It’s not easy being green

While the climate change agreement at Kyoto took nearly a decade to achieve binding status for ratifying countries, l’Accord de Paris (nearly) accomplished this feat in a mere 10 months. As Executive goes to print, 61 countries have adopted the Paris Agreement, covering some 48 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, as the one-year anniversary of the agreement nears. The double threshold for the treaty to enter force requires at least 55 signatory countries that produce a combined 55 percent of the world’s emissions – very close but not quite there. More promising – and a demonstration that the climate change deal agreed to at Paris is different, and gaining momentum moving forward – is that the world’s two biggest economies, the United States and China, also the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, agreed to ratify the treaty in front of the world’s other leading economies at September’s