Global Warming And The Paris Agreement

The UNFCCC is working with the various governments around the world to stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere to keep the planet from warming more than 2ºC above pre-industrial temperatures (Watts, 2015). The most noted of the work is the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings that began with COP1 in Berlin back in 1995. The COP3 adopted the Kyoto Protocol, even though it wasn’t fully accepted by all member nations. The COP21 was an effort to legally bind members to their submitted plans of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), defining what level of greenhouse gas production each nation would commit to not exceeding from 2025-2030. Prior to the INDCs, a bleak outlook was forecast in 2009-2010 of global temperature rising between 4-5ºC. That figure was restated by the UNFCCC prior to the COP21 in Paris, to below 3ºC, due to the commitments of the INDCs (Watts, 2015).

The Paris agreement is effective because it ensures that countries are making a solid effort to prevent temperatures from rising. As one of the most powerful countries in the world, it should be our duty to take the lead in making our Earth a better place. 68% of Democrats strongly believe that the government should regulate the release of greenhouse gases from sources like power plants, cars, and factories in an effort to reduce global warming, compared to only 28% of Republicans (Washington Post 2017). The data show that Democrats have made reducing global warming a stronger priority than Republicans have. “The best science tells us that without ambitious, immediate action across our economy to cut carbon pollution and other greenhouse gases, all of these impacts will be far worse in the future (Democrats.org 2017)”. The majority of Democrats look to scientific facts that show that we have no time to waste for stopping climate change. Republicans believe that “information concerning a climate change, especially projections in the long-range future must be based on dispassionate analysis of hard data” (Republican Platform 2017). They don’t have the same urgency to take action to prevent climate change that is necessary.

It requires all parties to put their best efforts and requirements to report emissions on a regular basis. Every 5 years, there will be a global stock take to assess the progress toward achieving the purpose of the Agreement (UNFCCC- The Paris Agreement, 2018). A climate change conference where leaders all over the world came together to address climate change, have a goal to deliver action by 2020. In order to be successful, participating countries must make enough provisions to develop financial and technological support to help developing countries. The Marrakech partnership for good clime change action provides agreed outcomes in Paris, by providing a detailed structure to help speed up and get rid of gas emissions, scale down the pace of climate action among parties and non-parties steak holders in all parts of the world. Each year the action plan will continue to evolve as progress is made and new challenges and opportunities arise. The Paris agreement requires all parties to forward their effects nationally determined contributions. This includes regular reports on emissions and plans to success. As all parties have agreed to work together during the time frame 2017-2020, there has been current progeress to minimizing emissions (UNFCCC- Marrakech partnership for global climate action,

Climate change has become a major issue in global environmental politics as it has been shown to have a correlation with issues such as deforestation, biodiversity loss, and desertification. As Chapter 45 states “The 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found consensus in the scientific community that greenhouse gas emissions have significantly increased because of human activity and, further, that the modest temperature increases we have already experienced are “very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” Due to this report awareness was brought to almost everyone of how serious human activity was to the global climate. In 2009, it was declared that “If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of two degrees C. above preindustrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly”. To me this sounds foreboding and it is something that deserves our full attention immediately. To try and get a better understanding of how serious climate change is, I’m going to try and interpret chapter 45 which deals on climate change through 5 different paradigms of International Relations.

“Scientists have been warning about global warming for decades. It's too late to stop it now, but we can lessen its severity and impacts” - David Suzuki. Global warming, a primary topic of debate in various conversations throughout all levels of government, has been an issue for countless years. In fact, of the 134 years recorded, the 10 warmest years have all occurred “since 2000, with the exception of 1998 “(NASA). Solving a global issue such as this is not as easy as it may seem; however ,The Paris Agreement vows to do just that by setting a plan to limit global warming to well below 2°C in “the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal” (Europa). Before signing off on such an agreement one must analyze the many negatives

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aspires to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.” The Paris Agreement, created under the UNFCCC, helps make that goal a reality. Signed by Canada on Earth Day 2016, the agreement “requires all Parties to put forward their best efforts through ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead. This includes requirements that all Parties report regularly on their emissions and on their implementation efforts. There will also be a global stocktake every 5 years to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the agreement and to inform further individual actions by Parties.” As of 5 November 2016, ninety-seven parties out of one hundred ninety-seven have signed the agreement that went into effect on 4 November 2016. Canada’s involvement in the UNFCCC and the Paris agreement is just the tip of the iceberg, and it is quite a contribution to global efforts to reduce climate change.

