People In The Know

The world has reached a new agreement on a draft climate change deal after nearly two weeks of negotiations in Paris. The agreement was adopted without any objection by the 196 parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.The agreement calls for limiting global temperature increases to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but has an ultimate goal of keeping temperature rises below 1.5 degrees. It also has a goal of setting aside 100-billion US dollars a year for developing countries from 2020. Each country's progress, it is suggested, should be reviewed every 5 years.Next, nations must ratify or approve the deal individually. It will only take effect if it is approved by 55 countries. Those countries' greenhouse gas emissions must represent 55% of the world's total.The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was formed in 1992. Nations were committed to combating climate change, but without a detailed action plan until 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol se