Nicaragua Didn ’t Sign the Paris Agreement Because It Didn’t Go Far Enough

If President Donald Trump decides to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, as he is now expected to do, America would find itself in unfamiliar territory. Of the 197 nations in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, only two declined to sign the accord: Syria and Nicaragua. Syria has been embroiled in civil war for six years, and was not expected to sign the deal, in which nations committed to setting targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Nicaragua, though, took a public stand against the 2015 agreement — and it was for the opposite reason President Trump has given in his pledges to withdraw. While Trump believes the deal’s restrictions are too onerous for the U.S., Nicaragua’s leaders felt the deal did not do enough to protect the climate. Here’s why: It’s not binding Paul Oquist, Nicaragua’s representative at the 2015 talks in Paris, has called the climate deal a “path to failure.” One of the primary reasons is that the deal is not binding — in other words, there are no punishments for countries that fail to live up to the commitments they make as part of the deal, other than “naming and shaming” them, as critics have put it. It doesn’t go far enough Oquist also objected to the agreed-upon goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, noting that the emissions targets, as well as the voluntary nature of the agreement, would likely result in increa...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change onetime Source Type: news