The Paris Climate Change Agreement

Dr James Hansen’s argumentative essay, “A Solution to the Climate Problem,” discusses his premise that it is imperative for humankind to deal with carbon dioxide emissions, which he believes needs to be phased out by the mid-21st century. He begins with the current paradigm in government efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and claims that so far it has been a lot of talk and action in the other direction. Dr Hansen argues that while governments pay lip service to agreements such as the Kyoto Accord, they are going full steam ahead with projects that will result in increased carbon dioxide emissions, such as going forth with coal-fired power plants, coal-to-liquids, hydraulic fracturing, and tar sands oil extraction. Dr Hansen believes

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).

In recent years , there is a colossal upsurge in the number of environmental concerns with climate change being a pivotal one. Although convergent efforts, be it an individual , company or a government, are made to ease this concern. I think government play a vital role in this regard.

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,

The main claim of Pamela Chaseks’s presentation was that through government and industry climate change can be stopped. Chasek discusses several instances when governments united regarding climate change as well as how these governments have impacted climate change, if at all. For example,a successful negotiation was Lima 2014, the United States and China agreed to reduce emissions; however, at the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009 developed countries made an agreement that left developing countries out of the loop. This caused smaller states weary of states who hold more power. This displays that government cooperation and communication is needed to successfully execute the issue of climate change. Without concise agreements and negotiations

“After ten days of tough negotiations, ministers and other high-level officials from 160 countries reached an agreement this morning on a legally binding Protocol under which industrialized countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2%. The agreement aims to lower overall emissions from a group of six greenhouse gases by 2008-12, calculated as an average over these five years.” (UNFCCC, 2011)

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

In the light of one of the greatest accomplishments humanity ever thought could be possible, we now see how important is the public commitment and collective action to tackle the pressing issue of climate change. The recent agreement sealed during the Conference of Parties (COP 21) in Paris last year represents a true triumph, where finally almost 200 countries accepted the urgency of acting to curb global warming. Brazil in its part, plays crucial role within Latin America region, where it can be a leader fostering collaboration with

This incident helps put into perspective that the climate change summit talks may be just that. They are all talk and little action and the action may be too little too late. The editorial specifically mentioned that negotiators have learned from past mistakes. We do not see that to be the case. The top three countries known to be responsible for 75% of the world’s carbon emissions are China, United States, and India. Beijing’s response or lack of regulation further shows that the government only has limited powers when it comes to implementing any programs and everything is viewed as temporary. They have made promises to cut emissions in the past.

On December 12 of 2015, 195 countries made history by committing to the first truly global international climate change agreement (Paris Agreement, 2015). This agreement took place in Paris and was adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The outcome of the Paris Conference on Climate Change was described as “revolutionary” (Venezuela) “marvelous act” (China) and as “a tremendous collective achievement” (European Union) that introduced a “new era of global climate governance” (Egypt) while “restoring the global community’s faith of accomplishing things multilaterally” (USA) (Paris Agreement, 2015).

Framing climate change as an issue of sustainable development also has positive impacts for the governance of adaptation measures. It has been recognized that mitigation efforts have not sufficed to stop or even minimize the damage of global warming, with experts agreeing that the INDCs will not reach the intended reduction target of 2 degrees (International Energy Agency 2015). This has been argued to be the result of a ‘top-down’ approach that centers on nation states making international treaties concerning climate change (Harris 2012: 285). This is often unsuccessful because, not only do states have competing interests, but this approach “divorces” the problem from important economic issues (O’Brien 2006: 3) However, the discourse of sustainable development recognizes that the causes and effects of climate change are integral to all aspects of global society. This entails that climate change policy is not only environmental but is also concerned with decisions concerning aid lending, energy markets, and such decisions, are not only made by states but by corporate bodies, but also by civil society and the everyday person (Bulkely and Newell 2010: 106).

After growing concern over global climate change, the Kyoto Protocol was proposed in 1997 and ratified in 2005. The protocol was created to address the issue of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, specifically aiming to reduce these emissions globally by giving each country specific goals and percentages of reduction by 2012 relative to 1990 GHG levels1. The need for a global policy stems from the systemic type of environmental problem being dealt with2. Although GHGs are created locally, they affect the world as a whole through their spread in the atmosphere and their contribution to rising average global temperatures. Therefore, their impacts are not local and the entire world needs to come together to limit the rise of

As we all known, there was a series of intense conversations between developed countries and developing countries about the carbon dioxide emission cup for each country. On one hand, BASIC countries, the representative of developing countries, held that they were developing and needed large amount of carbon dioxide emission in industrial development. On the other hand, the American and European Union, the representative of developed countries, argued that developing countries cannot take the risk of pollution in order to develop its own science and economy; therefore they should take a large part of responsibility of global climate change. The purposed changed of absolute emission for America is 4% but for China or Indian is 20% even 40% reduction for 2005-2020. From my perspective, this is too hard and tough for developing countries to complete. And developed countries should do better than 4% or 5%.

While Australia’s commitment to the Paris summit was promising at first there were some shortcomings as the meeting began to end. As the negotiations began, Australia was on board with keeping the temperature rise below 1.5C. Beyond that, we placed significant importance on the 5 year reviews, and announced that we would become part of the “mission initiative. The mission initiative will see a total of 20 countries contribute one billion dollars over a course of 5 years to help the worlds more underdeveloped nations participate in the fight against climate change.