The industrialized nations of the world need to implement a Carbon Fee and Dividend Policy. This plan prices the fossil fuel industry out of existence while protecting those that can least afford an increase in consumer prices. In fact, about 58% of the population will realize a financial benefit from the policy. A win-win, an economic stimulus and lower greenhouse gas emissions. And the best part, the politicians can’t get their hands on the proceeds. You can read about it here: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/

When Washington and Shanghai drown, humanity will act.

Tax the 'hell' out of carbon. Rebate low income. Use the revenue for clean, free mass-trans and sustainables. Begin one-child incentives. Good luck humans, you're going to need it........Sincerely, The Earth

Some questions please: So how did all the diplomats from all over the world get to Poland? Was it via their solar-powered airplanes? You all do understand that the climate has changed significantly for eons, don't you? Well before fossil fuels were used to power our planet? Do you understand that Greenland used to actually be green, but now is covered in snow? What exactly is the "correct" temperature of the earth? What we had 40 years ago? 100? Please let me know. I am willing to change my stance if I get some reasonable answers. Right now, I have as much confidence in the scientists coming to conclusions that we have a dire emergency as I do in the scientists who gave us the 1990's food guide pyramid, which we know is completely wrong.

What fun! The problem is over population End all migration, immigration to western countries Stop feeding and supplying medicine to third worlders Climate issues solved

The times has one article, today, explaining that, hundreds of millions of years ago, the earth warmed up 17 degrees Fahrenheit causing mass extinction. Were cavemen doing everything that they could to change what was taking place? From the beginning of this contemporary nonsensical effort to thwart "our" effects on "climate change," ALL of we naysayers have said that this is nothing more or less than the Governments of the world to extract even more "tax" dollars and ridiculous regulations that will do nothing to thwart the changes and steal more money from the Proles. "Climate goals" is a contrived lie. Nothing more to see, hear. It amazes me how stupid "the PAID Scientists" and their funding Governments are. Try again. We're not buying it despite the Propaganda. Trump's right. It's nothing but drivel.

I seems that we are doomed, that is unless we can find ways to adapt to the effects of climate change while simultaneously attempting to reduce our contribution to it.

Isn't it over? Severe global warming may be on its way but don't we need to stop pretending that we can do something about it? Shouldn't we pay more attention to those leaders who say that implementing anti-global warming measures is simply not practical and that they have more pressing issues to deal with. It's ironic that Paris, the city most associated with climate control, is now the scene of demonstrations against a gas tax increase, implemented to help thwart global warming. If those pushing anti-global warming measures don't have an answer for this, maybe they should let it go.

Nuclear power is the only way out at this stage. It was always the only way out. Solar and wind are inefficient and have many problems, like storage, and would not work at all for anyone if they were not subsidized by governments, from the building of the panels and turbines to the use of the resulting electricity. I doubt they will ever work without subsidies (or indirect subsidies, like taxing carbon). 63% of US electricity is generated using carbon, i.e. coal, gas, etc. This point seems to be missed, and is never discussed or acknowledged, by the owners of electric cars, who pat themselves on the back that they are driving "clean" vehicles.

Perhaps if climate change revelations were included in the DNC emails leaked by Assange, we'd have seen front page coverage of it for 6 months prior to the most fateful election of our lifetimes, and perhaps the human species. Politicians, fossil fuel barons, and fanatical climate science conspiracy theorists aren't the only ones complicit in this tragedy. The media has failed to devote the proper coverage and weight to this story for decades. When CNN drops an interview with a lead scientist of the National Climate Assessment to make room for two interviews for Rick Santorum to spread false climate conspiracies, you have to wonder whether the fault lies also with the medium that has the power to manufacture our collective understanding of the world.

If coal is to continue to be used to generate electricity, there is one rational way to do it. Coal can be internally combusted in an engine that produces a high pressure CO2 exhaust ready to inject into deep disposal wells using the technologies described at: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-carbon-dioxide-replace-steam-to-generate-power/

Thank you for continuing to make this a front page issue.

