Talk:Paris Agreement

Plan for improving this article to GA
I'm planning to bring this article to GA level. There is quite a lot to do:
 * I'm discovering quite a few instances of close paraphrasing
 * The article sometimes uses jargon.
 * The article needs updating.
 * There are external links in the body; often primary sources where secondary sources would be better.
 * I think the merge of national communications was improper; it seems to be something under UNFCCC.
 * There is systemic bias towards the US and the EU.

If anybody wants to join the effort to improve the article, I always enjoy collaborating. FemkeMilene (talk) 17:15, 7 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi FemkeMilene, you are amazing!! How do you get all this done with just 10 hours per week of Wikipedia editing (like you said in one of those podcasts). :-) Whereever I look at climate change articles at the moment, you are already busy with them. Brilliant. (I am currently looking at about 50 articles related to SDG 13 as part of this project). One of the things I have noticed for many of the articles is that the leads are often not a very good summary of the article. Often the leads talk mostly about the definition and the history but not much about other sections of the article. I see the same problem for this article. So perhaps towards the end of the upgrading process we should take another look at the lead and try to make it into a good summary of the entire article. What's your view on that? EMsmile (talk) 01:46, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * To be fair, I think the last few weeks I did spend bit more than 10 hours a week Wikipedia. Good point about the lead, I usually don't look at it until I've got a good idea of what the body of the article should say. FemkeMilene (talk) 08:03, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Femkemilene, I am just wondering where we stand with this article now: would you say it's still far off GA standard or quite close now? EMsmile (talk) 03:39, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The only section that is quite far off is implantation implementation, which is just a random collection of studies. FemkeMilene (talk) 07:24, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I've signed us up for a copyedit. The above comment may give an indication why I think it's wise to have my text copyedited. FemkeMilene (talk) 07:31, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I am just wondering where we stand with this, FemkeMilene? Did someone do a copy edit on this article? EMsmile (talk) 12:56, 31 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't remember, but assume so. The GA review was quite thorough, so nothing further needed here imo. Femke (talk) 16:00, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Strange, I completely missed the GA review process. Didn't know that it had already taken place. Was there meant to be a link to the process from the talk page? Let me try to add below the link to the review process so that it's easier for people to see it.

EMsmile (talk) 22:18, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Can't figure out how to do the link properly. You did it somehow on the talk page of sustainability. EMsmile (talk) 22:18, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I am trying to link properly to here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Paris_Agreement/GA1 EMsmile (talk) 22:19, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Readability
By the way, the readability score is still not great - using this tool I get 38 (out of 100). Perhaps attention could be paid to this in future reviews. Not sure if the GA reviewer considered readability as an important factor. Perhaps if it's ever taken to FA status, this aspect could be considered. For comparison, with the same tool the climate change article gets a readability score of 44 - which is very good for this kind of topic. I've worked on a range of articles, e.g. sustainability, and regularly struggle to get the score to higher than say 40 (the sustainability article currently sits at a readability score of 21 - very bad). I wish we had science journalists on tap who could help. EMsmile (talk) 22:31, 31 May 2022 (UTC)


 * WP:BE BOLD! I usually take 45 as a threshold for acceptability (even if many 45+ articles are still too difficult, and an occasional 45- article is sufficiently explained). Usually jargon is considered in reviews, but readability not as much. Our editors are likely more highly-educated that the average readers, so wont notice difficult non-jargon language. With 21, you score lower than your typical scientific article, so that may require an almost full rewrite. Femke (talk) 13:02, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Is the one book mentioned under further reading really special/important?
I am just wondering if this one book that is listed under further reading is so important & special that we should list it here? It feels like a special endorsement, is this justified? I don't know anything about this book. Am just wondering if it was deliberately chosen or just somehow ended up there?:
 * EMsmile (talk) 21:44, 2 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Okay book. No need for discussion here. One book further reading is allowed, but feel free to add one or two for balance. Femke (talk) 12:59, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't want to waste people's time on this issue but I feel it's useful to clarify this here, as it also relates to other climate change articles. I don't see the point in setting up, curating and updating a "further reading" list for a topic that is fast changing and developing and for which plenty of information exists on the internet. As it is, the article has 122 references, many of which would be suitable for "further reading". It also has ten "see also" links. If the book by Teske is useful, then how come it is not used as a source for the article and listed in the references list? So all up I think we (as editors) would save ourselves time by not having a "further reading" list here, and the loss of information for the reader would be minimal. EMsmile (talk) 10:21, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Generally when articles go to FAC, the presence of a Further reading section is queried, for the reasons you mention. If the book adds something not in the article at present, then it should be used as a source, and if it doesn't add there's little point listing it. However, I have not assessed the book in question, and there's no urgency to these things. CMD (talk) 10:24, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

