Pragmatic but 25 years late

摘要

Michael Jacobs is senior adviser at the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, Paris, and a researcher at University College London. From 2007 to 2010 he was special adviser to the then UK prime minister Gordon Brown. Many scientists say the Paris deal should have included quantified targets on the size and timing of emission cuts to meet its 1.5 ℃ and 2 ℃ goals. Why were they left out? I think it would have been a very bad idea to have those targets in there. It is much betterto have a clear end goal, and a five-year review cycle to get us there. This is a bottom-up process. The architecture of this agreement is to have strong global goals, a nationally determined process of commitments, and then come back every five years and say: "We didn't do enough, let's have another go." That's the only way of doing it in this world, There is no way to impose commitments on countries, it can't be done.