Paris Agreement: description, features and consequences

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

The problem of global warming is so often considered at various levels that it has ceased to be something frightening for ordinary people. Many do not understand and do not realize the catastrophic situation that has developed with the Earth. Perhaps that is why for some a very serious event passed by, which concerned the settlement of issues related to minimizing the amount of harmful emissions resulting from anthropogenic activities.

It took place back in 2015 in France, its result was an agreement known to the world as the Paris Agreement. This document has a rather specific wording, which is why it has been criticized more than once by environmental activists. Let's see what this agreement is and why the United States, one of the main initiators of the conference during which the discussion of the agreement took place, refused to take part in this project.

Invisible atomic attack

In 2017, scientists made a shocking conclusion - over the past twenty years, as a result of human activity, as much energy has been released into the atmosphere as multiple explosions of atomic bombs would have released it. Yes, it was explosions - not one, but many, many. To be more precise, every second for 75 years, atomic bombs equivalent to those that destroyed Hiroshima would have to be blown up on the planet, and then the amount of heat released would be equal to what a person produces, "just" doing his economic activities.

All this energy is absorbed by the waters of the World Ocean, which is simply not able to cope with such a load and heats up more and more. And at the same time, our long-suffering planet itself is heating up.

It seems that this problem is far from us, residents of safe regions where tsunamis are not terrible, because there are no oceans nearby, where there are no mountains, and therefore there is no risk of landslides, powerful floods and destructive displacements of tectonic plates. Nevertheless, we all feel unstable, atypical weather, and breathe nightmarish air, and drink dirty water. We have to live with this and hope that the will of politicians will be enough for serious accomplishments. The Paris climate agreement could be one of them, because it is based on the voluntary consent of those in power to save our planet for posterity.

Ways to solve the problem

Perhaps the biggest challenge to clean the atmosphere is carbon dioxide emissions. Its sources are themselvespeople, and cars, and businesses. The Paris Agreement on climate change is aimed at supporting the convention signed earlier at the UN with a similar theme.

The difficulty with condensing CO₂ is that it hardly dissipates on its own. This gas does not decompose, it cannot be released artificially, and, according to scientists, its amount that is already in the atmosphere will reach a normal level that does not affect the climate of the planet if a person completely stops producing it. That is, factories, factories, cars and trains must stop running, and only then will the process of negative emission of the budget CO₂ begin. It is unrealistic to fulfill such a scenario, which is why the Paris Agreement was adopted at the forum in Paris, according to which the participating countries undertake to reach such a level of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere at which its amount would gradually decline.

This can be achieved if high-quality barrier systems are created that clean CO₂ emissions from enterprises, replacing fossil fuels (gas, oil) with more environmentally friendly ones (wind, air, solar energy).

Conditionally significant event

The Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015. Six months later, in April 2016, it was signed by the countries participating in the consensus. The entry into force of the treaty occurred at the time of its signing, but it will enter into force a little later, although not in such a distant future - in 2020, beforenow the world community has time to ratify the agreement at the state level.

According to the agreement, the powers participating in this project should strive to keep the growth of global warming at the level of 2 degrees at the local level, and this value should not become the limit threshold for reducing. According to Laurent Fabius, who moderated the meeting, their deal is quite an ambitious plan, ideally to reduce the rate of global warming to 1.5 degrees, which is the main goal promoted by the Paris climate agreement. The USA, France, Russia, Great Britain, China are the countries that take the most active part in the project at first.

The Essence of the Paris Detention

In fact, everyone understands that it is almost impossible to achieve outstanding results in reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Nevertheless, the Paris Agreement was accepted both by politicians themselves and by some scientists with a bang, because it should push the world community to stabilize the environmental situation, as well as suspend the process of climate change.

This document is not about reducing the concentration of CO₂, but at least peaking its emission and preventing further accumulation of carbon dioxide. 2020 is the starting point when countries will need to show real results in improving the environmental situation in their territories.

The governments of the participating countries must report on the work done every five years. In addition, each state can voluntarily submit its proposals and financial support to the project. However, the contract does not have a declarative nature (compulsory and mandatory for execution). Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement before 2020 is considered impossible, however, in practice, this clause turned out to be ineffective, as US President Donald Trump proved.

Goals and perspectives

As we have already said, the main purpose of this agreement is to put into effect the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted back in 1992. The problem of this convention was the unwillingness of the parties to take real and effective measures to prevent global warming. The words once declared on the stands were only loud rhetoric, but in fact, until the moment the Paris Agreement was approved, the countries that have the greatest economic activity, in every possible way slowed down the processes of reducing their carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

The climate problem still cannot be denied anywhere in the world, and therefore a new agreement was signed. Its fate, however, remains as vague as that of the previous treaty. The main confirmation of this point of view is the assertion of environmental critics that the new convention will not be effective, because it does not prescribe absolutely no sanctions against those who violate the recommendations adopted under the Paris Agreement.

Member countries

The initiators of convening a conference on the problemclimate change has been a few countries. The event took place in France. It was hosted by Laurent Fabius, who at that time served as prime minister in the host country of the conference. The direct signing of the convention took place in New York. The text of the original document is kept at the United Nations Secretariat and has been translated into several languages, including Russian.

The main activists were representatives of such countries as France, Great Britain, China, USA, Japan and Russia. In total, 100 parties officially took part in the discussion of this convention.

Treaty ratification

In order for the Paris Agreement to fully enter into force, it had to be signed by at least 55 countries, but there was one caveat. Signatures were needed from states that emitted at least 55% of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in total. This point is fundamental, because, according to the UN, only 15 countries constitute the greatest environmental danger, and the Russian Federation is in third place in this list.

At the moment, more than 190 countries have already done this (the total number is 196), including the USA. The Paris Agreement, which no one had previously allowed themselves to get out of, was announced by the Americans after the inauguration of the new president, causing a lot of noise in the world political beau monde. In addition, Syria did not sign the treaty, and Nicaragua was one of the last countries to ratify it. The President of this state located in Central America, formerlydid not want to sign the agreement, citing the fact that his government would not be able to fulfill the demands put before him.

Hard reality

Alas, no matter how many signatures are on the form of the contract, they alone will not be able to rectify the catastrophic situation in the ecological system of our planet. The implementation of the Paris Agreement depends entirely on the political will of the officials responsible for monitoring compliance with legal standards by enterprises. In addition, as long as the production of oil and gas will be lobbied at the state level, it is impossible to hope that climate change will decline or even decrease.

Russian opinion

Russia did not ratify the Paris Agreement immediately, although it agreed with it immediately. The snag was largely due to the fact that entrepreneurs had a strong influence on the president of the country. In their opinion, our state has already reduced the volume of harmful substances emitted into the atmosphere, but the signing of the agreement itself will entail a serious economic downturn, because for many enterprises the implementation of new standards would be an unbearable burden. However, the Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology, Sergei Donskoy, has a different opinion on this matter, believing that by ratifying the agreement, the state will push enterprises to modernize.

US Exit

In 2017, Donald Trump became the new president of America. He considered the Paris Agreement a threat to his country and its stability, stressing that it was his direct duty to protect it. Such an act caused a storm of indignation in the world, but did not make other world leaders stumble from the goals proclaimed in the document. Thus, French President E. Macron convinced both his electorate and the entire world community that the treaty would not be amended, and the doors would always be open for countries that wished to withdraw from the agreement.