Editorial from the Los Angeles Times editorial board
Representatives from nearly every country on Earth met in Paris five years ago and promised to work together in an unprecedented effort to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with a preferred goal of capping the rise at 1.5 degrees.
It took a lot of maneuvering and diplomacy by the Obama administration to reach that agreement after a similar effort six years earlier in Copenhagen failed.
What changed in the interim was strengthened resolve by the U.S. and a decision by China, whose cities were choking on coal-fired smog, to join in the move to a new energy future. Even though some climate advocates argued that the Paris Agreement fell short of what was necessary to achieve its goals, it stood as a framework for moving forward.
But then things unraveled with the election of President Donald Trump, who denounced the agreement, then reneged on the United States’ promises by walking away from it — making the U.S. the only nation in the world to not be part of the pact.
So here we are five years after the Paris Agreement, still spewing carbon. In fact, the Emissions Gap Report that the United Nations issued Dec. 9 says that even if countries keep the promises they made under the Paris Agreement, the global temperature would still rise to 3.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century — far too warm. In fact, the report warns that the world needs to triple promised reductions in carbon emissions to meet Paris’ target of 2 degrees, and quintuple the reductions to hit the lower target.
Yet a separate U.N. Production Gap Report issued recently found that while nations must reduce fossil fuel production by about 6 percent a year through 2030 to meet the Paris goals, “countries are instead planning and projecting an average annual increase of 2 percent.”
In other words, the world knows what it needs to do. It’s just not doing it fast enough or diligently enough.
Contrary to Trump’s assertions, the Paris agreement did not impose “draconian financial and economic burdens” on the U.S., nor is climate change a bit of Chinese chicanery to gain economic advantage.
Protracted droughts and heat waves are making parts of the Earth uninhabitable for humans and spawning migrations that will only worsen — and threaten political stability — as we continue to spew heat-trapping gases into the air. Warming is occurring at faster rates in the polar regions than elsewhere, fueling a feedback loop that threatens to exacerbate weather changes across the globe and further raise sea levels.
The catastrophe is, in fact, upon us. The question is, can humankind take the necessary steps to derail the human-driven threats to our own existence?
The Paris Agreement was a bold pact framed by optimism, but also by a recognition that weaning the world off fossil fuels is expensive, will require unimaginable levels of political will and self-sacrifice, and cannot be achieved without deep wells of mutual goodwill.
We cannot change by clinging to the past. Our world hangs in the balance.