The Paris Agreement, also called the Paris Climate Accords, is a treaty put into place on November 4, 2016 as a result of 190 nations meeting since 2011.
This is a landmark agreement for world leaders to promise strengthening global climate efforts. It established the mechanisms in which to hold countries accountable.
But, is the Paris Agreement good? On the surface and in theory, it looks okay. But, when you dig deeper into the details of the agreement, one would almost think its establishment intends to fail miserably. There are many reasons for this such as vague wording and the fact there are no clear cut penalties for countries who don’t comply.
There’s another aspect to the Paris Agreement too: that it forces countries to relinquish their sovereignty and submit to a review board. Plus, there are no incentives, no citizen participation and it’s all done without the consent of the public.
A Brief Overview of the Paris Agreement
There are several layers to the Paris Agreement. It sets common goals for the treaty along with commitments and expectations by member countries.
This includes nationally determined contributions (NDCs) from member countries along with contributions offered by companies, states, cities and civil society organizations.
These NDCs come with a monetary and written promise for how a country, business or other organization plans to help reduce problems associated with climate change.
For instance, the US pledged to reduce emission levels by 2025.
Every five years, countries must refresh their contribution and their pledge. Previous pledges should be more robust and ambitious than the previous ones.
Therefore, member countries must commit themselves to regular reporting of their progress and implementing their NDCs.
It Isn’t Legally Binding
This isn’t a legally binding obligation, and this is where controversy begins to rear its ugly head.
Accountability comes through an enhanced transparency framework in which all countries must submit an inventory of their emissions.
This will accompany any other information for progress tracking. These are subject to independent review by experts and fellow governments.
Although COP24 delegates adopted a comprehensive rulebook on December 15th, 2018, the operational details are vague and place equal responsibility on every country that’s a part of the agreement.
They have “built-in flexibility” to accommodate the capacities of varying countries and their sizes. But this isn’t defined in solid terms.
Problems with the Paris Agreement
On the outset, the Paris Agreement is introducing a benign worldwide form of communism.
History doesn’t shine a good light on communism, which forces people into destitution for the “public good.” While most of the agreement is voluntary, it outright subverts the will of the people of those nations.
Lack of Citizen Participation
Then, there’s the problem of the leaders who sign onto such an agreement. None of these people are forthright, upstanding and honest individuals. Indeed, most of them are bona fide liars, swindlers, criminals and con artists.
Look at any signatory and then check out the background on their history.
What’s more, no citizen of any country voted for these delegates to decide such things for them and their nations. These leaders are doing this without the consent of the governed.
The “Science” behind Climate Change
Additionally, everything about climate change mostly comes from a computer simulation, not actual science.
Much of the Paris Agreement text discusses climate change under the guise of “settled science.” This has to be one of the biggest deceptions of our time.
Science is never actually “settled” unless you can replicate the exact conditions of the experiment/theory repeatedly and get the same result. No one has done this with climate change and they won’t be able to either.
Never at any point does the history of climate change come into the equation.
If it does, it only bolsters the narrative put forth by the United Nations (UN). There is no clear-cut explanation for climate change and no real scientific proof for it; just a lot of platitudes, slogans and propaganda. Neither everyone agrees on every aspect of climate change nor what the actual cause is behind it.
Taxpayer Money; Empty Promises
Also, countries are forking over millions in taxpayer money to an international organization with the promise of helping to save the environment.
While there isn’t a penalty for not complying now, who’s to say that won’t change in the future? Plus, it could be a bunch of empty promises that will never see fulfillment by that country.
The “name-and-shame” structure of the Paris Agreement cannot hold up in its current state. When one country has access to review the pledges of other countries, it will eventually create steeper ambitions in a game similar to cat-and-mouse.
No Guarantees or Incentives
There really isn’t anything in the text of the Paris Agreement to show that these efforts will achieve anything. In turn, there isn’t an incentive for countries to comply.
For instance, after the signing of the treaty in 2015, India turned around and announced an uptick in coal production.
While they didn’t sign the agreement, they were present for the meeting and did make accolades toward wanting to help reduce the potential effects of climate change.
At this point, someone should have spoken up or shined a light on India for doing this, but everyone shrugged their shoulders and ignored it.
Final Thoughts
In short, the Paris Agreement isn’t good. It could be if the text was clearly understood and if we could trust the people signing the treaty on our behalf.
This comes on top of the obvious elephant in the room that we have no idea if these efforts will do anything positive against climate change.
But as it stands now, none of this will be a benefit to regular citizens.
They will not only flip the bill for the pledges, but they will also be subject to comply with promises made.
Plus, there’s no guarantee these pledges will avert catastrophe. In fact, some scientists estimate that it could make things worse.