Human beings are in denial about climate change. Only once the flood or the fire is at the back door will people take it seriously. But by then, of course, it will be too late.

At this point of genuine frustration, my feelings are that I hope the Red Gulf & coastal states of LA, MS, AL, FL, GA, and SC get to choke on their salt water when it provides a dose of REALITY and turns their state into an underwater museum. Fed up with the ignorance of our electorate!

Fellow U.S. citizens: Please take responsibility for your actions. Recycling plastic bottles and guzzling slightly less gas is not the way to do it. 1. Stop driving. You can walk or bicycle a mile or two to work, to the grocery store, to school. It is even possible to brew a cup of coffee without a set of keys. 2. Stop eating beef and pork, and greatly reduce consumption of all animal products. 3. Stop buying new junk. It contributes to climate warming and hazardous pollution in China and elsewhere. Reduce, reuse, repeat. 4. Get yourself fixed. Adopt. 5. Hold your elected officials accountable (but don't use them to rationalize your own inaction). Demand carbon pricing legislation.

"When the last living thing has died on account of us, how poetical it would be if earth could say, in a voice floating up perhaps from the floor of the Grand Canyon, 'It is done. People did not like it here.'- Kurt Vonnegut from A Man Without a Country

Perhaps the world should create a whole new UN. Membership consisting of nations marked only by adult, thinking, responsible, scientific-minded citizenry. I wonder if they'll let us in.

Great jounalism. Thanks to NYT for keeping your readers up to date. I look forward to your reporting on the meeting in Poland reports on the fossil fuel industries. I especially want the NYT to investigate and push for instrumenting the emission rate of gasses from the thawing permafrost. History shows the world knows how to gear up for avoiding a major catastrophe. Just think about WWII, the Manhattan Project, or Japan gearing up its industries to create a huge war machine. Our governments and international institutions must pick up the pace. It is tough but we can start now on 3 big projects that will give civilization a shot at a much better standard of living than the one we have created with fossil fuels. In "Spaceship Earth", America's Franklin Medalist James Powell et al have described a very feasible pathway to make an orderly transition from fossil fuels by producing enormous quatities of very cheap wholesale electricity to provide a better standard of living for the projected 10-11 Billion people. Cheap electricity for the whole world including island nations can be produced with solar energy collecting satellites, launched very cheaply with Maglev launched thin-film solar cells to beam 24/7 solar power to receiving antennae fields on Earth for distribution on population grids. With cheap electricity, we can scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, power transport with batteries and Maglev networks, www.magneticglide.com synthesize jet fuel & desal water.

what we need is more talk, more conferences. exactly. sign as many documents and treaties as you can. forget about reality. kudos to trump for deciding not to participate in this ridiculous charade. the moral preening and finger wagging by these politicians is nauseating. remind me--if the world is coming to an end in 50-100 years, why are these same geniuses cutting nuclear power, which would cut emissions to zero and save the world? you mean, nuclear power is SO dangerous, that it's better to sign these treaties that dont work, and risk worldwide disaster? uh huh.

I think if the Europeans could give up their big Mercedes-Benz and BMW gas guzzlers, then the world would make significant progress towards meeting these climate goals. Cheers!

The world will easily meet it's climate goals after all the humans are dead.

Let's talk about the US List of CO2 emissions, tons per capita, by country North America US 16.5 tons/capita and year Canada 15.1 Europe France 4.6 UK 6.5 Germany 8.9 Sweden 4.5 Spain 5.0 Asia China 7.5 1. Properly measured, that is calibrated relative to population, China is NOT the word's worst polluter 2. Calibrated to its population, in the Western world , the US , and Canada are the worst polluters 3. The most effective way for the US to reduce its CO2 emissions would be to tax transportation fuels with a carbon tax. To get Americans out of their oversized pick ups and SUVs. Swedes do not live worse than the US but emit less than 1/3 per capita. Germany is more industrialized per capita than the US, pays higher wages, is the worlds leading exporter, but yet emits half. Data https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/10296/economics/top-co2-polluters-highest-per-capita/ 53 Recommend

So what is proposed to keep the undeveloped world from emitting as they electrify and improve their standard of living. The amount of oil used daily is around 100 million bbl. and projected to go to 135 million before tapering off in 2035 back to 100 million. How is that going to work?

