With a potential environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Amazon, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday turned down the G7’s offer of aid. His childish behavior, amidst heated words with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, reflects the growing way in which climate change has become part of a political culture war between populist and centrist politicians. The irony here is that 2019 has been a year in which the general consciousness of climate change has grown with unprecedented speed. This underlines that this issue — perhaps the biggest facing humanity in the 21st century — has the potential to completely reshape politics in a way few others have. Yet, for now at least, Bolsonaro’s actions highlight the potency of the climate skeptics’ counterarguments, however scientifically illiterate and ill-founded they may be. Bolsonaro, sometimes known as the “Trump of the tropics,” is a noted anti-environmentalist who favors a host of policy positions controversial with many audiences, including nostalgia for the nation’s previous political dictatorship and the relaxation of gun laws. And, like other populists around the world, he came to power through campaign tactics such as attacking multinational organizations, the so-called fake media, and immigrants. Here it is no surprise that Donald Trump, who didn’t attend the G7 session on climate change in France on Sunday, has wholeheartedly supported Bolsonaro’s position. Trump, like Bolsonaro, has argued climate change is a hoax and wants to see the Paris deal dismantled. This argument, utterly reckless given the strong scientific consensus on global warming and its potentially calamitous perils, is already proving damaging to overall attempts to tackle climate change. Take the current example of the blazing Amazon rainforest, which is a vital carbon store that slows the pace of climate change. Most of it is in Brazil and this year’s wildfires have increased 80 percent, according to the nation’s space agency. It is no coincidence that this significantly increased number of fires coincides with a sharp drop in fines for environmental violations under Bolsonaro’s presidency. Instead, it is the very opposite of the argument advanced by populists that is the more credible narrative. This is put forward by climate campaigners who argue that the Paris treaty does not go far enough, and that even the G7 aid of $22 million is a drop in the ocean of what is needed to tackle the current calamity affecting the so-called “lungs of the earth.” While the positions of Trump and Bolsonaro will eventually be consigned to history, the question now is how fast other key countries across the world can move to ramp up the ambition in the Paris deal. This underlines that, while the Paris Agreement — reached by more than 190 countries as the successor treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — was a very welcome shot in the arm for attempts to tackle global warming, it is only the beginning of a longer journey that governments and legislators must now make in the 2020s. While realizing this level of ambition may seem a political long shot, it needs to be remembered that there was significant concern about whether the Paris deal could ever happen in the years leading to its agreement. And the deal was also ratified with remarkable speed. The Paris Agreement is only the beginning of a longer journey that governments and legislators must now make. Andrew Hammond The road map for moving forward is clear, starting with next month’s UN Climate Action Summit in New York. Here the growing evidence will be showcased that we may be facing a climate emergency, with the UN’s World Meteorological Organization reporting that the years 2015 to 2019 are on track to be the five hottest ever recorded. Beyond this, the implementation of Paris is now needed as speedily as possible to provide a baseline for future action. This will be most effective through national laws, where politically feasible, as the country “commitments” put forward in Paris will be more credible — and durable beyond the next set of national elections — if they are backed up by legislation, not least because the targets in the deal are not legally binding. Once these domestic legal frameworks are in place, and cemented, they will become crucial building blocks to measure, report, verify and manage greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, countries are required under the Paris deal to openly and clearly report on emissions and their progress in reaching the goals stated in the national climate plans they submitted to the UN. Into the 2020s, the ambition must be that these frameworks are replicated in even more countries and progressively ratcheted up. There are clear signs of this happening already in numerous states, from Asia-Pacific to the Americas, as countries seek to toughen their response to global warming. The irony of the Amazon tragedy is that it coincides with what appears to be a growing opportunity to co-create and then implement what could be the foundation of global sustainable development for the coming decades for billions of people across the world, starting with the implementation of Paris. While populist counterarguments will remain potent with many, this narrative will eventually be relegated to the dustbin of history.