According to a scientific study, the United States, which has been a leader in the achievement of the Paris Climate Accord, could miss its’ 2025 target on climate change. The Paris Climate Accord, which Trump has promised to exit should he win the presidential election, sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C. The United States has been recently overtaken by China as the world’s largest emitters, but it still expels more than 6.8bn tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. Even if the United States has made strong efforts to be a leader in this agreement, it apparently does not currently have the right policies in place to meet the target. If it really failed, this could have huge consequences on its position as a climate leader, as well as for the global efforts to fight the damages of climate change. Jeffery Greenblatt, scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, stated, “I wouldn’t disparage the US’s efforts so far, but we need to do more as a nation and globally to reduce emissions. However we splice it, that’s hard to do. We can’t make small alterations to our economy – we need fundamental changes in how we get and use energy.” The targets are ambitious but not impossible; they are just not likely to be achieved with current policies, but the United States could meet them by taking additional measures. “The problem is a political problem and an implementation problem. The US, and the world, needs deeper and sooner cuts,” said John Sterman, director of the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative. In the past years, cheap gasoline and natural gas prices have been the cause of an overconsumption of fossil fuels, and this has slowed efforts to improve energy commitments. “Putting a price on carbon,” Mr. Sterman said, “would be an efficient measure to meet the 2025 target.” The gLAWcal Team LIBEAC project Thursday, 29 September 2016 (Source: The guardian)