Memo 1: Climate Change and Paris Agreement
To: POL245: American Foreign Policy From: Kelsea Albertson, Dan Curran, Talia Guglietta, Samantha Landry, and Kennedy Muise Date: February 24, 2019 RE: Climate Change and Paris Agreement Executive Summary The Paris Agreement is an environmental accord created in 2015 to address climate change and its negative impacts. The purpose of the agreement is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels while limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees. The make-up of the agreement requires commitment from the major emitting countries to cut their climate-altering pollution. The pact also requires developed nations to assist developing nations in their climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. By doing so, it creates a framework for transparent monitoring, reporting, and ratcheting up of countries’ individual and collective climate goals. Currently,...