Paris Climate Agreement

This post is authored by Lindsay Iversen, associate director for climate and resources at the Council on Foreign Relations' Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies. You can follow her on twitter @lindsayiversen. The latest UN climate summit will click into higher gear this week as senior leaders converge on Bonn, Germany. This year’s summit is not expected to have the fireworks and fanfare of Paris, where a major agreement was reached in 2015. There, 196 signatories offered national pledges outlining how they would reduce emissions and agreed a framework for increasing emissions reductions over time. Many of the specifics, such as the data countries would need to report to demonstrate progress, or what expectations would be for raising ambition, were left for future summits. It is these and other details of the Paris rulebook that negotiators are tackling in Bonn. Since President Donald Trump announced that the United States would leave the Paris accord, world leaders from Beijing to Brussels have gone out of their way to voice their commitment to the deal. But their outspoken support masks a more fragile reality. The Paris deal has barely begun. Already, warning bells are being rung about poor progress toward countries’ initial pledges and the uncomfortable fact that those pledges don’t come anywhere near to fulfilling the Paris agreement’s stated goal of keeping overall warming to 2 degrees Celsius above the historical baseline. Small, developing countries signed up for Paris because they believed major countries’ assurances that they would work hard to achieve the 2 degree limit. For committed signatories, preserving that tenuous trust is essential to the survival of the deal. How the United States behaves at the Bonn summit will be important to the deliberations and to the Paris accord’s future. Despite the fanfare with which Trump announced the U.S. exit, the United States remains a formal member of the accord until 2020. It holds leadership positions in critical working groups at the Bonn talks, and it is still a critical voice in the consensus-based negotiating structure. It will be difficult enough to reach agreement on the Paris rulebook without the United States playing the kind of constructive role it did under the Obama administration. If the United States chooses to play a negative role, it could do serious damage not just to this summit but also to the entire Paris rulemaking enterprise. This is not an idle concern; there is precedent for this sort of outcome. At a meeting of G7 health ministers that wrapped up earlier this month in Milan, the United States was a diffident participant until the last days of the meeting. It then introduced a number of new, hardline demands—striking all references to climate change in the draft communique, for instance, and refusing to endorse a clause supporting the Paris accord. The U.S. posture horrified other ministers. As one European negotiator told BuzzFeed News, “As with the rest of the G7 process, the United States didn’t engage for months. And now, just this week, they have erected a wall and came back with extreme positions.” The tactic was an effective one, however. The final communique uses the phrase climate change only once, and only as part of the proper name of the Bonn summit. Though the links between climate change and public health were ostensibly a core part of the meeting, the final communique said simply, “We acknowledge our discussions on impact of the climate and environmental-related factors on health.” There are some indications the United States will not repeat an obstructionist tone in Bonn. A controversial U.S.-sponsored side event on the benefits of coal and other fossil fuels was led by mid-level officials rather than recognizable administration figures. And, the U.S. negotiating team is led by career diplomats with experience in climate talks. The small delegation has kept a low profile so far, easing the fears of many climate hawks that the U.S. team would seek to undermine the summit, but the final outcome remains to be seen. President Trump returned this week from Asia to a Washington no less chaotic or politically toxic than the one he left. Domestic woes may leave the president anxious for a base-riling gambit. The temptation to be destructive in Bonn could be high. Supporters of the deal should do all they can to avoid that outcome, encouraging the political leadership in Washington to stay out of the fray. The president, even as he announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris accord, indicated that he was open to the United States returning if the terms of the deal changed. Though Bonn negotiators seem unlikely to adopt the administration’s fossil fuel-friendly domestic agenda, keeping a low profile and an open door will be beneficial to the administration if it is serious about seeking better terms in the future. That strategy avoids needlessly antagonizing diplomatic partners now and preserves options for the United States should new developments make the Paris agreement more attractive later. And, given that 71% of Americans—including 57% of Republicans—support the accord, remaining at least neutral during the Bonn talks could come in handy during the 2018 mid-term or 2020 Presidential elections. For now, barring a change in policy or a change in U.S. leadership, Paris is a deal for other countries—the signatories that have stood by their commitments and are continuing the work of bringing them to fruition. The Trump administration has repeated its assertion that it has nothing to gain from Paris and has no intention of participating in the accord as constituted. If the United States cannot be a constructive participant in the Bonn discussions, it should have the courage of its convictions and stay out of the way of others interested in doing so. It should heed the timeless medical pledge: First, do no harm.

