The Paris Agreement is still in its infancy. To its defenders, one of its most important features is that it “was deliberately written to improve over time,” according to attorney Susan Biniaz, who was the State Department’s lead climate negotiator from 1989 through the end of the Obama administration. At its core, the agreement is less a plan than it is a process for countries to assess and update their individual commitments to climate action. Signatories are asked to present more ambitious targets for reducing their emissions every five years, with the next round of plans due at the end of 2020. To build momentum for this ratcheting up, world leaders will meet in New York City on September 23 for a Climate Action Summit, and UN Secretary General António Guterres has asked countries to arrive with “concrete, realistic plans” for strengthening their pledges over the next 14 months. This next stage in the Paris process presents a crucial test: Can countries reconcile their commitments with global goals? The United States will be a nonentity at this fall’s UN climate summit. But the 2020 election is a chance to change the game.
By Zoë Carpenter. The Nation. September 19, 2019.
