Clear thinking needed

In some ways, the climate talks that begin in Paris on November 30th will show world leaders at their best. Taking a break from pressing issues such as terrorist threats and stuttering economies, they will try to avert a crisis that will pose its gravest risks long after they have left office. It is the opposite of the myopic thinking that is often said to afflict politics. A pity, then, that politicians have set themselves an impossible task, and that they are mostly going about it in the wrong way.

That climate change is happening, that it is very largely man-made and that it is exceedingly dangerous, are all now hard to deny. This year will all but certainly be the hottest since 1880, when NASA’s records begin. If so, 2015 will break a record that was set only in 2014. Every single year so far this decade has been hotter than every single year before 1998.

The presidents and prime ministers who gather in Paris will insist that global warming must be halted before the world becomes 2℃(3.6℉) hotter than it was in pre-industrial days. That is what they have said for years but, considering the momentum behind climate change, this target is as unrealistic as it is arbitrary. If annual greenhouse-gas emissions remain at the present level, enough pollution will enter the atmosphere in just 30 years eventually to warm the world by two degrees.

Greens say that the target is a rallying point—that it is useful because it inspires action, and action, once under way, will inspire yet more action in a virtuous circle. If only world leaders would stiffen their spines and promise even more green energy, they argue, disaster could be averted. But this drastically understates the challenge. The parts of the planet that have become rich have done so by tapping a vast store of fossil energy with feckless, if understandable, abandon. For the rest of the world to join them over the century ahead, and then for all concerned— as well as the planet’s non-human inhabitants—to flourish in the centuries that follow, will take a lot more than just a big expansion of existing renewable technologies.

The world and its leaders need more ambition and more realism. The ambition requires increasing the options available. Generous subsidies perpetuate today’s low-carbon technologies; the goal should be to usher in tomorrow’s. Unfortunately, energy companies (unlike, say, drug firms or car companies) see investment in radical new technologies as poor prospect, and governments have been feeble in taking up the slack. A broad commitment quickly to raise and diversify R&D spending on energy technologies would be more welcome than more or less anything else Paris could offer.

In short, the climate is changing because of extraordinary inventions like the steam turbine and the internal combustion engine. The best way to cope is to keep inventing.

Which of the following statements about the current situation of climate is FALSE?

According to the essay, climate changes so fast because of some reasons except ________.

What can we learn from the passage?

The article was written to explain ________.

What is the last paragraph for?