More democracy: A second chance for climate politics

By Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies

Image: Arnaud Bouissou/COP Paris/CCO 1.0

Achieving ambitious global temperature goals appears increasingly implausible but the Paris Agreement, agreed in 2015, nevertheless offers hope by promising a more democratic climate politics.

Hope was high when the Paris Climate Agreement was adopted 2015. Under the agreement, countries pledged to keep global warming well below two degrees Celsius. Five years later, the situation is sobering: Global emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate-relevant gases continue to rise. In an article in Science, Mark Lawrence and Stefan Schäfer of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) argue that the centralized approach to addressing global warming has failed and only greater democratic engagement can reanimate global climate politics.

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