US could walk away from deals on climate
It took more than t wo decades for nations around the world to forge an agreement to save the planet from global warming. In one year, Donald Trump could leave it in tatters.
Trump, who has said climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, has vowed to “cancel” the Paris agreement brought into force this year by more than 190 other countries.
While he can’t rip up the entire accord, the real- estate tycoon and reality- television star- turnedPresident- elect has several options for pulling the US out.
A withdrawal could have significant consequences.
As the richest nation on Earth and the second- largest polluter, the United States’ role in the Paris accord is critical, helping to secure participation from China, India and others. A withdrawal by Trump would hobble the agreement’s effort to cut fossilfuel emissions and could leave the US facing grave diplomatic repercussions.
“There would be huge implications for how other countries view the United States,” said Jake Schmidt, director of the international programme at the Natural Resources Defence Council, a non- profit tracking the climate talks.
“The world is united behind this agreement.”
While Trump has made it clear he plans to walk away from Paris, his precise exit strategy remains unclear.
“I don’t think that’s been decided,” Myron Ebell, the head of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team, said in an interview. “Your guess i s as good as mine.”
Trump has at least four options. First is to exit the Paris deal, which was signed in December. Yet, the exit clause of the agreement means the US would still be bound by it until 2020. Trump must now wait three years to formally submit his intention to withdraw and then another year before the US can exit.
There is a quicker way. Schmidt of the NRDC referred to it as “the nuclear option”, which would allow the US to leave by early 2018. That would entail withdrawing from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty that established the entire process.
Trump could pull the US out with one year’s notice, Dan Bodansky, an Arizona State University law professor who studies international environmental agreements, said.
Trump’s election comes as environment and energy ministries from around the globe gather in Marrakech, Morocco, for two weeks of talks on how to implement the Paris deal. Their meeting is organised by the UN and established by the 1992 framework convention. The Paris deal calls for 197 countries to limit global warming to below 2C and work toward net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump could dispose of the accord by sending it to the Senate, where it would be dead on arrival in the hands of Republican lawmakers, said Ebell, a director at the Washington- based Competitive Enterprise Institute. When President Barack Obama’s Administration negotiated the Paris deal, his envoys avoided structuring it as a traditional treaty, bypassing the need for approval from two- thirds of the US Senate.
Finally, Trump could simply ignore the United States’ climate goal under the Paris agreement. He could kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan. And he could refuse to take any steps to reduce emissions.
There is nothing in the agreement that would penalise the US for flouting its commitments.
Yet that, too, could hurt the US diplomatically. Countries are required to report their progress annually to the international community. If the US isn’t making good on its promises, other nations will know.
Andrew Steer, president and chief executive officer of the Washingtonbased World Resources Institute, said the Paris accord would never have been forged without US leadership.
“We certainly hope Presidentelect Trump recognises that and acts accordingly,” Steer said.