Though it may be a landmark deal that for the first time binds together developed and developing economies in the fight against global warming, the Paris agreement adopted last weekend at a United Nations conference on climate change in no way ensures that the world will avert the catastrophic consequences of man-made rises in global temperature. Rather, it simply points to the course of action that the countries must take in the coming decades. Whether it will prove to be the historic agreement that it's touted to be will depend on whether the countries not only honor what they have promised but can go much further to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Japan, the world's fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has set a goal of reducing emissions by 26 percent from 2013 levels by 2030, and pledged to increase financial aid to help developing nations reduce their own emissions and adapt to the impact of climate change to ¥1.3 trillion a year by 2020. It's been made clear that such targets — along with the plans submitted by other governments ahead of the Paris conference — are not enough to tame the rise in global average temperature within 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, as called for in the agreement.

The Kyoto Protocol — adopted at the 1997 U.N. conference held in Japan — imposed the duty to cut emissions of greenhouse gases solely on advanced economies. When the U.N. treaty on climate change was introduced in 1992, industrialized nations were by far the world's primary emitters. Today, China and India, which had no obligation under the Kyoto Protocol to cut their emissions, and the United States, which signed but later pulled out of the 1997 pact, together account for roughly half of the total global emissions.