Climate justice, decarbonization, adequate funding, human rights, gender, climate refugees ... there are many kpi's that have been left out of the final text "agreement".
In addition, it has opted for the formula with less legal force (agreement) to a dangerously vague and open to interpretations text, in which emission reduction commitments of greenhouse gases are not binding. The review of the commitments will be too late when we are close to having already issued a number of greenhouse gases that would involve exceed the limit of 1.5°K.
Overall this is an agreement of intent without mechanisms to regulate or penalize for noncompliance, but includes important points and gives us the framework for action in a global struggle to stop climate change, giving a key message towards the end of the era of fossil fuels.
So in the agreement two very important points are included:
1.- Commitment to keep the increase in global average temperature "well below 2°K compared to pre-industrial levels, and continue efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5° K above pre-industrial levels"
2.- 195 countries plus the EU intend to achieve quickly reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, according to the best scientific information available in order to "achieve a net balance of emissions of greenhouse gases to be zero in the second half century "
Both points are very important because they make long-term objectives in line with scientific advice and to get CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels will have to be zero by 2050 at the latest.
Furthermore, the Agreement states that countries must improve their commitments to reduce emissions every five years beginning in 2020. Certainly very late and very weak, given that these commitments are not binding and penalty mechanisms and commitments reduction submitted by countries currently lead to nearly 3°K temperature rise.
So with this we enter the area of commitment, responsibility, morality and national policies of each country both the Agreement and its inhabitants, as the most vulnerable countries already suffering frontline change impacts climatic.
We have heard hundreds of countries, including the EU as a whole and in its public statements emphasized that takes little more ambition, so we demand that those words have failed to be reflected in the text and enhance commitments will be reduction of emissions before and after 2020.
Less than a week before the general elections that will give Spain a new government for the next four years, climate action has to be on the agenda of all political agendas and with the agreement of Paris freshly cooked in hand we want to see a roadmap with specific targets and dates from the beginning of his term to ensure achieving the goal of 100% renewable future free of coal, oil and gas by 2050.
The primary goal of decarbonisation of our economies has ended in a vague reference to the need to reach peak emissions "as soon as possible" and "a balance between emissions and anthropogenic sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse greenhouse". That is, the fulfillment of commitments to offset emissions, rather than trust their significant reduction, through a change in the way we produce and consume. In other terms: Would be instead of Will be.
This 31 pages does not include emissions from the bunker, opens the door to accounting tricks in calculating emissions and leaves unprotected struggles as the divestment of fossil fuels and brake fracking and oil shale tar sands.
The "agreement" also maintains commodifications mechanisms of climate enrolled in previous treaties, such as carbon markets, that encourage speculation and politics of the book versus actual efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Nor should provide guarantees for the financing mechanisms. The funding for adaptation to the most vulnerable countries has been relegated to a decision of the summit, not the binding agreement, which enables turning back in the future. Moreover, much of this funding may be used to drive the said false solutions such as geoengineering or carbon capture and storage, which is a major obstacle to the development of renewable energies.
The most interesting elements are only in the preamble, that is, in the declarative part lacking legal force. This is the case of the appeal to "many more efforts to reduce" emissions. This makes the agreement more like a statement of intent than a text to the challenge posed by climate change, in clear contradiction to the origin of the climate negotiations and the direction of the United Nations itself.
World leaders have opted in Paris for the same resource eater model that has brought us to the current situation and leads us to the environmental collapse. It once again shows that many citizens have clear which path to follow while negotiating these frames continuously those voices go unheard and lack the necessary leadership to the greatest challenge of the century.
This is no time to lose arms or to be pessimistic in the fight against climate change. What happened in Paris shows the need to continue keep pressing for the necessary action to be taken against a deal that condemns us from moment to an increase of more than three degrees. It also underlines the importance of empowerment of change driven by citizens against global warming, with thousands of struggles, as articulated against TTIP, fracking and nuclear power. To pollute is still free of charge as no penalties or sanctions are going to be taken into account against partners of this global-legally-vinculant agreement.
A green window has been closed, the door to citizenship, the street and the everyday struggles are more open than ever. Experiences such as organic agroecology, food sovereignty, sustainable mobility and the divestment of fossil fuels will bring out the lack of ambition of political leaders. Only a genuine change in the production pattern and near consumption will effectively mitigate global warming.
