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CoolHand [soylentnews.org] writes:

Following late-night negotiations and years of anticipation, delegates from 195 countries have agreed to curb the worst effects of climate change by limiting warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. The agreement, the result of an international climate summit outside Paris and approved December 12, aims to be the world’s roadmap to kicking the fossil fuel habit, with a possibility of an even more ambitious 1.5-degree goal in the future.

Even with the agreement in hand, political obstacles and technological challenges remain to reining in global warming. Individual countries will have to swap greenhouse gas‒emitting energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas for low-emission sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power. Along with yet-to-be-realized technologies that pull greenhouse gases from the air, these changes are meant to reduce net carbon emissions to zero in the second half of the century. By 2020, countries will release their long-term plans to cut emissions. Every five years, countries will reassess their progress and tweak their carbon-cutting goals.

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