Does it matter if U.S. cities have had average monthly temperature rises above 1° C. since industrial age? Pittsburgh's has risen by that much since the 1890's. Philadelphia's by over 2° C. since 1948. Source: NOAA.

Without accepting the relative risk of nuclear power plants to create electricity and ideally to produce a substitute for jet fuel and other high-heat industries, we're sunk. Sequestration of spent radioactive materials is less of a risk than continued climate change from carbon emissions.

According to the International Energy Agency, switching from fossil fuels to low-carbon sources of energy will cost $44 trillion between now and 2050. There will supposedly be great cost benefits from the change, but they will accrue over time. So the question is whether the world will pay trillions to address future climate change. Over the 70 years that the UN has been in existence, it has paid out $500B. No international expenditure fund has come close to $1 trillion. Adequately addressing climate change is a tremendous long shot. And those who are trying to lead the way need to address the political considerations as well as the practical ones. In short, how do you convince the world community to pay wildly unprecedented expenditures.

The world hasn't had a lot of success in addressing mass deaths. Rather, deaths from war, pollution, and disease have mostly trended upward. Dealing with mass fatalities is not just a scientific challenge. It is also also a political challenge. And bringing the world together politically is next to impossible. The best model for reducing climate change deaths is probably the initiatives to combat communicable diseases, which are usually treated with inexpensive medications. The best hope for substantial progress is probably resorting to inexpensive measures that are widely administered in poor countries as well as the wealthy. There has been talk of comprehensive initiatives to be paid for by the wealthy for the benefit of the poor. But it's mostly talk. And those who advocate reform most aggressively tend to speak in self-righteous terms rather than political terms. On the whole, there are too few who are serious about reducing climate change and too few with viable strategies. Any optimism is difficult to defend.

Over thirty years ago when people were driving vans, and sport utility vehicles, the government should of put a tax on all of them that didn't get 30 miles to the gallon, because none of them were 4 cylinder, of $500. a year, to direct people towards fuel saving vehicles, like what I bought a 4 cylinder Toyota Corolla. Now, the population has gone up by about 100 million from 240 million in 1986 to about 330 million, or more now in almost 2019, and people are driving pickups, and crossover vehicles that aren't 4 cylinder. Does anyone really believe that all of these people want to be taxed $500 a year, as that alone would get Trump reelected. Welcome to human nature, who would rather pollute itself, but at least it would be driving a pickup.

One problem that's apparent is that there were no agreed upon concrete steps that were to be taken countries signing onto the Paris climate accord. For example, an agreement to have a global switch to electric and hybrid cars is technological feasible and would reduce CO2 emissions significantly. Similarly, a ban of coal-fired plants with low-cost loans for financing conversion to non-greenhouse gas alternatives including geothermal, nuclear, wind and solar energy would also reduce CO2 emissions. Its was easy to agree on a target, but without the specificity of how to reach it we are seeing the results are they are truly frightening.

