The Paris Climate Accord for Humanity & America’s Verdict to Trump it – a Review RP Vol. X No. VI, CXXXI, MMXVII

The Paris Climate Agreement

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The Paris Climate Accord for Humanity & America’s Verdict to Trump it – a Review

Public Lecture Res Publica Litereria – RP Vol. X No. VI, CXXXI, MMXVII

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Abstract

The Paris Agreement has a bottom up structure in contrast to most international environmental law treaties which are top down, characterized by standards and targets set internationally, for states to implement. Unlike its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, which sets commitment targets that have legal force, the Paris Agreement, with its emphasis on consensus-building, allows for voluntary and nationally determined targets. Recently, President Trump announced that he would pull the US out of the Paris climate accord. When the US announced that it was withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, it justified the move the bottom line is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States. Is it?

The US currently has less than 5% of the world’s population, but emits nearly 15% of the world’s greenhouse gases. If fairness means that everyone’s slice of pie should be the same size, it is the US that is being unfair, by grabbing a slice that is three times bigger than it should have. India, by contrast, has 17% of the world’s population and emits less than 6% of its greenhouse gases, so it would be entitled to almost three times its current emissions. Many other developing countries use an even smaller fraction of their per cap­ita share of the atmosphere. So on the three most plausible principles of fairness that can be applied to climate change – equal shares, need, and historical responsibility – the US should make drastic cuts to its greenhouse-gas emissions. The historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change that was unanimously adopted last December in Paris will be a win for the continent

Humanity stands at a watershed of our creation and evolutionary history. We have challenged God and Nature equally to a point where women and men are digging their graves with the near possibility of the disappearance of human kind. We should change our consumption patterns.

Key words: climate change, climate change adaptation, Paris Accord, 

See review lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/33536651/The_Paris_Climate_Accord_for_Humanity_and_America_s_Verdict_to_Trump_it_a_Review_RP_Vol._X_No._VI_CXXXI_MMXVII

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