"Paris Climate Deal Is Too Weak to Meet Goals, Report Finds"

"As negotiators meet in Morocco to hammer out details of the landmark global climate change accord reached in Paris almost a year ago, the independent International Energy Agency warned that the nearly 200-nation deal was too weak to meet its avowed temperature target.

The I.E.A.’s annual World Energy Outlook stated that reaching the Paris targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was possible, and that meeting those targets would slow climate change. Yet the agency’s estimates also showed that the result of those reductions was not likely to keep the temperature increase beyond preindustrial levels “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, as hoped. Instead, the report’s authors estimated, meeting the national commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions would still allow temperatures to rise 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Meeting the most ambitious temperature goal discussed at the conference would be next to impossible, the report stated: “The transformation required for a reasonable chance of remaining within the temperature goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius is stark.”"

John Schwartz reports for the New York Times November 16, 2016.