I truly fear for the future safety of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the owners, board members and executives of the oil, natural gas, coal and pipeline companies and their sponsored political “leaders.” As living conditions on our planet become unbearable due to the severe, relentless impacts of Climate Change, generations of devastated citizens around the world will ask: “Who is most directly responsible for this existential catastrophe?” When these citizens look around, they will find many of the culpable carbon barons and carbon-sponsored politicians have already passed on to whatever afterlife awaits them. But the direct descendants of the carbon barons and the carbon-sponsored politicians will still be here. And there will be no escape – not even behind their gated communities – from the wrath of billions of incensed citizens on every continent. For the carbon barons, it all comes down to one essential choice to be made right now: harvest their carbon assets and sacrifice their descendants – or – strand their carbon assets and save their descendants? For the carbon-sponsored politicians, it also comes down to one essential choice to be made right now: continue to dither on Climate Change legislation and sacrifice their descendants – or – pass sweeping and meaningful Climate Change mitigation legislation and save their descendants? The time on the clock is quickly running out...

The world isn't meeting climate goals for a simple reason. It's hard. There are big segments of the economy there are no good answers for yet. If ever. We need to innovate our way out of the mess we're in. Major research efforts. Political will and renewables will only get the world so far. I agree with Bill Gates who says the people who think climate solutions are just about political will are a bigger obstacle than deniers.

There's not a lot of room for learning on this issue if we continue to use the strategies currently deployed. What else does one need to rhetorically argue a point aside from pointing to overwhelming objective, non-partisan scientific evidence that predicts these future events and their likelihoods through careful hypothesis? The problem here is that a lot of people need to be shown not told in order to learn. Show don't tell. That's how some people's brains work. You want to sell your house? Show buyers where the furniture could go. Stage it, don't tell them. Half your prospective buyers won't get it if you just tell them. We need to show this issue, to cut through the conspiracy theories and the straw men and the parochialism and partisanship. Unfortunately, showing here requires being. Showing, here, involves putting us all in a very unfortunate predicament, because many people aren't going to believe it until temperatures ACTUALLY DO rise enough for their personal lives to be dramatically effected. Maybe what we (environmentalists of all stripes) need to do is focus our energies not on convincing more people at this point that its going to happen, but on constructing the future sustainable system, so that we are at least capable of immediately switching over when enough destruction occurs to show people what is being talked about here.

I'm somewhat surprised with the goals for some pledges. The US emits a little over 6 billion metric tons and even without any change to its policy, would remain at that same level. China is already emitting more than twice that amount (13 billion metric tons) at a far more significant rate of increase, and even with implementation of its pledge, would continue to increase its CO2 emissions by 2-4 billion metric tons, not even slightly altering its emissions had it not been part of the Paris agreement to begin with.

A provocative question arises about the survival value of human intelligence as currently practiced. The conventional hubristic view is that humanity, if challenged with evidence of an existential threat, will exercise its collective intelligence to rationally define the problem and then devise and implement an effective solution. But, despite the overwhelming scientific consensus, there is huge resistance to accepting the reality of the climate problem. We find this within an investor class with ownership interests in the fossil fuel status quo, a political class with aversion to espousing controversial programs, and a befuddled and fearful populace that finds the implications of climate change so horrifying that it eagerly accepts any nonsense which makes the problem disappear. Even among those who accept the reality of the problem, there is no agreement about how to deal with it and little appetite for making the disruptive economic and technological changes required to address it. The Paris Accord was a temporary feel-good political moment only made possible by its purely voluntary nature and non-specificity as to effective approaches. It is thus hard to avoid the conclusion that human intelligence, when driven by individualized fear and greed, offers little in the way of evolutionary value. In the long term natural selection may well diminish the influence of fear and greed in human affairs, but much chaos and suffering will occur before that happy day arrives.

Unless we start ridding ourselves of the climate-denying dodos in The White House and Congress, we will certainly experience catastrophic environmental events that that will put all humanity on the path to go the way of the real dodos. The Trump adminsitration's "Drill baby, drill" and "Dig coal baby, dig" anti-climate change policies are "crimes against humanity" that have put short-term greed above long-term need. The environmental clock is running out and everyone who loves their children and grandchildren must act to reduce their carbon foot-print. The Trump Titanic has struck the environmental iceberg and the rising temperature, melting icecaps, and rising sea levels are creating mass extinctions that, if not reversed, soon may include us all.

