutional change
So, nothing more than dreams, eh? Nothing concrete? How about the failures
1) Rising emissions
Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow, with a billion tonnes of CO2 added to annual figures between 2015 and 2018.
Oops.
2) Rising temperatures
As emissions rise, so too do temperatures. 2020 is set to be 1.2C warmer than pre-industrial times and among the three hottest years on record, despite the cooling effect of La Nina.
Of course, that’s nothing unusual than during a Holocene warm period. They used to blame Bad Weather on witchcraft, now it’s Someone Else driving a fossil fueled vehicle.
- Rising fossil fuel production (bummer!)
- The vulnerable suffer (why aren’t these climate cultists giving their own money to help?
- International transport gets away (well, yeah, goods must be moved around the world)
Sure seems like there are quite a bit of failures for such an historic document.
