The Korea Herald
The world has just signed one of the most important agreements in history. More than just an environmental pact, the Paris climate change agreement will kick-start a global energy revolution.
Nearly 200 nations in Paris have signed on to an agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that the world has to go on a carbon diet, signaling an end to dirty fossil fuels and deforestation, and giving green energy a big boost.
Every year, we pump far more carbon dioxide into the air than the planet’s forests and oceans can absorb. Emissions from industry, cars, land clearing and agriculture are creating one giant carbon bubble which is heating up the planet, supercharging our weather and causing seas to rise.
We need to burst the carbon bubble by changing the way we produce energy to power our economies.
We must also become far more efficient in using that energy. This will help get nature back in balance and steadily bring carbon levels down, over decades, to less dangerous levels.
For the targets in the Paris pact to be achieved, the world will have to decarbonize by the end of this century, with emissions peaking before 2030 and then falling sharply.
Sounds scary? Not really. We’re already making progress.
