At a landmark summit in Parislast year, nearly 200 countries adopted an agreement to cut their greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of dramatically reducing the severest effects of global warming. The agreement took weeks (some would say years) of negotiation, but it was just a first step. Now, each country must sign, and later ratify, the Paris Agreement. The signing begins next week in New York.
At every stage, there’s the danger of countries dropping out. If the signing and ratifying isn’t finished before the next United States president takes office and a Republican is elected, for example, the U.S. may never ratify. After all, the two leading Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, both deny the reality of man-made climate change.
Source: Pacific Standard magazine