The Paris Accord Promised a Climate Solution. Here’s Where We Are Now.

The PA was nothing more than a photo op for pols and others who wanted to virtue project. It wasn't serious and anyone who thought it was anything more than a vain and lame attempt by Obama et al to create a legacy, then they weren't paying attention. I'm skeptical re global warming being anything more than normal variation that scientists and activists have latched onto for career and political purposes. But if it really is a threat, you'll never get the citizens of the world to join hands and sing kum ba yah, and do anything requiring sacrifice to address. What individuals can do is consume less. Shrink your house, your car, your commute...buy locally. Quit flying except in cases of extreme necessity (hint" jaunting off to Europe isn't necessary) - then agitate for nuclear power. Now all of that in the US and Europe combined won't do much vs the growth in emerging economies. And it isn't really fair to say to Africa, India, China, etc that sorry old buds, can't allow you living at our level for now. Wait until we've got solar and wind scaled up -- then you can party down. That won't cut it.

This article fails to emphasize that the single most important part of the Paris Agreement was its unanimity. That was to be the basis for continuing work to get carbon dioxide production down. There were always going to be benefits to cheating, so unanimity of purpose was necessary to go forward. Once we became cheaters in chief, the process became much harder, to the point where it is a real task to put the pieces back together. The agreement, which took many years of work, was a major achievement. Its destruction was an act of terrorism against the world’s population—us included.

Informed scientific journals quoted in recent Financial Times reports and in the Economist (approx August) reported that Paris Agreement was never able to meet the need to cap temperature rise to 2 C. IN FACT, the Paris Agreement (1) requires CO2 sequestation from the environment and there remains no means to do this at an industrial scale (2) establishes 3.6 C as the upper limit of temperature rise. The real issue remains personal responsibility. persons of all political stripes are looking for government leadership instead of trading in their combustion engine vehicles for hybrids and electric vehicles. Solar panels, if one owns their home and lives in a relatively sunny region, provide a 12 - 15 % ROI if one contracts with a local vendor ($2.25 - $2.85 / watt after all tax benefits). Low E glazed windows also are tax rebate eligible and save energy. IF Americans would personally take charge the oil and gas companies would have to reduce production. Specific to countries such as China and India, we must vigorously press our government to take financial punitive actions against them.

“The political will to move forward” does not, in general, exist. Political leadership can see only as far as the next election cycle it faces. The people who that political leadership is supposed to represent, in general, can see only as far as their next paycheque. This is not to denigrate either only to point out that It is rare indeed to find leadership or people who are willing to make changes which may be uncomfortable today in favour of improvements & preservation of the indeterminate future.

Too many people Using too many resources Producing too many things And too much Pollution And too much Trash.

The Paris Agreement, supported by the world’s leading nations, agree to keep the global temperature between 1.5C to 2C, albeit the ocean and land animals are already suffering from a 0.5C increase. The additional 0.5C warming can result in over 10cm of sea level rise and thus, endangering coastal towns and island nations. Currently, the ocean is facing increased levels of ocean acidification and lower levels of oxygen due to climate change. I agree with what the author is saying and definitely disagree with Trump leaving the Paris Agreement, especially given the fact that the U.S is one most influential nations worldwide. This is because the health of the ocean is fundamental to regulating the planet’s temperature and maintaining the balance in the food web. As a whole, the planet as a whole coexists with one another: there is a sense of connectivity between the land, ocean, and the atmosphere whereby one affects the other.

A shorter title could be "Trump Was Right About Paris Accord". The truth is, we are entering into a solar minimum, which is already reducing temperatures around the world. And the scare tactics about more floods, droughts and wildfires, etc. are just plain false. All extreme weather events are down as compared to norms. The wildfires in CA were due to poor forest management and environmentalists not allowing tree cutting near power lines. The US has led the world in reducing emissions, even though we got out of the Paris Accord. The worst offenders have been China and India, and yet, they were exempted from the Paris Accord. This article just reinforces how stupid the Paris Accord was, and how right Trump was.

Tomorrow never comes until it’s too late DJ Shadow

How are you surprised that no one is abiding to a voluntary (VOLUNTARY!) agreement?Every climate expert warned that Paris was useless 3 years ago, but the politicians and the media were happy to pat themselves on that back saying that “fixed” the climate issue and then get back to business as usual.

