Road to 5**：Paris Agreement
【明報專訊】The issue of climate change is an urgent one. The Paris Agreement was adopted on 12 December 2015 by member states in the UN climate summit to replace the Kyoto Protocol. The agreement is aimed at limiting global warming caused by greenhouse gases.
Signatory states of the Paris Agreement agree on the following:
．Keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2℃ above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5℃
．Achieve a balance between anthropogenic (人為的) emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of the 21st century, limiting greenhouse gas emissions to levels that trees, the soil and the oceans can absorb
．Evaluate different countries' contribution to emission reduction every five years
．Switch to renewable energy and allow rich nations to help poor nations through a ''green climate fund''
The agreement is not binding and is supposed to be pursued by different nations in their respective frameworks. If nations fail to reach the goals, the only solution is renegotiation. As of today many nations have failed to reach the goals.
COP25
After marathon discussion in the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25), the conference came up with a moderate agreement, which merely said that there was an ''urgent need'' to narrow the scope of emission commitments and the targets set in the Paris Agreement. Environmentalists criticized the agreement as a betrayal to the 2015 Paris Agreement and demanded that nations make bolder commitments to emission reductions. António Guterres, Director General of the UN, expressed disappointment at the agreement.
Third Heathrow runway ruled illegal
Heathrow Airport (希斯路機場) is the busiest airport in Europe. Every year it handles around 80 million passengers. There was a lot of discussion about whether a third runway should be added to the airport. The UK government approved a construction plan in 2018 amid criticisms about noise, air pollution and carbon emissions.
On 27 February 2020 the Court of Appeal ruled that the British government's plan for Heathrow expansion failed to take into account the commitments of the Paris Agreement, and therefore declared the plan illegal. The ruling is regarded as a victory for environmentalists and local governments against the plan. The ruling was also the first that was based on the Paris Agreement, which could encourage environmentalists in the UK and other parts of the world to challenge high-emission construction plans.
Translated by Terence Yip
[通通識 第652期]