As of recently, the Paris Climate Talks gathered several of world’s leading nations to discuss the effects and measures needed to be taken to combat the on going threat of

We have all heard statistics over how unmitigated global warming can lead to rising sea levels, increased temperatures, lower rates of precipitation. The Congressional Budget Office recently found that climate change, if unmitigated, would create costly damage not only to the United States’s economy, but also to the world as a whole (source). Despite a scientific and general consensus that climate change is real and a problem, actual committed action against climate change has been disappointingly slow, until recently. We also know the cause of climate change. The United States EPA finds that “Carbon dioxide accounts for most of the nation’s emissions and most of the increase since 1990” (EPA). What we don’t know is a solution.

The Paris Agreement is made up of 195 nations who plan to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions in an attempt to slow down the increase in the global temperature. President Obama’s decision to sign this agreement does not only promote his personal climate change legacy but the climate change legacy of the United States of America. Since this environmental pact is only legally binding when “at least 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions sign on,” a United States signature could very well be the difference between a revolutionary global climate change policy and

Global Warming has been highly accepted as an inconvenient truth that if not resolved, will have serious consequences for the future of the human race. Recently, however, America’s newest president, Donald Trump, has openly coined Global Warming as a “hoax”. Therefore, Trump has pulled the United States out of an agreement made between numerous countries to make actions to lower carbon emissions. This agreement is called the Paris Accord. President Trump’s decision to pull the United States of America out of the Paris Accord Agreement has sparked many discussions on how just his actions were and how valid the agreement really is. A surplus of news organizations have provided their opinions on the matter as well as all the facts associated with it.

The climate change impacts of greenhouse gases threaten the economic development and environmental quality. These threats indicate that all nations regardless their economic growth should work collaboratively to reduce the emission to a certain level. Hare et al. (2011) argued that “climate change is a collective action problem” thus requires a global coordination from all countries. This indicates that actions from several countries would never be sufficient to address the climate change problem. If a global target to limit warming to 2°C or below is about to achieve (UNFCCC 2010, p.4) a broad range of participation is required (Hare et al., 2011). However, the increasing complexity of negotiation processes is inevitable. Each country will pursue its own interests during the

According to an article focused on environmental awareness, “the world’s average surface temperature rose by approximately 1 degree Fahrenheit, the fastest rate in any period over the last 1000 years” (Source A). Damage has already been done to the environment but it is not the time to throw our hands up, it is the time for leaders in all sectors to tackle this issue head on. We know that carbon dioxide is the culprit, so now it is imperative to implement the solution and take a hard look at who is producing the most greenhouse gases. Big changes need to take place but they can only be done in steps and not all at once to be effective. In an excerpt from a book about global warming, Mark Maslin brings up the point that many feel the Kyoto Protocol does not go far enough; scientists believe that a 60% cut of greenhouse gas emissions is necessary in order to “prevent major climate change” (Source E). A sixty percent cut of emissions should be what countries work up to achieving but first and foremost, every country needs to agree to the Kyoto Protocol guidelines. The Kyoto Protocol itself should not be viewed as the end in the discussion of greenhouse gas restrictions, but rather the first stepping stone to a much broader and effective

Recently, the world heard the news that the United States was leaving the Paris Climate Agreement, a decision made by President Donald Trump. But what is the Paris Climate Agreement? It is an agreement that for the first time ever, got all nations, except for Syria and Nicaragua, together to work for a common goal, which is to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by reducing their gas emissions. The agreement says that each nation should at least try to reduce these gases; if it does not happen then there would be no penalty. Each country set their own emission targets, this is also depending on each country’s industrial advancements and wealth. Since the beginning of his campaign, President Trump has said that global warming is a

2. Maurice Strong (the Secretary General of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit) liked to distinguish between “success” and “real success” in international agreements. Discuss the 2015 Paris climate change agreement with regard to whether it represents success or real success.

Among the main goals of the Paris Agreement is to hold “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” (Paris Agreement, 2015). That is, countries involved in the agreement are expected to implement measures that