Trump says goodbye to the Paris climate agreement: Here’s what that means
For months, “Will he or won’t he?” has been the parlour game among those wondering whether the Trump administration would withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement. We now have the answer: Yes, President Trump will withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.
How did we get here?
The administration was divided between those who wanted to stay in, including the president’s daughter Ivanka, and those who wanted to leave, particularly Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Pruitt. Some Cabinet members wanted to stay in the agreement and renegotiate the terms. The splits within the administration reflect similar divisions in civil society. Many major companies, including energy giant ExxonMobil, wanted the US to stay in. In fact, more than 360 leading companies, including DuPont, eBay and Nike, signed an open letter urging the president to stay in the agreement. Some US companies wanted the US to stay in to shape the rules going forward and provide for consistent policy so they could plan investments.
During Trump’s visit to the Vatican, Pope Francis made a personal appeal to the president to stay in the agreement. At the G7 meeting, Trump faced intense pressure from allies to stay in.
What does US withdrawal mean?
Under the rules of the agree- ment, the US cannot withdraw until November 2020: A country cannot announce its formal withdrawal until three years after the agreement entered into force. It takes one year from the date of notification for that withdrawal to take effect. However, there is a nuclear option. The US could signal not only its intent to withdraw from the Paris agreement but also from the 1992 UN Framework Convention on climate change. That would take the US out of both within a year. Though negotiated in 2015, the Paris agreement entered into force on Nov. 4, 2016. That means, barring US withdrawal from the UNFCCC, the US will be a party to the agreement between now and November 2020. If Trump loses a reelection bid, his successor could rejoin in January 2021.
It remains an open question how large and vigorous a presence the US will play in climate negotiations. Almost certainly, the US will not deliver the $ 2bn that remains of its $ 3bn pledge to finance international climate efforts.
What does this mean for the fate of the agreement?
Advocates have worried that US withdrawal from the Paris agreement would encourage other countries to pull out. That does not appear to be happening. Less clear is whether the US’s withdrawal will sap other countries’ motivation to reduce greenhouse gases. The emissions mitigation commitments of the Paris Agreement are non- binding. Country commitments are voluntary, based on national circumstances. The intent of the agreement was to increase collective ambition over time through review. In 2018, there will be a stocktaking exercise. That assessment was intended to help strengthen commitments in 2020. The idea was to bring a “keeping up with the Joneses” pressure of mutual responsibility.
Meeting the 2025 target will be difficult if the Trump administration continues to roll back various clean energy steps.
Will this affect the US’s standing in the world?
The Paris Agreement has more global buy-in from the rest of the world than the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which the US also famously repudiated. Key countries like China and India, which did not have commitments to reduce emissions under Kyoto, have voluntarily made commitments under the Paris Agreement. For the US, the consequences could be significant. Some countries are talking about trade sanctions or a carbon tax on US imports.
Nigel Purvis, a former State Department diplomat and longtime climate policy expert, tweeted, “first comes international blowback, but the real damage will be a dramatic loss of US soft power - felt on issues far from climate.” The next days and months will be a test of how significant those consequences really are. ( Courtesy The Washington Post)