Emissions still rising does not mean climate action has failed

The Paris pact catalysed clean-tech advances that are paying off

- LARA WILLIAMS is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change.

Green-technology adoption means that emissions could peak by 2030.

(AFP)

When 196 nations adopted the 2015 Paris climate accord, the UK prime minister at the time, David Cameron, wrote on Twitter: “Our grandchildren will see we did our duty.”

Ten years on, what would those grandkids think? The pact has started to look like a failure. But that only holds true if you're fixated on the end goal rather than the journey. The legally binding treaty aims to limit climate change to “well below 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts to keep the increase close to 1.5° Celsius. It specifies that countries should reach a “global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions” as soon as possible. But carbon emissions and anti-climate sentiments are both on the rise.