The Earth Faces A Climate Reckoning. So Does The Plan To Save It

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S DECIsion to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change isn’t the only obstacle facing the global effort to stem temperature rise.

- Justin Worland

From unchecked deforestation to difficulty financing clean-energy projects in the developing world, the global effort to achieve the targets in the Paris Agreement appears to be falling short even as the issue remains a top priority outside the U.S. The reason for the gap is simple: weaning the world off the fossil fuels that have driven centuries of growth is proving harder than anticipated.

Climate scientists, policymakers and diplomats hope to come up with a road map to address that challenge when they gather in Katowice, Poland, next December for the annual U.N. climate conference. The gathering, officially billed as a stock-taking exercise, is an opportunity for diplomats to assess whether countries are doing enough to stop the planet from warming to dangerous levels.

In Paris, countries agreed to work to keep temperatures from rising more than 2°C (3.6°F) by 2100. That’s the approximate temperature at which scientists say the planet will begin to experience the worst irreversible effects of climate change: sea-level rise that destroys coastal communities, extreme heat that renders parts of the globe unlivable and agricultural disruption that drives widespread food shortages.

The 2018 conference comes only three years after the Paris Agreement, but diplomats say that’s enough time to look for signs of progress. The affair is part bureaucratic (scientists and negotiators poring over technical documents) and part political pageantry (government ministers and senior officials promoting their country’s work). Some 20,000 people in total are expected to attend the two-week conference, including delegations from virtually every nation, including the U.S.