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The Paris Agreement Is The Magna Carta On Fire

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PARIS, Dec. 12, 2015—To put this moment in perspective, the question has been whether consciousness on earth has evolved sufficiently for a species to decide collectively to leap beyond its reliance on fire.

Fire, which has warmed and empowered us for a million years, which has rendered foods comestible and icy realms habitable, has also exacted a cost, slowly and silently, that became evident to abstract knowledge just a few decades ago and to our senses much more recently than that.

Tonight, in a vast convention center cobbled of bare plywood in a scrappy suburb northeast of Paris, the delegates of 196 nations decided collectively, after 20 years of negotiation, to leave fire behind.

The Paris Agreement covers more than fire, of course—countries are required to account for non-combustion sources of greenhouse gases too, such as livestock and landfills, refrigeration and electrical transmission—but what better indicator of the import of this moment than a decision by the earth's most calamitous species to phase out, over the next few decades, most of its combustion of fuels for heat and power.

Pollutants from any combustion that remains will have to be captured or offset.

"This will be a major leap for mankind," French President François Hollande told delegates before they received the draft to approve.

"The agreement will not be perfect for anyone if everyone reads it with only his or her interests in mind. But it will be a success for everyone, because what brings us here together is the planet itself. Faced with climate change, we have a common destiny."

And then, at 7:25 p.m., French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius banged the gavel, and the decision was made. Now the challenge arises to carry it out. You can find the vital details on how that will happen in my previous story examining the final draft.

In sum, the Paris Agreement maintains a long-held goal to hold global warming "well below" 2º C, but aspires to 1.5º. It calls for achieving a balance in the second half of this century between emissions of greenhouse gases and their removal.

That goal will require countries to reduce emissions almost to zero, and then to offset the remainder with carbon capture, reforestation or other mitigating technologies.

The agreement requires countries to assess their progress and escalate their ambition every five years, and to submit to expert review. It creates a legally binding transparency system to verify actions and reassure investors.

The Paris Agreement encourages the formation of international carbon markets that will reduce the cost of renewable energy and green technology, spur innovation, and raise funds to bring those technologies to the developing world. It also calls on the developed world to contribute $100 billion to that effort by 2020 and a minimum of $100 billion per year thereafter.

Those billions, culled from public and private sources alike, will help the most vulnerable countries adapt and will set developing countries on a low-carbon pathway by financing renewable energy and other green technologies.

"With these elements in place, markets now have the clear signal they need to unleash the full force of human ingenuity and scale up investments that will generate low-emissions, resilient growth," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the closing of COP 21. "What was once unthinkable has now become unstoppable."

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