By: David Miron-Wapner

Compromises leave everyone unhappy. The Paris Climate Agreement is no different. Breaking sharply from long-standing past failures, delay and denial, however, is no guarantee of future success.

Will the “Conference of the Parties21” (COP21) be hailed as the “grand global turning” – away from wasteful reliance on fossil fuels towards the uncharted territory of sustainability?  Or will Paris be seen as just another colossal failure in a string of frustrating international efforts to face the immediacy and enormity of the unseen threat to humanity posed by a warmer world?

I was privileged to be a delegate to COP21 representing an interfaith NGO and to witness its major success and singular achievement – simply garnering a consensus of 195 nations. Yet I fear along with many of the young activists protesting around the world, that Paris may also be an abject failure that barely slows our dangerous trajectory to an unstable climate for generations to come.

No one from all 195 states represented at Le Bourget needed to be convinced of the need to move swiftly, nor about the magnitude of the problem and our common challenges ahead. That was where unity ended. Somehow with extreme global good will compromises seemed to fall into place over critical questions of ambition – 1.5C over pre-industrial levels by 2100, rather than a target of “under 2C”, an increase which likely locks in disastrous impacts. Alongside, transparency provisions were watered down, so too the key issues of enforcement, reporting, verification and frequency of updating INDC’s – each nation’s commitment to emission reductions over varying time frames.

COP21’s internal conflicts between lofty aspirational ambitions to truly confront the challenge, and self-interested nations’ failure to make revolutionary commitments to a new energy economy that might call for sacrifice and political courage, mean that the Paris Agreement at best only initiates a process and creates a precedent for collaborative international action. Political compromise made the agreement non-binding with no way to sanction backsliders and diluted key sections on verification and reporting.

Sacrifice is symbolized by the Inuit. Ice-free Arctic summers that are becoming the norm, may destroy the basis for an entire culture – the cold, the snow, and the ice. The Inuit are true sentinels on the front line of climate instability.  So too with many small islands that are being relentlessly pounded by rising seas.

The lack of political courage and imagination leaves wealth transfer as by far the greatest takeaway from Paris. Committing itself to a $100 Billion annual contribution to a new Green Climate Fund, the developed world for the first time has assumed some measure of historical responsibility for leading humanity to the brink.  Financing will be available for developing nations, particularly in Africa, opening up significant commercial opportunities for international firms in key areas of energy, food security, and water.

Fortunes will be made, primarily by in the developed nations. Solar and other renewables companies will score big contracts to massively deploy photovoltaics and more in Africa, South America and south and east-Asia. Business, a latecomer to this party and one of the key causes of our current dilemma, may thrive, but it cannot do the job alone. Nor can technology, unless and until we fully understand how Earth’s natural life-supporting systems and feedback loops really work.

Over and over, one could hear the metaphor of the unborn generations upon whom will fall the real cost of adaptation and resilience; mainly because of the prosperous North’s refusal to mitigate, that is act immediately to cut CO2 emissions and transition to a zero carbon economy. Future generations may look back and see my parent’s generation as the creators of the problem, my generation as the one who first saw the truth and delayed acting to protect “business as usual” greed and inequity. So we must trust youth to lead us towards a more balanced, healthier and equitable world.

Let there be no mistake – science is and has all along been telling the objective truth. Deniers’ hearts may be in the right place, but they ignore Pope Francis’ teaching and full reconciliation with climate science at their peril, not to speak of their descendants. Many nations, especially the SIDS – Small Island Developing States are already feeling witnessing a life threatening rise in sea levels. Storms’ growing intensity and frequency are observable trends. Research has found that fifty percent of all storms and more disturbing eighty percent of the most severe storms can be link to a changing climate.

Only a united humanity focused on saving our common home can marshal the forces necessary to support the transition to a prosperity-driven (as opposed to our current obsession with endless growth) new energy economy. Faith’s role is to manifest the moral intelligence, ethical principles and hopefulness to guide our way, trusting in the best available scientific information. All inhabitants of our magnificent Earth, are called upon to take personal, community, and national responsibility; to seek greater harmony and balance in their lives between the spiritual and material and commit to supporting a massive global transition. Only then will be able to conclude that Paris was truly a boon to our future.