THERE has been so much failure and compromise on tackling climate change in the last 20 years that it is hard to believe it when the international community really does make progress. But that is what the Paris Agreement represents: genuine, serious, major progress on the world’s biggest crisis. It is a deal that deserves to be celebrated.
However, the celebration must come to a dose of caution too. In agreeing the goal of limiting global warming to 2C and setting an even more ambitious target of 1.5C, the Paris Agreement represents the first genuinely global approach to the problem of climate change. Not only does it set out a goal, it also sends out a powerful signal to every government, and every business, that fossil fuels are on the way out and emissions must be reduced.
It is also a good sign that the Paris Agreement has set out a mechanism for achieving its goal, although it only goes so far. The countries will have to come back before 2020 to revisit the promises they have made, and then make new promises every five years, the idea being that there will be progress every time and absolutely no backsliding.
The theory is that, with a stocktake every five years, a form of international peer pressure will keep countries on track and to some extent that has already worked, with all the nations showing good will and solid groundwork in their individual plans to limit emissions ahead of Paris. But, in time, the major weakness of the Paris Agreement may prove to be the lack of any way of enforcing the promises.
Although nearly 200 countries were involved, the long-term success or failure of the agreement also depends largely on a handful of countries that produce the most pollution, including the United States and China. In the past, international agreements of climate change have floundered due to political pressure in the US, and that risk must exist with Paris too. The success of the agreement also depends on countries becoming more ambitious over time, because the current promises will not be enough to keep global warming below the 2C goal.
However, it is important not to let pessimism about some of the flaws of the Paris Agreement detract too much from the justified celebration. The deal that was struck in France may not have a settled way of reaching its goal, but it does represent a critical turning point in the fight against global warming.
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