The Paris Climate Conference (COP 21), or 21st Conference of the Parties of United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which took place in December 2015, was an important step towards a new scheme of dialogue and global collaboration.
The “Paris Agreement”, as was called, will replace the current Kyoto Protocol as of 2020 and lay the foundations for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through voluntary commitments submitted by each of the signatory countries.
The United States and China emit 38% of greenhouse gases. Together with Europe, Russia, India and Japan, they reach 64% of global emissions.
The richest 10% of the population is responsible for around 50% of global emissions.
On the other hand, the poorest half of the world’s population (around 3.5 billion people, who live mostly in the countries most vulnerable to climate change) generates only 10% of global emissions.
How to demand the same obligations from a developing country, which had marginal contributions to global warming and needs to increase the use of energy to promote growth, than to an industrialized country that based its development during the last two centuries in scarce and polluting resources?
Climate change clearly exemplifies one of the main global problems, of unpredictable scope. The increase in Earth’s temperature will accentuate the disruptive climatic phenomena, the food shortages and massive migrations.
The Paris Agreement highlighted the importance of global agreements when the problems affecting the world do not recognize geographical limits or borders and require high levels of political and economic cooperation between countries with divergent interests.
