(Newswire.net — December 13, 2015) — Le Bourget, France- Climate talks in Paris have finally finished with the first climate change agreement after almost twenty years.
Dangerous levels of global warming will hopefully be prevented due to international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. At around 7.30PM yesterday, in the convention centre hall, the representatives of 200 nations started hugging and kissing each other, and cheering when French foreign minister Laurent Fabius declared that after many sleepless nights, the pact was finally adopted.
John Kerry, US secretary of state said: “This is a tremendous victory for all of our citizens; it is a victory for all of the planet and for future generations. I know that all of us will be better off for the agreement we have finalized here today”.
This new pact will be called the Paris agreement and it will require averting climate change every five years from every country in the world. What is also included is a goal of limiting global warming to ‘well below 2C above pre-industrial levels’ and ‘pursue efforts’ that the temperature increase should be limited to 1.5C.
In order for these goals to be achieved, countries, as the draft proposes, should try to reach “a global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century”.
The agreement doesn’t provide a clear outline of what that means, but the experts agree that after 2050, CO2 can’t be emitted more than the forests can absorb.
The agreement is welcomed by some, but there are those who are very displeased with it. “It’s like going to a good restaurant, you may not like all the dishes, but in the end it leaves a nice taste in your mouth”, said Guardial Nijar, the Malaysian delegate who is the head of the Like Minded grouping of developing countries.
On the other hand, The Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental think-tank and its federal policy director Erin Flanagan said: “On their own, provincial commitments will not ensure Canada does its fair share to reduce emissions consistent with the science of global warming”.
Naomi Klein, Canadian environmentalist commented that countries would not be able to limit global warming to 2C or less, let alone meet the more ambitious 1.5C target. She also commented a clause ruling out any liability for climate change: “I’ve never seen anything like this, where countries are literally fighting for their very survival and because of that desperation they’re being asked something that they really need a lot, which is their right to seek compensation later on. And I think Canada backing that position is immoral”.
Many people protested at the Eiffel Tower, saying the pact is not strong enough for the planet to be saved and that it should have been done more to make governments stop using fossil fuels that are mostly to blame for warming of the planet.