Paris Climate Agreement Not Ambitious Enough To Keep Climate 'Safe,' Scientists Shared

In December 2015, 195 nations assembled in Paris to a climate agreement that could help slow the effects of Climate Change on the planet. The agreement was set so that nations could pool together and pledge they cut emissions to help ensure that the temperature on Earth stays "well below" the 2-degrees Celsius increase over the pre-industrial past, or no more than a 1.5-degrees Celsius rise.

Since then agreement was put into place, scientists affirmed that yes, this is the big goal that we should be fighting for. However, according to a recent analysis as reported by The Washington Post, this goal might help avoid grave tipping points in the climate system such as the collapse of East Antarctic glaciers, but then, they could still pose a severe threat to coral reefs and the stability of West Antarctica

The International Energy Agency and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change found that countries' promise to cut their emissions simply isn't enough to keep the world within the "safe" climate range. The analyses suggested time and time again that without more ambitious actions on the part of the individual countries, greenhouse gases will still rise, and warming may still peak at temperatures well above 2 degrees Celsius. In fact, the study, published in Nature pointed out that the pledges outlined in the Paris Agreement will still likely to see global temperatures rise to 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Low-lying island nations are already said to be drawing up relocation plans in preparation for the inevitable - a 3 degree increase in global temperatures could result to a 20-feet rise in sea levels, displacing hundreds of millions of people around the globe.

Thus, despite seeming like a great breakthrough, the Paris Agreement is only just the beginning. While its stunning goals could be achieved, everything basically lies in our hands, and to achieve them, there needs to be a greater unity, and more foresight for the Earth - more that what we're seeing today.