What is Nirosh?
What is the "Nirosh average," noted under the total fossil fuel emissions chart? Is this a typo for "national"? The interwebs are silent on this term. Daniel Lewis, Ph.D. 20:43, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I had a quick look but couldn't figure out what happened there. The caption in Wikimedia Commons is different. Pinging User:Efbrazil. EMsmile (talk) 12:41, 12 December 2022 (UTC)


 * “NIOSH” in the U.S. refers to the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health so perhaps the R is a misprint. —— Shakescene (talk) 14:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks- I didn't write that, never heard of Nirosh or niosh, I don't follow this page, so I just deleted that sentence. Efbrazil (talk) 19:59, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Plan to Abide by the Paris Agreement and Limit Global Warming to 1.5 Degrees C
The Paris Agreement could include a description of the the carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions of the “ideal mathematically average world citizen on track to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C”

The United Nations Environmental Programme Gap Report page XIII states “to get in line with the Paris Agreement, emissions must drop 7.6 per cent per year from 2020 to 2030 for the 1.5°C goal.”

https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/30797/EGR2019.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

We can find out the CO2 emissions of the “ideal mathematically average world citizen on track to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C” by taking the 36.8 billion metric tonnes of CO2 emitted by the world in 2019, putting it into an Excel spreadsheet, dividing 36.8 billion metric tonnes of CO2 by the world's population of 7.6 billion people, expressing it as “pounds of CO2 per world citizen per day” by multiplying by 2205 pounds per tonne and dividing by 365 days per year, and decreasing those “pounds of CO2 per person per day” by 7.6% a year until in 2030 the “ideal average world citizen” is emitting just 12.3 pounds of CO2 per person per day.

Can the “ideal average world citizen on track to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C” emit 12.3 pounds of CO2 per person per day in 2030 and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C?

No, those 12.3 pounds of CO2 per world citizen per day will still capture infrared radiation and lead to more global warming above 1.5 degrees C.

What life styles can people lead and not contribute to global warming and climate change?

What life styles can people lead and respond to the New England Journal of Medicine “Call for Emergency Action to Limit Global Temperature Increases, Restore Biodiversity, and Protect Health”?

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2113200

To restore biodiversity, protect health and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C people must live as hunter gatherers.

To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C in 2030, every world citizen must sequester all of the carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases that they emit. Currently only hunter gatherers have all of the carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions sequestered by the green plants on planet earth.

How many people can live on earth as hunter gatherers?

In his Discover article on agriculture being "the worst mistake in the history of the human race" Professor Jared Diamond writes that it takes about 10 square miles of land to support 1 hunter gatherer. It is possible to take the number of square miles of arable land in each nation and calculate the number of hunter gatherers that that nations can support. Here is a preliminary estimate of the number of hunter gatherers that the following nations can support: Scott B Love (talk) 06:31, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
 * This is not a forum. You can make specific text change suggestions. This kind of content is more related to the article Individual action on climate change. I noticed that you posted rather similar content already at the talk page of climate change in 2021. EMsmile (talk) 21:07, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Re-arranged structure
I've just re-arranged the structure a bit because I felt there were too many main level headings. Also, I think the main level headings should be as generic as possible. The new structure now looks like this (no content was deleted, just moved): Aims Development Parties Content Specific topics of concern (note this heading is not yet great; maybe "cross-cutting issues" is better; or something else?) Implementation Reception and debates

For comparison, the old structure was like this: Development Parties Content Mitigation provisions and carbon markets Climate change adaptation provisions Loss and damage Transparency Implementation and effectiveness International response Litigation EMsmile (talk) 22:50, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Probability of achieving Paris Agreement Goals Infographic
So I did a bunch of research on this that was used in the Paris Agreement wiki page. It seemed kind of off to me at first glance because Greenland was grayed out while it has joined the Paris Agreements. Granted, it joined in 2023, so the map could just be outdated, but I did further research and the entire map seems off.

So I looked into where the source of the map is from, and it looks reputable, but then I looked for where that article got the graphic from and it's this. This is a document covering a programming tool that can be used to more efficiently display world graphics. I don't see any references in this document to where they got the data from, so I assume it's fabricated. Not only this, but I can't find the map that the original article got from this document. So it's not even a fabricated source - it's just not there.

This image is not only outdated, but as far as I can tell, there's no actual source for it. I could very well be mistaken, but can someone double check my work and determine if this is a legitimate image or not? If I'm right, this should be removed quickly or replaced with a more important graphic. ArkiThe7th (talk) 13:17, 6 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Oh, that would be a problem. We took it from this journal paper (compatibly licenced): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8064561/ Could you perhaps contact the authors of that paper and raise your concern about the original source with them? EMsmile (talk) 16:42, 18 April 2024 (UTC)