At COP26, nations agree to speed climate action, but planet remains off target

WASHINGTON POST • November 13, 2021

Exhausted negotiators from nearly 200 nations struck a deal Saturday intended to propel the world toward more urgent climate action, but without offering the transformative breakthrough scientists say must happen if humanity is to avert disastrous planetary warming. Saturday’s agreement does not achieve the most ambitious goal of the 2015 Paris accord – to limit Earth’s warming to 2.7 Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels. Instead, delegations left Glasgow with the Earth still on track to blow past that threshold, pushing toward a future of escalating weather crises and irreversible damage to the natural world.