Don’t forget Paris

Before rejoining, please explain why

YOU MAY have missed it with all the sturm und drang lately, but the United States formally walked away from the Paris Agreement in the middle of last week—and in the middle of the election count. President Trump had promised to get out of the accord years ago, but coincidentally the official date to leave it was Nov. 4 of this year. And American minds were understandably on other things.

President-elect Joe Biden has indicated he would rejoin the agreement, which is supposedly set up to combat climate change. The papers say the Paris accord is an executive agreement between countries, not a formal treaty, so congressional approval isn’t required.

Wanting to reduce the warming of the planet is admirable. Combating climate change is necessary. And few people we know like to think about how much pollution they’re choking down with every breath. But the Paris accord reminds us of something Milton Friedman said years ago: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

Something—namely history and common sense—tells us the Paris accord is big on intentions, but will be limited on results.

From the AP story last week: “The Paris accord requires countries to set their own voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and to steadily increase those goals every few years. The only binding requirement is that nations have to accurately report on their efforts.”

Binding requirement? So we should just trust China, North Korea, Russia, Argentina, Iran and Cuba to be on the up-and-up? Or else, what exactly?

In the first place, the Paris agreement is an all-volunteer contract. Those of us who’ve actually read the darn thing(s) will tell you that some of these countries don’t exactly make transparency a top priority in government. These country-specific agreements sometimes only promise to reduce carbon after many years, and after economic goals have been met. Which necessarily requires more power plants now.

So we’re just trusting China and India to reduce emissions, and only many years into the future. Maybe. And if they feel like sharing real information with the world at that time. For only one example, Red China doesn’t even promise to begin reducing carbon emissions until 2030. And who knows what the world will look like, or who might be running The Party, in another decade. This accord might as well been signed with invisible ink.

But at least the United States will suffer economically, and that might be the whole point. You see, if the American government signs such an agreement, you can bet that Greenpeace, the Environmental Defense Fund or the League of Conservation Voters—why not all three?—will be in federal court demanding the United States keep its word. For this country has the rule of law. And judges can make agreements by American authorities stick. Does anybody think Vlad the Impaler in Moscow cares what Greenpeace, or even a judge in his country, thinks?

The bottom line is that this agreements will have little, if any, affect on the amount of carbon spewing into the atmosphere.

For the oft-ignored record, the United States has been on a downward trend of putting carbon emissions into the air, and was even before covid-19. The World Justice Project shows that the United States decreased its emissions by 12.2 percent between 2007 and 2018. And Europe decreased its pollution by 15.2 percent. At the same time, Red China increased its emissions by 30.2 percent. And India increased its own by a whopping 81.5 percent! Now those western countries trending in the right direction are to shut down their plants while those countries increasingly adding to carbon emissions can wait another decade or so? How does this help things?

The Associated Press story last week said the next round of climate talks with the diplomats at the UN comes next year, and will be held in Glasgow, Scotland. The new American administration should most certainly attend, and listen to what the experts have to say. But instead of signing onto another Paris accord farce, it could insist on something more real. Something that would, say, address the problem. Instead of making a mockery of it all.

THERE IS one way to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and keep the lights on at the same time. Not only that, but reduce the price you pay for electricity every month. And it doesn’t require the unrealistic massive battery storage that comes with solar and wind power. You could even power-up your hybrid over night without firing up the coal-fired plant down the street.

What is the almost-a-miracle power source? It’s nuclear.

Nuclear energy is almost always available. It’s relatively cheap. And the little amount of waste it produces can be buried under a mountain until mankind figures out what to do with it.

Why isn’t there an accord to increase the number of nuclear plants around the world? Wouldn’t that do more good—not only in the long term by actually addressing climate change, but in the short-term too, by putting people to work building the plants?

If we can increase the number of nuclear plants, and somehow get around the pop stars and their No Nukes Concerts, that would go a long way toward making a real dent in carbon emissions. And that would be serious. Unlike the Paris accord.