Emissions from economic growth undermine international progress on climate change, University of Washington study says

A decade ago, nearly every country in the world adopted the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the rise in global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. Member nations are required under the legally binding treaty to submit every five years their climate action plans, or Nationally Determined Contributions, that detail the voluntary actions they commit to take to cut their carbon emissions. 

The treaty couldn’t have come at a more urgent time. Last year was Earth’s hottest year on record, including the first year to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial levels. Still, the Paris Agreement has allowed countries to make some modest progress on cutting emissions and slowing the arrival of the 2 degrees Celsius tipping point that experts warn could trigger irreversible and catastrophic climate change impacts. 

But a new study led by the University of Washington found that those carbon-cutting gains are not great enough to offset the environmental costs of global economic growth, which has risen sharply over the past decade. The study also projects how Pres. Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement for a second time may affect the collective, international effort to fight climate change. Adrian Raftery, a professor emeritus of statistics and sociology at University of Washington, joins us for more details.