Paris Climate Change Agreement to End Fossil Fuels

On Saturday, December 11, 2015, a landmark climate change agreement was reached in Paris. The countries of the COP21 summit of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change pledged to limit global warming “well below” 2 degrees and to not exceed 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial levels if feasible. 

French President François Hollande, right, U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon, second from left, and others celebrate the agreement

The agreement means that the world will have to essentially move to 100% clean energy as soon as possible. The goal is to be releasing zero greenhouse gas emissions by between 2050 and 2080.

Nearly 200 countries are participating in the pledge. For the small nation of the Marshall Islands however, the agreement isn’t just about diplomacy; it’s about survival. A temperature rise of 2 degrees could flood the entire nation. Selina Leem, an 18-year-old from the Marshall Islands attended the conference wearing a button with a phrase that summed up the necessity of the pledge, “1.5 to stay alive.”

Selina Leem at the COP21 summit in Paris

“This agreement is for those of us whose identity, whose culture, whose ancestors, whose whole being is bound to their lands,” she said in the final meeting of the summit. 

• climate change
• COP21
• global warming
• greenhouse gases
• paris