This article was written by Thomas Linzey, the Executive Director of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, and was published in the news-weekly, In These Times.

Nations around the world have been meeting for more than two decades to solve the looming problem of climate change. During their most recent gathering—held last November in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh—they intended to iron out some of the glaring issues remaining from the much-lauded 2015 Paris Agreement.

In Paris, countries agreed on a goal to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This is a threshold that scientists generally agree is the point of no return. Yet, shockingly, almost everyone agrees that the Paris accord—even if completely enforced—would fail to achieve that goal. MORE…