Eight years after world leaders approved a landmark agreement in Paris to fight climate change, countries have made only limited progress in staving off the most dangerous effects of global warming, according to the first official report card on the global climate treaty.
Many of the worst-case climate change scenarios that were much feared in the early 2010s look far less likely today, the report said.
The authors partly credit the 2015 Paris Agreement, under which, for the first time, almost every country agreed to submit a voluntary plan to curb its own planet-warming emissions.
Under the Paris Agreement, countries vowed to limit the rise in average global temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels and make a good-faith effort to stay at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Earth has already heated up roughly 1.2 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times.
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Paris, staving, United States, South Africa