Laurent Fabius concluded thirteen fierce days of negotiations to the cheers of delegations from 195 different countries, almost the entire world leaders then undertook, from Paris, to contain the global warming “clearly” below + 2 ° C, and if possible + 1.5 ° C, compared to the pre-industrial era.
Five years after, this Saturday, December 12, many heads of state and government officials are participating in a virtual anniversary summit. Incomparable with the emblematic COP21, the occasion which was organized by President Emmanuel Macron among others, has the main objective of “raising the climatic ambitions of each other”, in the words of the Élysée.
The Paris agreement is believed to have helped limit the damage in terms of global warming, but world leaders are still not up to the challenge, in the words of the UN Secretary-General. And the health and economic crises which stem from the coronavirus are not likely to allow the optimism of climate advocates.
The pandemic agreeably has resulted in a historic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but it’ll have an “insignificant” effect on climate change, according to the United Nations who said the world is moving to 3 degrees of warming.
“We are at 1.2 ° C and we are already observing climatic extremes and unprecedented volatility,” according to Antonio Guterres on December 2 from Columbia University in New York.
Heat waves, serial hurricanes, mega-forest fires, floods and the increase in devastating events are signs of global warming, which has just experienced the hottest decade in history.
The last few years have also been marked by several diplomatic battles and the shattering withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreements, but they have also been those of the overwhelming new findings of science underlining the urgency to act.
The figurehead of the Fridays for Future movement, ecological activist Greta Thunberg has also drawn up a scathing assessment of the action of the leaders of the planet before they meet again this Saturday.
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“Distant and hypothetical goals are set, great speeches are made, but when it comes to the immediate action we need, we are always in complete denial,” she lambasted, in a video published Thursday evening.
