Along with millions of people who care about our climate, over the past couple of weeks we have encouraged delegates of the COP21 climate proceedings in Paris to take strong, decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What came out of Paris is a historic moment in the fight against climate change: an agreement that will help fulfill our obligation to provide our children and grandchildren with a safe future. For the first time, the world’s countries have agreed to act on climate change and be held accountable for those actions.
Not only does the Paris Agreement put the world on the right path when it comes to protecting our environment, it also protects public health and sets the stage for the development of new renewable energy technologies that will kick America’s clean energy economy into overdrive.
That said, this historic agreement — while a vault forward in the right direction — by no means marks the end of the climate crisis. While 196 countries have submitted plans to reduce emissions, many analysts calculate that even if all pledges are met, the world is still headed toward 2.7 to 3.5 degrees Celsius of warming. This is well above the 2-degree maximum that most scientists say will prevent the worst impacts of climate change — with highly respected climate scientists such as James Hansen strongly urging a threshold of no more than 1.5°C. These may seem like abstract numbers. Yet with just one degree of warming over the past few years, consider the level of historic drought, flooding, super-storms, property damage, and global displacement of refugees that we have experienced around the globe.