Dec 29, 2016 03:02 AM
https://www.wired.com/2016/12/2016-pivot...te-change/
EXCERPT: No nation can fight climate change alone. And few have any reason to do so anyway—overhauling your entire economy is pricey work. So, it was pretty remarkable when nearly 200 countries came together in Paris at the end of 2015 and agreed to take action against catastrophic warming. And for most of 2016, it looked like the momentum from that decision might, just maybe, be enough to save the world.
Then, November: The United States elected Donald Trump as president. The President-elect, who had called climate change a hoax prior to his victory, has since signaled that he will attempt to undo the promises and progress his predecessor made on climate. At this point, it’s impossible to predict how far Trump will go. And, if he does succeed in killing the US’s commitment to global climate treaties, how other countries will react. Rather than speculate, it’s better to understand what is at stake.
The bottom line of that late 2015 climate treaty, called the Paris Agreement, is a collective promise to keep average global temperatures from rising 2˚C above pre-Industrial levels—and have them stay as close to 1.5˚C above pre-Industrial levels as possible. The fact that it took more than 20 years of negotiations for the signatories to agree on this is testament to the difficulty of climate diplomacy....
EXCERPT: No nation can fight climate change alone. And few have any reason to do so anyway—overhauling your entire economy is pricey work. So, it was pretty remarkable when nearly 200 countries came together in Paris at the end of 2015 and agreed to take action against catastrophic warming. And for most of 2016, it looked like the momentum from that decision might, just maybe, be enough to save the world.
Then, November: The United States elected Donald Trump as president. The President-elect, who had called climate change a hoax prior to his victory, has since signaled that he will attempt to undo the promises and progress his predecessor made on climate. At this point, it’s impossible to predict how far Trump will go. And, if he does succeed in killing the US’s commitment to global climate treaties, how other countries will react. Rather than speculate, it’s better to understand what is at stake.
The bottom line of that late 2015 climate treaty, called the Paris Agreement, is a collective promise to keep average global temperatures from rising 2˚C above pre-Industrial levels—and have them stay as close to 1.5˚C above pre-Industrial levels as possible. The fact that it took more than 20 years of negotiations for the signatories to agree on this is testament to the difficulty of climate diplomacy....
![[Image: PARRISH_4823_Fig-1_rgb-1024x362.jpg]](https://eos.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/PARRISH_4823_Fig-1_rgb-1024x362.jpg)
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![[Image: 502376952.jpg?itok=vA-H3TyB]](http://www.citymetric.com/sites/default/files/styles/nodeimage/public/article_2016/01/502376952.jpg?itok=vA-H3TyB)
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