1st June 2018 marks the date of the United States President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement last year. It was estimated that with the US gone out of the picture the other countries might pull out from the agreement as well, but the exact opposite happened as the US exited the agreement new countries like Syria and Nicaragua signed the climate change deal. That leaves the US the only country who has stepped out of the accord.
Following President Trump’s decision he was faced with protests inside and outside the country, where the people spoke against his decision. The president is nullifying every attempt made by the Obama government to limit the greenhouse gases which are responsible for the increase in the temperature on a global scale. And now with the rise of industrialization all across the East Asia (India, China, Middle East) they are adding on to the greenhouse gases on a huge scale.
The Paris accord requires that after every few years, there will be negotiations and ambitious goals on reducing the carbon emissions. The agreement needs 55 countries putting out at least 55% of the world’s total carbon emissions. The Agreement aims long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to aim to limit the increase to 1.5°C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change.
The agreement’s main goal is to reduce the carbon emission so that the world doesn’t heat up at the rate it is doing right now. If the rising rate of heat continues up then the best case scenario would be the drowning of the Earth as the polar ice caps would melt and fill the oceans of the world which are already on a constant rise since the age of industrialization and the worst case scenario would be the death of life as the Earth would heat so much that it would create countless problems not just for the humans but the animals as well.
Recently the Paris accord has been like a two edged sword, for the rich countries who have already made advancements in the fields of economy, fossil fuel use, infrastructure, energy use, resources and industries so they have already emitted much carbon and greenhouse gases when they were making advancements but for the other poor countries who are still leagues below the first-world countries in the fields of advancements in the said fields they are tied down in the accord to limit their emission. So their advancements have stopped considerably as now they have to take into account the emission levels of their said industries.
If this continues up and with the US gone from the accord other rich countries might want to pull out from the agreement as well. After the US withdrawal the Paris agreement is set to fail, as the US is the second-largest emitter of Carbon after China. And if we see the recent reports there is an inclination of China towards the withdrawal side. If that happens the Paris agreement will fail and the world will face the consequences. To keep global warming in check, the world as a whole must reach zero emissions before the end of the century.
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