How will the Paris Agreement impact the Wabash Valley?
WABASH VALLEY (WTHI-TV) - President Biden signed an agreement on his first day in office to get the United States back in the Paris Agreement. But what exactly is the Paris Agreement? And how will it impact us locally?
The problem, greenhouse gas emissions. It is scientific fact that greenhouse gases warm our planet.
Storm Team 10's David Siple spoke with Dr. Winter, a professor of the earth and environmental systems at Indiana State University, to see what these accords could mean for us here in the Wabash Valley. He showed Siple the graph below that shows the amount of greenhouse gas emissions for each economic sector in the U.S.
Winter says…
“That’s what all the whole Paris Accord is about. The globe getting together to decide how we are going to tackle the problems. We have to decrease our emissions by 7.3%.”
So, the Paris Agreement makes each of these sectors accountable for their own emissions. Those sectors involve companies and cooperation’s here in the Wabash Valley.
And Winter says the answer to how the Wabash Valley may be impacted, may not be fully known yet since climate talks are now back on the table.
“Industry, electrical, heat production, agriculture, forestry, building, each one has to lower. Everyone has to contribute. We just can’t have one sector and not the other one doing it. So if each one contributes, it’s doable.”
There are 189 countries in the Paris Agreement around the globe. The main goal that the Paris Agreement sets is to limit the increase of global temperatures to no more than roughly 3.6 degrees. Those talks officially begin on February 19th, 2021. That’s when the United States will officially be entered back into the Paris Agreement.