The timing of the cap and…

The timing of the cap and trade cancellation could not be worse. According to the most recent (released on October 8) report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world is on track for around 3 degrees of warming by the end of the century if it doesn’t make major reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. It could breach 1.5 °C some time between 2030 and 2052 if global warming continues at its current rate.

Without aggressive action, the world could become an almost impossible place for most people to live in, says Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Australia. “As we go toward the end of the century, we have to get this right.”

This is not the time to effectively pull from the Paris Climate Accord, by cancelling cap and trade. This is the time to drastically curb our carbon emissions. Measures include ramping up installation of renewable energy systems such as wind and solar power to provide 70–85% of the world’s electricity by 2050, and expanding forests to increase their capacity to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.