Nothing to Bind Them
So why then was there no legally binding,enforceable greenhouse gas reduction target?Look back at what happened at the previous conference in Copenhagen,when that had been the goal.With that failure in mind,the dicision was made that this time,rather than risk hitting another dead end so publicly,it would be better to play it safe with a neatly phrased,non-committal system.
Such an idea had been kicking around since the Warsaw COP in 2013:intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).Put simply,prior to the talks in Paris,every country was invited to put forward what they plan to do about climate change,and how they plan to cut their emissions post-
2020,and this would then form the basis of the negotiations.In other words,the parties could say,"here is our best effort and as long as it's not enforceable,I don't mind adding our name to a published."
There is also the problem that this system makes the dangerous assumption that we actually have figured out a percise link between atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and the global temperature responses we see!The reality is that if you ask any credibal scientlst,they will tell you that when it cimes to simply understanding-let alone perdicting-future temperatore thresholds,it's still pertty much a massive guessing game.Just throw self perpetuating feedback loops like permafrost melt into the mix and you have uncertainty that the best climate models can only estimate.