ABSTRACT
This book was completed in October 2015, two months before the Paris Agreement was reached at the Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This Agreement is so much more than was feared (or even expected), even if in some aspects it was less than what was desired (and less than what is needed to avoid dangerous climate change). It recognizes on its opening page that
…climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet and thus requires the widest possible cooperation by all countries, and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, with a view to accelerating the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions.