How did we get here? Simple: check The Boiling Frogs Experiment. And youtube Guy McPherson. Deadline for life extinction: 2026 ... the 6th Earth extinction.

The difficulties associated with large infrastructure change will continue to be a problem which will prevent action on anthropogenic climate change. Replacing fossil fuels is difficult as other sources of energy are not up to the task—despite what the occasional headlines imply. The laws of physics, unfortunately, define the limits of alternative sources. Those limits will ensure a too slow a turnover of energy sources on the planet.

It is a law of ecology that an organism with no limiting factors to population growth will expand until involuntary limits are encountered - in our case, poverty, refugees, environmental collapse, war etc. It remains to be seen if humans can become the only exception to this rule. We do have some unique knowledge and introspection. All the technologies to transition to a sustainable green economy exist now. We can choose to have a garden of plenty or a poisonous desert. But this will require a majority of humans understanding a problem of this scale and acting in concert. "Small chance of success? Certainty of death? What are we waiting for!"

At the end of the day, the Paris accord, like Kyoto, was nothing more than an acknowledgement that we have a problem. There was nothing enforceable, and the called for voluntary reductions were clearly inadequate even if met. Pointing the finger of blame at others is the tactic of someone who is not interested in doing anything.

Every generation since Lucy has degraded and exploited the environment in some manner or another. Nature decays and destroys with epidemics, extinctions, and climatic episodes with and without our interference. Our generation is no exception to this short history nor are we currently equipped to change the weather, cure many diseases, or stop over population. Education and technological innovation will cope as best it can and hope and hopelessness will endure for now. Homo sapiens will evolve and adapt and eventually perish but who is to say whether nature cares about us or not. Are we merely a temporary conscience of our own deaths and the ultimate demise as we witness the sun burn away and eventually extinguished?

This will not get better until one of the big players (EU, USA or China) start imposing a carbon tariff on imports from countries that are not meeting their Paris goals. The status quo is killing us

How did we get here? Answer: There's more money to be made by destroying the Earth than by saving the Earth. However, the Earth will be here with or without us on its surface.

I'm disappointed we couldn't even meet the climate goals written by oil companies.

Here’s what we can tell our kids and grand-kids: Yeah, we know about climate change but we’re not really doing anything about it because it would cost money. You’ll just have to clean up our mess yourselves, but you’ll still visit me in the old folks home, right?

How did we get to this point? Donald Trump is president, that's how. Trump's too ignorant and stubborn to listen to scientific evidence. We've elected someone without even the minimal qualifications to be president. Trump's not qualified for the job intellectually or emotionally. A key aspect of Bob Woodward's book "FEAR" is we from hear from people on Trump's staff and in Trump's cabinet again and again that Trump will not listen to reason, cannot be persuaded by evidence. When presented with facts he doesn't "like", Trump just ignores the facts or he abuses the person presenting the facts. At one point, exasperated with the repeating "Groundhog Day" arguments he's had with Trump about trade deficits, economic adviser Gary Cohn asks Trump "Why do you believe what you believe?" And Trump replies "I just do. I've believed this for thirty years." Millions of people ask themselves every day why a percentage of the American electorate voted for this man and continue to support him in the face of serious delusion and dysfunction - and evidence that he isn't concerned with the welfare of the majority of Americans - he is concerned only with his little hardcore of supporters. May we learn from this awful lesson. The tragedy is the earth is being further harmed while we have to wait for the opportunity to right ourselves.

After the great flood that God destroyed all life, except for the life on Noah's Ark.God promised never to do that again. So what's all the fuss about Global Warming.Who would you believe the scientists that believe that Fossil fuels will destroy our Planet, or God that said he will never again destroy life on earth? God of course, now don't we all feel better, about Coal & other Fossil fuels. Thank God for Trump & other reactionaries.

The questions and concerns about the economic impacts of reducing carbon emissions are valid and difficult to address if each issue is isolated. However, a revenue-neutral, market-based Carbon Fee and Dividend policy avoids those difficulties. The fee would start low and steadily increase, giving all fossil fuel industries time to make investment decisions that protect their future viability. A Border Adjustment tax would force carbon pricing to be adopted by our trading partners worldwide. The Dividend would inject increased consumer spending into the economy to build growth. As pricing shifts, we would see increased innovation and research into renewable energy sources. All it takes is for the people of this country to demand a clean energy future. Write your Member of Congress today!