What’s in a word? It turns out that, well, everything. The Paris Agreement was the best solution to this issue. Even if the scientists and Liberals are simply crying that the sky is falling, and the conservatives continue to say it’s all a delusion, still the accord would have been good for all. But then it happened. ‘… the signatories SHALL …’ was changed to ‘…the signatories SHOULD …’, and that is what Obama and the rest of them signed, an optional, maybe maybe not, do it if you feel like it, or not, no one can enforce it but boy would we be tickled pink if it happened, ‘deal’. It is of no surprise that no one is caring to do a thing about it, why should they? This was all for show and tell and no one took it seriously. Want to make a change? Have real agreement, signed as ‘… the signatories SHALL …’, and make it a stipulation that they cannot get free money from the USA unless they actually do this. After a few knocks and politicos not getting their bread and butter for a few months, even those countries will line up and get behind this. Reason and logic means nothing to them, so hit them where they hurt, their pocket, since that is the only thing that seems to make people move nowadays.

The world can't meet it's climate goals. We need to face that and start planning for the consequences. 7 billion people are not going to change fast enough to save us. Time to face some really inconvenient truths instead of wringing our hands about no one is complying with their pledges.

Each time I read climate news, each update seems more dire and disheartening than the last. At this point, considering the current state of the U.S. government, it looks like we'll be left with two potential rays of hope. First, market forces coalesce to see the acceleration of the fall in production prices for solar, wind, and battery storage. Network effects and explosive progress in efficiency may prove to power a much quicker electric vehicle revolution than previously forecast. Second, a more unfortunate take. Significant progress has been made surrounding several theoretical geoengineering projects that could be undertaken to blunt the effects of increasing atmospheric carbon. Governments seem wholly inadequate to address climate change in a meaningful fashion, and unless the market economics of the first scenario take place, I fear we will have no choice but to take drastic steps to cool the planet toward the mid-century.

Most media coverage continues to miss the greatest contributor to greenhouse gasses: Animal Agriculture (meat and dairy). In 2009, Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang (Livestock and Climate Change) concluded that livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions. We will not even get close to emissions goals without addressing the Animal Agriculture issue. It’s time to stop ignoring this scientific fact.

China and India are two of the biggest sources of CO2 and they perversely have made commitments which show continued growth in their emissions. The EU and the US in contrast committed to real reductions. No wonder Trump feels his Nationalistic predisposition is reinforced by the intransigence of these countries who put their continued economic growth ahead of those of the rest of the world. In this case he is correct. It would make sense to give a break by granting more generous terms to developing parts of the world to minimize poverty and avoid starvation. Granting China and India free passes for continued explosive growth all the while existentially polluting the entire globe makes no sense. Meanwhile our "trade war" is being fought for all the wrong reasons. While they determine a stark future for mankind by polluting with CO2, we are worried about our dollar balance of trade. China needs to recognize now that it has the second largest economy it is required to behave responsibly and refocus its economy toward more renewables. This will ultimately devolve to China's and the Chinese peoples benefit. In the long term no country can grow and prosper in a world impacted by climate change.

Read this, from MIT: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system/ Here is the kind of thing that is needed. The US should establish a new branch of government to fight climate change by reducing emissions, with a structure and funding similar to the military, the president to be the commander in chief, with powers to conscript citizens to service and to commandeer facilities and resources. The US should then establish alliances with other countries as allies in the fight, who would set up similar military structures in their countries, with all members of the alliance to work together and coordinate the joint efforts, as happened with the allies in WWII. The attitude of the countries aligned in the fight towards countries not participating would be that not participating is not an option. There would be no effort to preserve a "peacetime economy". The priorities would be to replace the fossil fuel economy, replace it with renewables and safe nuclear, electrify.

