Paris-anniversary climate pledges bring progress but fall short

IT WAS MEANT to be a marathon day in which all governments promised new, bigger, better efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and rich nations offered more financial assistance to poorer ones, in order to help them decarbonise their economies and adapt to a changing climate. But America has temporarily left the UN climate agreement and Australia, Brazil and South Africa were struck from the guest list for not offering enough. In the end, about 70 national leaders attended a virtual “Climate Ambition” summit on December 12th. And at the event’s close, Alok Sharma, Britain’s business minister and president of next year’s COP26 UN climate talks, asked rhetorically whether enough had been done to fulfil the promise of the Paris climate agreement. “Friends, we must be honest with ourselves,” he said. “The answer to that is currently: no. As encouraging as all this ambition is, it is not enough.”