The Data Behind the Paris Climate Accord

On December 12th, 2015, 196 nations voted to adopt a historic climate agreement. Its goal? To limit the global rise in temperature to �well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and [to pursue] efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.� The agreement has been lauded as a triumph of international policy, public involvement and work between developed and developing nations. President Barack Obama applauded the strength of the agreement and many have commended the proposed commitment of upwards of $100 billion a year.

However, many critics point to the lack of binding rules and enforcement as a debilitating weakness of the plan. Even worse, the World Resources Institute put together all estimates of the effectiveness of each nation�s stated goals and not one scenario results in a temperature rise less than 2 degrees.¹

Other analysts point to continually low prices of fossil fuels as the largest roadblock to implementation. FiveThirtyEight used a study by Christophe McGlade and Paul Ekins² to visualize just how much fossil fuel would need to remain unburned in each major region to maintain temperatures as outlined in the Paris Accord.³

So are the goals of the Paris Accord realistic when the data is investigated heavily? That remains uncertain. However, the impact of a global focus on climate change cannot be ignored � it is quickly becoming one of the major policy issues on the international stage.

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1 http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/11/insider-why-are-indc-studies-reaching-different-temperature-estimates^?
2 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v517/n7533/full/nature14016.html^?
3 http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-paris-climate-agreement-would-be-a-great-first-step-if-this-were-1995/^?