This strategy included energy and climate policy, including the 20/20/20 targets, namely the 20% reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the increase in the market share of renewable energy to 20% and a 20% increase in energy efficiency. [12] A new topic, which has been addressed[55], as the centre of gravity of the Paris negotiations, is the fact that many of the worst effects of climate change will be too severe or too rapid to be avoided by adaptation measures. The Paris Agreement explicitly recognizes the need to address such loss and damage and aims to find appropriate responses. [56] It is specified that loss and damage can take different forms, both as immediate effects of extreme weather events and as slow effects, such as.B. land loss due to sea level rise for low islands. [33] On August 4, 2017, the Trump administration officially communicated to the United Nations that the United States intended to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as it had the right to do so. [79] The withdrawal request could only be filed when the agreement for the United States entered into force on November 4, 2019 for a three-year sentence. [80] [81] On November 4, 2019, the U.S. government deposited the withdrawal notification with the United Nations Secretary-General, depositary of the agreement, and formally withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement a year later. [82] After the November 2020 election, President-elect Joe Biden pledged to reinstate the United States in the Paris Agreement on his first day in office and to renew America`s commitment to mitigate climate change.

[83] [84] The Kyoto Protocol, a pioneering environmental agreement adopted at COP3 in Japan in 1997, is the first time that nations have agreed on legal country-specific emission reduction targets. The protocol, which only entered into force in 2005, set binding emission reduction targets only for industrialized countries, arguing that they were responsible for most of the world`s high greenhouse gas emissions. The United States initially signed the agreement, but never ratified it; President George W. Bush argued that the deal would hurt the U.S. economy because developing countries like China and India would not be involved. Without the participation of these three countries, the effectiveness of the treaty has proven to be limited, as its objectives cover only a small fraction of total global emissions. The authors of the agreement set a timeline for withdrawal, which must be followed by President Trump, which mitigates him to irreparably harm our climate. Nicolas Holiber`s sculptures in used wood illustrate the threat that climate change poses to city dwellers of birds.