We got the deal, now we actually have to do something. Starting on Monday.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/13/paris-climate-talks-15c-marathon-negotiating-physics
---
you don’t get to go drilling or mining in new areas, even if you think it might make you lots of money. The Arctic will have to be completely off limits, as will the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming. The pre-salt formations off Brazil, and the oil off the coasts of north America too.
You’ve got to stop fracking right away (in fact, that may be the greatest imperative of all, since methane gas does its climate damage so fast). You have to start installing solar panels and windmills at a breakneck pace – and all over the world. The huge subsidies doled out to fossil fuel have to end yesterday, and the huge subsidies to renewable energy had better begin tomorrow. You have to raise the price of carbon steeply and quickly, so everyone gets a clear signal to get off of it.
At the moment the world has no real plan to do any of those things. It continues to pretend that merely setting the goal has been work enough for the last two decades.
Politicians (in all countries worldwide) can do some big macro things by setting rules, regulations and putting processes in place. And by investing public money in big infrastructure.
So as a start this should be penalising fossil fuels instead of subsidising them. Taxing fossil fuel use and using the funds generated to change the game and to push the market. And subsidising renewables to encourage deployment.
Now.
Not in 2020 or 2030 or 2050.
Now.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/13/conservatives-energy-green-cuts-policies-paris-deal
Conservatives’ attacks on wind, solar and other ‘clean’ technologies has undermined ability to meet CO2 targets, experts say
The government has been warned that a major U-turn in energy policy is required if it is to avoid charges of blatant hypocrisy following the commitments it made in the Paris climate deal this weekend.
With 500M refugees around the world it feels even sooner.