Forget Paris, part II

By their words ye shall know them

WHILE so many on the American left have become unglued concerning President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Accords on climate change, it should be noted how much the previous administration promised to do, that is, cut. To the detriment, possibly, of businesses in the United States. And what effect it would have on climate change given what other countries promise to do. As somebody on TV said the other day, you can’t build a wall to keep out carbon. It’s in the atmosphere. Everybody’s atmosphere.

The United Nations has a helpful website (unfccc.int) that describes the Paris agreement and all these NDCs— which stands for Nationally Determined Contributions. According to the agreement, all the nations that signed on to the Paris Accord “shall prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that it intends to achieve.” That it intends to achieve. And when. So we found the NDC for the United States of America, which signed on to the Paris Accord during the last administration. In the second paragraph of our promise, the U.S. says it “intends to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below its 2005 level in 2025 and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28 percent.”

A few paragraphs later, we promise that “this target is consistent with a straight line emission reduction pathway from 2020 to deep, economy-wide emission reductions of 80 percent or more by 2050. The target is part of a longer range, collective effort to transition to a low-carbon global economy as rapidly as possible.”

Those are big steps, big promises. And you can bet they’d be kept if the country stayed in the accord. Because environmental groups in this country would make it their business. And their lawsuits. What about other countries? What does the biggest producer of greenhouse gases promise? The players on mainland China note the progress they’ve made already, and promise to lower carbon dioxide levels, increase non-fossil fuels and plant more forests—by 2030. Five years after America’s deadline. The Chinese also promise to develop wind power, solar power, and clean coal. Promising “to increase the share of concentrated and highly efficient electricity generation from coal.”

They’re planning for more coal. And even say so in their Paris Accord document.

They also mix their promises with caveats, boardroom talk and clinton clauses. The Chinese promise to improve administration on climate-change work, (?) and improve evaluation of accountability and to “lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60 to 65 percent … .” Emphasis ours. This, from factcheck.org: “The United States’ contribution is an absolute amount, while China’s is a ratio of emissions to unit of gross domestic product, a measure of a country’s economic health and standard of living. This ratio considers China’s need to further develop, a side effect of which is that its total emissions will continue to increase.”

India’s planners use a lot of space on their document to explain that theirs is a poor country. And talk about Climate Justice—which may mean that rich countries like the U.S. should downscale their economies while poor countries like India catch up. And continue to pump carbon into the air.

India does say it has a voluntary goal of reducing emissions by 20-25 percent by 2020 “despite having no binding mitigation obligations as per the Convention.” It wants to make that clear.

The EU wants to reduces emissions by 40 percent, again by 2030. Japan, 26 percent, deadline 2030.

It seems that the Paris agreement would have America do more, and sooner. While other countries promise to do their thing, but later. And that’s if these countries keep their promises. (Iran and Russia’s written promises weren’t found on the UN website last week.)

There has been a lot of complaint and hurt feelings over President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Accord. But when he says this is a bad deal for America, some of the promises of our friends in other nations tend to prove him right.