KEEP IT IN THE GROUND

The Paris Agreement Is Just The First Step In Fighting Climate Change

Antonia Juhasz, December 18, 2015 (Newsweek)

“…Climate change is a global problem that demands global solutions…[T]he most extraordinary accomplishment of the United Nations’s 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) climate talks that concluded in Paris on December 12 was that representatives of 196 nations sat around a table and politely hashed out extreme differences…[Portions of the final Paris Agreement] are legally binding. The most significant is the commitment of each nation to submit—and review every five years—plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as wealthy nations’ pledge to provide by 2020 $100 billion to help poorer countries transition to alternative energy economies. An additional $100 billion will be provided every year thereafter until at least 2025. The agreement also requires a new level of transparency…

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“But there are also plenty of problems…There are no consequences if commitments are not met…[and even if fully and perfectly implemented], they would be insufficient…That financial pledge is also, at best, poorly defined…[And] the words ‘fossil fuels,’ ‘oil,’ ‘natural gas’ and ‘coal’ appear nowhere in the Paris Agreement…The agreement’s lack of action on extraction could have catastrophic effects...[but the] Paris Agreement has mobilized and galvanized the climate justice movement even further…They’ll build off of the successful organizing that, many argue, has led in recent years to mass divestments from fossil fuels, stopped the Keystone oil pipeline, pushed Shell out of the Arctic, shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants and banned a great deal of fracking. The goal now, though, is even more ambitious: end the fossil fuel economy and begin the era of 100 percent global renewable energy.” click here for more

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