Brendan Mackey. How good is the Paris Agreement?

December 15, 2015

Finally, we have a new international climate change agreement to guide action post-2020. The Paris conference delivered on its promise thanks to skilful diplomacy by the French, a general sense of good will among nations, dedicated national delegates working through the night more often than not seeking consensus language on difficult issues, along with numerous high-level backroom machinations. The question now of course is just how good an agreement is it and by what criteria should it be judged? The philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr warned against allowing sentimentality, naive thinking or plain stupidity to cloud our judgment on prospects for...