In December of this year, more than 190 nations will gather in Paris to negotiate a global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, laying the foundation to save the planet from what many believe will be a catastrophic and irreversible change in the Earth’s climate. The last time countries met to hash out an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions was in 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark. At that meeting the participating countries (a mere five) agreed to limits of their greenhouse gas emissions—based on a specified target of 2 degrees Celsius global temperature increase—but failed to fully articulate the agreement and make it legally binding. Several studies done after the Accord concluded that the voluntary commitments would more than likely result in ever-increasing global temperatures.
Before the Copenhagen conference, there came the Kyoto Protocol, formulated in 1997. A well written, legally binding agreement, it was never ratified by the biggest polluting nations—including the United States—and no country that signed the Protocol was ever sanctioned for failing to abide by the commitments agreed to.