In an article recently published by Foreign Affairs, I examine how California has demonstrated its growing influence on the international stage as the United States under President Donald J. Trump has receded from global climate leadership. On July 17, California’s State Assembly and Senate voted to expand and extend through 2030 the state’s pioneering cap-and-trade program to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. It was a huge victory for Governor Jerry Brown, who had insisted that both houses approve the measure by a two-thirds majority to protect it from legal challenges. Brown’s triumph, which he signed into law on July 25, reinforced California’s status as the United States’ leader in beginning the transition to a post-carbon economy. The governor has insisted that far-sighted leadership in Sacramento can fill the void created by President Donald Trump’s disastrous withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. But can the wealthiest and most populous U.S. state conduct its own foreign policy within the U.S. constitutional system? Writing in Foreign Affairs in 1993, the journalist James O. Goldsborough pondered whether California should do so. A quarter of a century later, the verdict is in. As the United States has receded from global climate leadership, California has filled the diplomatic breach. Read the full article here.

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Washington for his first meeting with U.S. President Donald J. Trump, he will find an America rethinking its global leadership role, looking more inward as it scopes its sights down to America First. It’s a strange moment for the world, as New Delhi has long bet on closer ties with a United States confident of its traditional outward-looking posture. While much has been written about China’s willingness to step into the global leadership gap vacated by Trump’s foreign policy, India’s quiet commitment to becoming a “leading power” also deserves attention. In a nutshell, even as the world’s oldest democracy steps back from the global stage, the world’s largest democracy is stepping up. India has been among the few areas of bipartisan consensus in U.S. foreign policy. Over the past twenty years, Democratic and Republican governments alike have worked to expand ties with New Delhi. India has at times been a reluctant partner, skeptical of the American embrace, both due to past differences as well as its tradition of eschewing formal alignment with a superpower. When former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh partnered with former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama to find a place for India—a country outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but with advanced nuclear weapons technology—inside the global nonproliferation tent, New Delhi began a new chapter in its ties with Washington as well as its ambitions to claim India’s “due place in global councils,” as Singh described it. Prime Minister Modi then doubled India’s bet on the benefits of strong U.S.-India ties. Modi and Obama together crafted a new landscape for Indo-American partnership through a “joint strategic vision” for cooperation across the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean. Former U.S. Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Ashton Carter repeatedly encouraged India to become a “net provider of security” in the region. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton encouraged India not just to “look east” but to “act east” as well. Obama supported a permanent seat for India in a reformed UN Security Council, and worked with Modi to secure a global agreement on climate at the Paris Conference of Parties in 2015. India, for its own strategic reasons, which converged with those of the United States, adopted a more active role in all of these areas. As president, Trump has already changed the U.S. role in the world. Our country, long a champion of global trade—indeed, a point of friction in U.S.-India economic ties, where Washington often pushes New Delhi to open further—has under Trump ditched the Trans-Pacific Partnership and looked to the possibility of protectionist retaliatory measures. “Globalization” has become less a statement of fact in the Trump era than a term of criticism. On security, whether the United States will remain the active superpower providing security across the Asia-Pacific is less clear today than it was six months ago. And on climate, Trump has announced that the United States will exit the Paris climate agreement, full stop. Meanwhile, in India a new narrative has emerged about the country’s place in the world. Modi has pressed to become a “leading power,” not just a “balancing power.” India has declared its ambition of primacy in the Indian Ocean, announced its first overseas military base in the Seychelles, and publicly championed freedom of navigation throughout the Asia-Pacific, including in the South China Sea. On climate, India has become one of the world’s most active advocates for renewable energy—a major part of its Paris commitment. In a role reversal from two years back, just as Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris accord, Modi stood with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to declare India’s continued support for it. And at a time when the U.S. government has adopted a suspicious view of globalization, India’s chief economic advisor is speaking of New Delhi cobbling together a “middle-income country coalition” to revive it. Take this all in. A country that was once a byword for protectionism now stands ready to defend the benefits of global trade to a Washington grown wary of it. An India once solely focused on its land borders has developed a more expeditionary mindset. An India that for years pushed back against the terms of a global climate deal advanced by Obama has now stepped up loudly in its defense. It’s a complete role reversal. But Washington should welcome New Delhi’s willingness to step up. When the United States returns to its traditional leadership role, India will be an important partner. “Role Reversal: As the United States Steps Back From Global Leadership, India Steps Up.” Reprinted with permission of the Indian Express (P) Limited © 2017. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa). My book, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making its Place in the World, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

In justifying his decision to renounce the Paris climate agreement, President Donald Trump on Thursday cited the need to defend U.S. sovereignty. This is a red herring if ever there was one. 

