There is just no accounting for climate change.
This statement is not figurative, in the way ‘There’s no accounting for taste’ is figurative. There’s literally no common accounting for what nations in the Paris Agreement are doing to fight climate change. And it’s causing headaches for anyone trying to figure out what’s actually going on as world leaders gathered for the White House climate summit last week.
The confusion begins with a 2011 diplomatic breakthrough. Developed and developing nations had been locked in a stalemate for two decades over who would do what to fight global warming. Developing nations, which gained access to modern energy decades or even centuries after the West, argued that the climate problem was the rich nations’ creation and therefore theirs to solve. Through four presidents, from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama, the U.S. held a bipartisan position that every country had to do something.
Which country has the most ambitious climate goals? msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
April 21, 2021
The US will aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, Biden administration officials said on April 20. The announcement comes ahead of a global climate summit on April 22-23, which officials said would include 40 heads of state, including China’s Xi Jinping in what will be his first meeting with Biden.
The new goal, if met, would put the US on track to meet Biden’s longer-term goal for emissions to reach net zero by 2050, which is essential in order for global warming to stay within the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It doubles the pace of the previous target set by president Barack Obama, and is among the most ambitious goals set by global leaders in terms of relative total emissions reductions. New UK and EU goals announced this week remain more aggressive on both an absolute and per-capita basis, according to BloombergNEF data (the new goals are 78% below 1990 levels by 2035 for the UK, and 5
No G20 nation has put policies in place to meet their Paris pledges: BNEF rechargenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from rechargenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
“The high-level pledges over the last year, in particular, have been impressive with major economies such as the EU, Japan, South Korea and China all promising to get to ‘net-zero’ emissions or carbon neutrality at some future date,” said Victoria Cuming, head of global policy analysis at BNEF.
“But the reality is that countries simply haven’t done enough at home with follow-through policies to meet even the promises made more than five years ago.”
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