WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th September, 2018) The United States will miss its climate change targets set by the Paris Agreement by about a third, a new report by an advocacy group run by US Governor of California Jerry Brown and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg showed on Wednesday.
"Using a purpose-built integrated assessment model incorporating thousands of aggregated data points from across diverse non-federal actors, the report finds that current commitments and market forces will cut economy-wide emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, roughly two-thirds of the way to America's pledge under the Paris Agreement, which called for reductions of 26 to 28 percent over that period," Brown and Bloomberg's advocacy group, America's Pledge, said in a press release announcing the release of the report.
But the report maps out ways for cities, states and businesses to accelerate emissions cuts to come closer to meeting the Paris Agreement goals, despite President Donald Trump's decision to quit the accord.
These pathways include setting and implementing more stringent renewable energy procurement policies, accelerating the phase out of super-polluting refrigerant gases, and repairing methane leaks from natural gas pipelines.
The report states that the 10 strategies, if implemented over the next three years, could drive US emissions down to 21 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. If more cities, states and businesses leaders took more action by 2020, emissions would fall by 24 percent in 2025, which is within range of the "Nationally Determined Contribution" set by the Obama Administration under the Paris Agreement, the release said.
The report, "Fulfilling America's Pledge," was unveiled at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco.
The dangers of climate change became more pronounced a year ago after Trump announced that the United States, one of the countries producing the largest amount of carbon emissions in the world, would be withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Washington formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal on August 4.
The Paris Agreement, signed by more than 190 parties, was adopted within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December 2015 and came into force in November 2016. The main goal of the Paris accord is to tackle climate change by keeping the rise in a global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