In withdrawing the United States from the historic 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, President Donald J. Trump fulfilled one of his most prominent campaign pledges. But far from making America “great again,” the decision will endanger U.S. national security and prosperity by sabotaging U.S. global leadership and accelerating a planetary crisis from which not even an isolationist America can escape. Trump’s myopic and backward-looking decision ignores a reality of contemporary global life: The United States cannot advance its national interests or protect itself from transnational threats by pretending to be an island or by building walls, in the vain hope of insulating itself from dangers that refuse to respect borders. It is hard to overstate the magnitude of the president’s step, taken despite urgent entreaties from America’s closest allies and U.S. business leaders. By withdrawing the United States, Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the most important multilateral agreement of the twenty-first century. After two decades of fruitless negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, 195 countries in Paris in December 2015 finally pledged to major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. At the insistence of the Obama administration, the climate accord was crafted not as a binding treaty—which could have run afoul of domestic U.S. sovereignty concerns—but as a voluntary agreement. Under this so-called “pledge and review” arrangement, each country declared its own “intended nationally determined contribution” (INDC) to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This allowed the parties to tailor their commitments to their unique national circumstances, rather than adopting a one-size fits all formula. The results were impressive. After years of dragging their feet, major emerging economies made concrete commitments to reducing emissions. These included China, the world’s biggest emitter, and India, which had long resisted commitments as a drag on its domestic development. The accord also envisions negotiation of a new global monitoring system to verify that countries followed through—and (at least in principle) to name and shame laggards and shirkers. As impressive as the Paris Accord was, all signatories recognized that it was but a down payment. Even if fully implemented, the agreement would cut only 54 percent of the emissions needed to prevent average global temperatures rising by more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit—a threshold beyond which the planet would experience runaway warming. Leaders in Paris recognized that they would need to “ratchet up” their efforts to reduce emissions over the next two decades. Still, for the first time, global leaders had overcome the inertia that had long plagued climate change negotiations—and committed themselves to real action to save the planet. By renouncing the agreement, President Trump risks throwing this momentum into reverse, at a perilous moment. The defection of the United States, the world’s second largest emitter after China, will embolden others to renounce their own pledges—or at a minimum delay their full implementation. The diplomatic fallout will be harsh, destroying whatever pretense remains of U.S. global leadership—and U.S. credibility—in the Trump era. Beyond squandering international goodwill, the United States will cede any pretense to influence on global environmental issues to China and lose out on many opportunities to dominate the clean technology future. As for the planet, the implications are dire. On its current trajectory, the world may well reach the critical threshold of 3.6 Fahrenheit by 2036. The catastrophic results will include more extreme and dangerous weather, more frequent and prolonged droughts and famines, rapid melting of glaciers and polar ice, dramatic sea level rise, accelerated ocean acidification, large-scale die-offs of coral reefs, devastating losses of habitats and species, and mass migrations involving tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of people. Nor will Americans be immune from these impacts. To pick just one dimension: By 2050, some twenty-six U.S. cities from Baltimore to Honolulu are expected to face an “emerging flooding crisis,” with damages from “Superstorm Sandy”-type events running into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Florida—which has some 2.4 million people living and 1.3 million homes located less than four feet above high tide line—most in the Miami-Dade area—may be hardest hit. But it won’t be alone. Further north, the city of Norfolk, Virginia, which hosts the world’s largest naval base, risks becoming uninhabitable thanks to regular flooding. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (albeit under different management than today) predicted that sea level rise and storm surges could cost U.S. coastal communities $5.0 trillion through 2100. Elsewhere in the United States, the expense of climate-change induced drought and accompanying water shortages could top $180 billion by the end of the century. And for what? Trump and his nationalist sidekicks contend that leaving Paris will allow the United States to avoid crippling environmental regulations and, among other benefits, revive America’s beleaguered coal mines. That stance may play well in Appalachia, but it ignores far more important pressures on that industry, not least the fracking revolution and the low price of natural gas. It also ignores that nearly twice as many people were employed in the renewable energy sector last year than in traditional fossil fuel industries—and that most major U.S. corporations favor the Paris Agreement. A forward-looking administration, truly interested in competitiveness, would be doing as much as possible to advance research and development in the industries of tomorrow. (Ironically, some parts of the Trump administration appear to recognize this: This week, the U.S. International Trade Commission notified the World Trade Organization that it will launch a safeguard investigation on the influx of foreign solar panels, presumably in an effort to protect domestic manufacturers from unfair foreign competition.) With this U.S. abdication of global leadership, the world must pin its hopes for slowing global warming on the combined efforts of other major emitters, U.S. states and cities, and private corporations. Tomorrow, China and the European Union will recommit themselves to the Paris Agreement, describing it as “imperative and more important than ever.” Governor Jerry Brown, meanwhile, promises that California will fill the vacuum left by the U.S. pullout, by working with other U.S. states and cities to impose new emissions caps and standards. Finally, the planet is counting on the self-interest of the U.S. business community, which is unlikely to make long-term investments in dirty technologies, given the near-certainty that a future administration will overturn Trump’s policies to pursue a low carbon future—and restore America’s stature in the world. That moment cannot come soon enough. 