The root cause of all global environmental problems including any effect of humans on the climate of the planet is overpopulation, but there is no leadership to address it. As the population increases from 7.6 to some 10 billion carbon-generating human heaters this century, neither incremental increases in per capita energy efficiency nor any financial schemes will have any significant impact on our ongoing environmental disaster. The industrial activities required to support even the present population ensure a future of toxic pollution, disease, birth defects and genotoxicity, violent competition for resources, and massive social upheaval. Humans have chosen quantity over quality; the results are already emerging.

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...

"From shipping to fast food to insurance, companies are setting their own targets to reduce carbon footprints." Meaningless in itself. Total consumption should be the metric, not per unit consumption. "Solar and wind energy is expanding rapidly." Also irrelevant. Don't tell us what solar and wind are doing; tell us what coal, oil and natural gas are doing. Total fossil fuel use is what matters; if solar and wind don't reduce the burning of fossil buels, they are no solution. The fact is that we must decouple GDP from the well-being of our citizens. One way to do this: the Department of Labor can change the definition of overtime pay as anything over 20 hours per week. Couple that with a living wage and universal health care, and living wages which could be subsidized by the federal government. We have the money, much of which is currently bloating the DoD. The transition will take a few years to fully implement. In addition, the next transportation bill must reverse course by stopping sprawl subsidies and fully funding all the public transit that is a necessity in a lower-carbon future.

"The Trump administration pointedly refused to embrace the United Nations’ scientific report, siding with three other major oil- and gas-producing countries — Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — to block a resolution in Poland to “welcome” the report." The United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia -- over and over again. Time to define these countries, or at least their governments, as the new "Axis of Evil". The targets aren't being met because nobody is really serious about meeting them. Capitalism, unrestrained and unbridled is still the only engine for the majority of the world's economies and it increasingly requires unrestrained consumerism, untameable transportation needs, and unmitigated grinding down of the less than elite. Meanwhile, several times a year, the elite meet to decide what the rest of the world should do about the fact that their unrestrained greed is destroying the planet. It's very nice that the media of the world thinks having a go-to professor at an elite university will keep us all informed about climate change, but don't ask that professor what to do about it. He or she is living a life of privilege that depends on the current economic and sociopolitical system and won't be sacrificing for the planet any time soon, so his or her solutions will treat the poor and middle class as commodities to be moved around and not people. Real solutions in a climate unstable world of 7.6 billion people are complicated. Elite professors and economists are not.

Yes, wind and solar are "expanding rapidly" because of the billions and billions of dollars we are promising to utility companies. In turn they are running over and ravaging rural America which is making people furious. In Iowa alone the wind industry has covered over one million acres in industrial wind installations and we still have traditional power plants. MidAmerican will receive $10 Billion in tax credits and Alliant will receive over $5 Billion. The people who live within these proposed wind installations are fighting them and even one town had the wind turbines removed. A contract offered to anyone who will live within 1/2 mile (2640 feet) of an industrial wind turbine asks for residents to put up with "shadows or flicker onto the Owner’s Property; impact view or visual effects from the Owner’s Property; and cause or emit noise, vibration, air turbulence, wake, and electromagnetic and frequency interference”- Invenergy neighbor agreement 2015. If a company feels the need to have a landowner sign this agreement then their turbines are too close. Wind companies want to build their 500-660 foot turbines 1000-1500 feet from homes or it hurts their bottom line.

The only country that would have been held to the accord would have been the United States. These "Globalist" accord's/treaties" are largely ignored by the countries that sign them. But let the US sign on and when we don't meet the goals we are the bad guys while other countries get away without a wimper from the global warming activists. By the way the US is one of the only countries that have actually reduced their emissions without even being a party to the accord. Others have actually increased theirs.

I don't know if I can post a link to another publication but I found the article at the Economist points out the difficulties in addressing climate change. Perhaps the NYT can explore this further. Until these problems are solved how much will change? https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2018/11/29/what-would-it-take-to-decarbonise-the-global-economy