3 things to know about climate change agreement

By Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Some 186 countries submitted national plans to reduce their emissions and use more renewable energy. These plans are central to the climate agreement. But at the moment, scientists say the plans will result in average global temperatures rising by between 2.7 and 3.7 degrees Celsius.

This didn’t slip by the negotiators. The agreement lays out a system under which countries submit updated plans – using the best technology as it becomes available – to improve upon their previous plans at five-year intervals. And that means: more talks down the road.

TREES AND TECH: The agreement says that global emissions will have to achieve “balance” between output and withdrawal by between 2050 and 2100. They call the withdrawal “sinks,” based on natural and artificial processes that pull carbon from the atmosphere.

Forests can be carbon sinks because they use carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis, which is why tree-planting programs are a popular way of offsetting emissions. Much of the other technology, called carbon capture and sequestration (CCS for short), is only in its preliminary stages and has yet to be proven in a large-scale.

At the moment, that means emissions will have to drop dramatically over the next 35 years.

ALL ABOUT THE MONEY: Developing countries have said that, in some cases, their ability to curb emissions by switching to renewable energy sources will require support.

Often, when countries are trying do other things – like fighting extreme poverty and making sure people have enough food – spending more money on energy sources that can be more expensive than fossil fuels isn’t possible.

Recognizing this, and the need to pour investment into renewable energy technologies (and share the technology that exists) in order to bring its price down, developed countries agreed to commit 100
billion dollars per year by 2020. The agreement will increase that number before 2025.

Also on the money point, one more thing know: the hot issue of carbon pricing was mentioned as way to incentivize emission reduction. But it was left to governments and “non-party stakeholders” to adopt such measures as they saw fit.