The goals are inconsequential. The costs are not. I love earth and am green. But we need to be practical. If you want an example of the impact on quality of life, look at France. They pay the equivalent of $6.95/gallon of gasoline. The worst polluters- China and India, have no goals on the Paris accords and are unwilling to meet any obligation as well.

The paleoclimate record indicates that a rise in temperature of just 1.5-2 degrees C commits the system to an eventual 6-9m of sea level rise. Recent work in glaciology concerning hydrofracturing of ice shelves and marine ice cliff instability indicate that a large fraction of that 6-9m of sea level rise could arrive within the next 100 years. 1968 An American glaciologist, John Mercer, warns that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is inherently unstable, and that the rate of release of its ice into the ocean might prove catastrophic, and that the collapse might begin in 50 years. 2014 Two independent teams of scientists report the WAIS is likely retreating irreversibly 2016 A paper by Pollard and DeConto reports new numerical ice sheet models, which for the first time can both replicate the high sea levels of the Pliocene and accurately track observed glacial flow rates, and which reduced the expected collapse of the WAIS to decadal time scales.

A few actions that I think can move the needle, beyond consciousness of a personal carbon footprint: (1) withhold donations from any non-profit that doesn't pledge fossil-fuel divestment from their endowment, and tell them why; (2) put pressure on politicians to adopt strong stances on carbon policy, and reward those who do with donations of time and money; (3) show up to every (local) march and rally and act of civil disobedience possible to make sure we keep awareness on this issue; (4) call out cable and network news for their failures to accurately and routinely report on the issue - including telling them never to invite on climate change deniers (5) challenge friends and family members to consider this THE most important issue in their minds as they consider political action in the upcoming years (6) in every conversation, make the point to argue that the best posture for us to take is the most risk-averse - because the worst thing that happens if we take action is far less problematical than the worst thing that could happen if we do nothing.

The problem with the Paris climate agreement is that there is no effective way to coerce states into meeting their target goals. The reality is that international institutions have been unable and unwilling to solve issues whose worst effects are far into the future. Why would a domestic leader risk political support by implementing potentially costly and unpopular climate reforms? The answer is simple, they will not. Additionally, it is unlikely that developing countries will curb their fossil fuel usage, as they have far more immediate concerns. The minister of energy in India has brought up good points in the past, essentially why should India worry about climate change when a large portion of their population lacks access to clean water and electricity. Also he addressed the fact that Western nations were able to industrialize with fossil fuels a century ago, and now want to force restrictions on those same fuels in the future. Hardly a fair thing to ask. The sad truth is that the international system will be unable and unwilling to meaningfully address this problem, barring any revolutionary change in the way that states function. It is too difficult to incentivize alternative sources of energy, and too many countries seek to reap the short term benefits of potentially devastating fuels.

Negative emissions are baked in to any survival plan at this point. We need to transition off of fossil fuels AND remove enormous amounts of carbon in the process, using all the tools available to us: direct air capture and sequestration, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, enhanced mineralization, soil carbon sequestration, and more. No one in the mainstream press is talking much about negative emissions. We need more reporting on it.

At a time of near population, migration, and climate crises the US turned the wrong way. People had come to not trust government to create a better world. The comfortable elites had oversold their definition of progress in the digital, global age, a definition that did not call for redistribution or systemic change. Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, may have said it best: “No one’s really told us government is a good thing for a very long time”. It is as if “liberals have absorbed, like second-hand smoke, the right’s contempt for public action”. We have institutions and somewhat arbitrary arrangements that systematically fail a lot of people and amply rewards others. If fossil fuel lords can prevent a carbon tax in Washington State, what are the chances nationally. We are also just plain too short-term and hungry to sacrifice for the long-term existence of this beautiful planet on which we evolved because it was already perfect for us. So what to do, what to do. Whatever we can to reduce the population. Everybody wants security, if not luxury; there just have to be fewer of us. Invest in renewable energy; it is cheap enough now, the knowledge is ours, but the investment must be immediate and huge.

The world will never meet "its climate goals."