Paris climate agreement 'extraordinary'

The Paris climate agreement is an extraordinary achievement. It codifies the long-term goal of keeping global temperature increases below 2°C. It also sets a more ambitious aspirational target of capping global warming at 1.5°C degrees.

But this more ambitious target will be beyond our reach within a decade or two at current rates of fossil fuel use around the world.

Beyond how achievable the goals are, and at what cost they can be achieved, they are aggressive and consistent with minimising the dangerous interference of human activities on the climate system.

Read what CSIRO Scientist, and Executive Director of Global Carbon Project, Pep Canadell, and a Professor of Earth System Science at Stanford University, Rob Jackson, have written on The Conversation - “The Paris climate agreement: the real work starts now.”