The Paris Agreement is bunk and ought to be ignored, even if one assumes human CO2 emissions are driving climate change.
The Paris Agreement hopes to reduce CO2 output. So what are the goals and projections?
“…the estimated aggregate greenhouse gas emission levels in 2025 and 2030 resulting from the intended nationally determined contributions do not fall within least-cost 2 ˚C scenarios but rather lead to a projected level of 55 gigatonnes in 2030, and also notes that much greater emission reduction efforts will be required than those associated with the intended nationally determined contributions in order to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2 ˚C above pre-industrial levels by reducing emissions to 40 gigatonnes…” page 3 PARIS AGREEMENT
The latest numbers for CO2 emissions I have are from 2014, at 35.7 gigatons Page 30 & 31 Trends in Gloabal CO2 emissions 2015 report Emissions have increased from 22.6 gigatons in 1990 to 35.7 gigatons in 2014. Here is temperature data for that same time period Note between 2001 and 2014 when annual CO2 output increased by nearly 10 gigatons the temperature rise is almost flat.
In other words, according to their own metrics, their plan is going to fail and will require further effort (spending) But if we simply maintain our current CO2 output, we’re good. So what's driving worldwide CO2 emissions increase? What does this agreement actually do? See figure 2.2 on page 13 Since 1990 all the major contributors to CO2 output are nearly flat, except China. Even India shows only modest increase. In fact China accounts for half of the worldwide CO2 increase since 2001, 5 gigatons. Note that Chinas 10.6 gigaton annual CO2 output far exceeds even their "per capita" allotment and accounts for over 25% of worldwide CO2 output. The Paris Agreement does nothing to address this, in fact China is going to continue to increase CO2 output until 2030
Why would anybody agree to this? It’s insanity! If CO2 output is actually going to ruin the earth, why would we allow the highest and fastest growing contributor of CO2 to continue to increase output? And it isn’t because China is developing country; no other region or country is increasing their CO2 output at anywhere close to the rate China has over the last 15 years. India for example releases about a quarter of the CO2 as China. The Paris Agreement sets out to put the entire world at a disadvantage to China, little wonder China seeks to be a “leader” in climate change. We have the goddamn documents!