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That is a goal, not a plan.  And obviously we're not making progress, and that trend will continue for some years, CO2 levels are going to continue to rise unless there is a massive global recession.

It's a goal, and a measurement. If you want get in better shape and lose weight so you can feel better and not have diabetes, it's difficult to measure "feeling great" or "diabetes." Instead, they measure things like weight loss, blood sugar, etc. It's the same with climate change. Measuring the temperature of the entire world is difficult, and not particularly helpful. Measuring the carbon in the atmosphere is much easier. While reducing the overall impact on the climate is the goal, the way to measure our success is fairly easily measured. That's why I scoff at the notion that there is no plan. There are lots of plans. There are just no plans that people want to follow. As I said before and will continue to say, this is a great political challenge as well as all the other challenges. 100 years of ignoring the costs of fossil fuels has made looking at their costs feel difficult. 

A plan China doesn't want to follow is obviously a useless plan.  This is a group effort, or no effort at all, one that penalizes the countries trying and lets the others do as they may, with significant competitive advantage.

But even IF somehow all the countries were truly serious about this, there is NO WAY practicably to get even close to the IEA "goals", nor even the Paris Goals, with massive dislocations and expenditures, truly massive.    Or very quick nuclear power, which also is not practicable.

This is why I keep noting the obvious, there is no real plan.  There are various goals and a lot of PR happening, and pretending we're actually doing something.  I proposed a fairly actionable plan before, it wouldn't get to net zero 2050, but it is decently practicable with some considerable effort and focus.  And we could do it at least in the US, but that's not going to fly obviously, we're just going to randomly throw money at wind and solar, as we have in the past.

And end up with a lot of money spent to achieve very very little.

It's time to 'fess up and face reality.

Well, not sure where to go with that. Obviously, there are plans, but political pressure snuffs them out. It is important to note that it is America who is the real weakling here. After being the world leader in emissions for decades, they fell behind China as China became a manufacturing base for much of America (and the world). Simply blaming China is not really logical. Further, the United State signaled pulling out of the Paris Accords less than two years after signing them. How any country could look to America has a leader here is beyond any comprehension. The Paris Accords themselves are a negotiated political document, not some sort of scientific utopian ideal. That we couldn't hold up our end of the bargain for 24 months is a big part of the problem.

So, saying there is no plan is silly. There are plans - they could be effective. However, the political system in the United States makes any kind of legislation nearly impossible. It is part of a broader problem - the veto of the minority has made getting anything done pretty difficult. It is time to face reality - without change in American elections and power structures, there is no hope to implement any plan of any sort for any reason.

what the hell does that mean

It means making the elections resemble America rather than two parties whose primary aim to to have power and keep the other from having it.

It means making the elections resemble America rather than two parties whose primary aim to to have power and keep the other from having it.

and how do you do that

Well, there are lots of ways - take the electoral college, for example. You could get rid of it. You could revert it back to the original form, where electors are elected, who then actually elect the president. You could double the amount of representatives. You could make third parties viable by getting rid of winner takes all elections. Etc. There are many, many plans there, too, but choosing one and following it is tougher.

none of that will get rid of the 2 party system

not sure what you mean by getting rid of winner take all elections

we have a primary system that already allows for this

My point, obviously, is that even if the US politics were such that there was broad support for doing something about this issue, there simply is no realistic thing to do that "solves" even a significant part of the problem.  No matter how much we blame this or that, the real issue is practical enablement.  We could all agree, and spend tons of money, only to see our CO2 contributions continue to rise, and perhaps in a decade start to decline, slowly, not nearly fast enough to matter.

And China and India have to play ball quite clearly.  And they won't.

My approach would be to do what make sense to do, mainly provide a realistic plan to  take coal off line in the US.  We benefit from that, at some expense, even if it doesn't help the other problem much.  I keep hearing how wind and solar are now economic, great, it will take care of itself then.

This is unseasonable...

Edit: intent was to put that in the other news thread where y'all were talking about needing rain...