The news of jubilant participants at the 21st Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris arriving at a historic deal, made headlines across the world and stoked hopes for a beleaguered environment. Two weeks of intense negotiations yielded the Paris agreement, which committed the world to keeping the rise in global temperature to below two degrees Celsius since pre-industrial levels.

Seen as an exemplary demonstration of global cooperation for a common cause, the agreement is being acknowledged as a turning point in human effort to combat climate change that could well mark the beginning of the end of fossil fuels.

The agreement is also being considered a diplomatic coup of sorts, given that a diverse set of countries with varied objectives and demands agreed on acommon resolution.

But the cost of bringing all sides together has compromised on the robustness of the agreement as, in its current form, the deal is non-binding and a mere statement of good intentions. Given the scale of the climate summit, a binding agreement that rewards environmentally-friendly nations with economic incentives, and penalises errant countries with sanctions, would have been ideal.

Convenient flexibility and lack of enforceability are emerging as the primary features of the agreement which allows nations to set their own carbon emission targets. This results in the deal’s inability to directly tackle one of the biggest sources of man-made carbon emissions: Coal. This inherent weakness will allow further proliferation of thermal power plants, especially in developing nations.

The voluntary features in the agreement are further accentuating its weaknesses. For instance, the provision for a $100 billion dollars per year financial aid from developed countries to developing economies is a voluntary initiative and not binding on developed nations.

This grossly undermines the efforts of developing nations to make a speedy shift to renewable energy technology. Moreover, experts believe it will cost much more than a $100 billion a year for developing countries to switch to renewables.

The much celebrated climate accord has also omitted the carbon tax regime, which would have helped change the financial incentives facing individual decision-makers, such as power suppliers and motorists.

According to the World Bank, the United States emits about 17 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita, and India emits 1.7 tonnes per capita. As India and other developing countries continue to industrialise and use more energy, that huge gap in emissions will undoubtedly narrow. But the world’s sustainable ‘carbon budget’, the amount of carbon that can be burned without sparking a much more dramatic rise in temperatures, is shrinking all the time.

In the aftermath of failed climate change initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen conference, there was a lot of hope riding on the Paris deliberations. But the agreement actually puts off many of the difficult decisions until 2020, and falters in providing a well-specified set of compelling economic incentives for environmentally conscious nations.

Moreover, the deal misses out on enforceability, as a result of which countries are not forced to cut back on emissions fast enough in order to forestall a climate change catastrophe.

In case the Paris agreement goes the Kyoto Protocol way, the world will have to regroup and realise that voluntary emission reductions and flexible funding options for promoting renewable technology do not work, and that future agreements must include enforceability as a mandatory feature.

Contrary to popular perception, the world may still have adequate time to get its ‘climate act’ together. Many scientists concur that the Paris talks were suffused with a false sense of urgency as the severity and pace of global warming is much debated and disputed. For instance, the world temperature has increased only half as much as climate models predicted in 1990.

The environment needs much more than a mere expression of good intentions; it needs concrete actions that are sustainable because they are cost effective. With the available time in hand, nations must shun deskwork and deliberations and implement real time mitigation strategies.

These strategies can be in the form of forest sinks that sequester excess carbon dioxide or construction of canals and barriers in low-lying countries that protect against rising water levels. Innovative technological efforts such as geo-engineering to reflect sunlight away from the earth’s atmosphere can also be explored. These realistic actions can make the much-needed difference and give the environment a chance to recover.