Member-only story
Saving The Climate Without A Political Solution
What a decentralised model for climate action might look like
Unfortunately, it is almost time to give up hope that the 2015 Paris Agreement will turn out any different from the litany of past well-meaning climate agreements. Climate Action Tracker, a group of scientists who study emissions, found that vanishingly few of the 194 countries who have signed the Paris Agreement set targets that were commensurate with the targeted temperature goal of 1.5 degrees. Worse, most countries are not close to meeting the lowly targets they set themselves.
The United States’ withdrawal was an unnecessary blow to the prospects of the agreement, but the rot runs much deeper than Donald Trump’s White House. Countries the world over have proven unwilling or unable to curb emissions, no matter whether the proposed framework is binding (as with the Kyoto Protocol) or non-binding (as with the Paris Agreement).
In light of this tragicomic history of failure, it is long past time that we reconsider the orthodoxy around climate action. Politicians have failed to achieve anywhere near the level of progress required to stave off climate catastrophe. According to researchers from the Global Carbon Project, 2017 and 2018 saw progressive increases in global CO2 emissions (1.6% and 2.7% respectively)…