As President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, elsewhere in the world other leaders clarified their commitment to the pact. Earlier this week Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on a visit to Germany, stated during his press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel that inaction on climate change would be a “morally criminal act.” He added, “We do not have the right to despoil the environment for future generations.” Much of the Modi-Merkel summit appeared focused on Indo-German commitments to cooperate on climate and clean energy. For those who had observed the long and painful process of the Paris Agreement—shepherded over years by the Barack Obama administration—this week’s news underscored a double turnabout from where Washington and New Delhi saw themselves only three years ago. The Obama administration spent eight years prioritizing climate diplomacy, a conversation that was not always easy with India. New Delhi often perceived Washington as the world’s biggest carbon emitter seeking concessions on the backs of the world’s poor. While India had long championed the importance of reducing carbon emissions globally to prevent climate change, its international negotiating position had emphasized India’s developmental needs, its comparatively and historically low per capita emissions, and its desire to grow its economy before curbing carbon emissions. A noticeable shift in India’s public stance occurred during the January 2015 visit of then President Barack Obama to New Delhi. During their joint Republic Day press conference, Modi responded to a question about whether India felt “pressure” to do more on climate change after seeing the agreement inked between China and the United States. Instead of rehearsing India’s longstanding climate change complaints, Modi said something quite different: Modi’s emphasis on the environment and on the legacy for the future marked a new kind of Indian approach to the multilateral process, one that side-stepped developed versus developing country paradigms and instead appealed to Indian national interests for India’s future generations. By the time of the Paris Conference of Parties in December 2015, India had stated its goal to reduce its carbon intensity by some 35 percent by 2030, and had crafted an ambitious package focused on the rapid deployment of renewable energy—175 GW of renewable energy capacity—by the year 2022 as its offset for the continued use of fossil fuels given its economic growth and energy needs. I can recall the sense of relief that many American climate experts expressed when India put forward a problem-solving disposition toward Paris, rather than a “spoiler” approach, as some had feared. As I wrote about fears at the time, “The U.S. press…has highlighted India as a hurdle at best, spoiler at worst, to achieving a strong, effective agreement. The Indian press has characterized the United States as a “bully” unwilling to make deeper emissions cuts at home but harshly pressing the poor to do so, balking at more funding to help developing countries adapt to climate change, and resisting proposals for liability for future environmental damage.” The surprise of the Paris Agreement was that these worst-case fears were not met, and the world walked away with a global commitment. The Trump administration came into office skeptical about climate change, so President Trump's exit announcement should not come as a surprise. The move does, however, highlight how much the tables have turned. If less than three years ago the dominant American perception was in favor of a global treaty to limit climate change, with India more reluctantly at the table, today we see Washington stepping back and New Delhi confidently out front on the very same issue. While reports of the end of the Western-led liberal world order may be premature, at least on climate change, Washington has just become the spoiler. And New Delhi? A multilateralist champion. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).  

By withdrawing from the Paris accord, the United States—the second-largest global emitter—could undercut collective efforts to reduce emissions, transition to renewable energy sources, and lock in future climate measures.

Jennifer Wilson is a research associate for national security at the Council on Foreign Relations.  President-Elect Donald Trump’s reported nomination of Scott Pruitt to head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicates that his anti–climate change rhetoric was not just campaign bluster. Pruitt, who has a history of fighting EPA regulations, dims any optimism that Trump would take environmentally responsible action to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. While he seemed to have walked back his opposition to the historic climate deal reached in Paris last year, saying that he had an “open mind” on the accord, Trump’s EPA pick seems more in line with his campaign promise to “cancel” the deal. As president of one of the 196 signatory countries, Trump will lack the authority to cancel the internationally-agreed upon accord, but he can withdraw the United States from it. However, because of the lengthy and likely controversial process of withdrawing from the agreement or its underlying treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Trump is more likely to just refuse to honor the commitments made under the deal. In that case, the Trump administration will fail to take the steps necessary to meet the target emissions reductions. As the United States accounts for 16 percent of global emissions, second only to China, this failure will make it even more likely that the earth’s overall average temperature will rise to potentially disastrous levels. In addition, a U.S. failure to honor the Paris accord may invite other signatories to balk at their own commitments. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has responded to Trump’s climate denial by promising that U.S. cities could act to combat climate change should the federal government fail to do so. Bloomberg recently wrote that he would “recommend that the 128 U.S. mayors who are part of the Global Covenant of Mayors seek to join” the accord in the place of the United States. While the constitutional authority of cities to formally join such an international agreement is dubious, this response would not be the first time state or local governments adopted international climate standards when the federal government failed to do so. In fact, in 2005, Bloomberg was one of the 132 mayors who pledged to meet the emissions reduction requirements of the Kyoto Protocol when the Bush administration rejected the agreement. States have also adopted measures far more ambitious than those enacted by Congress, including renewable energy requirements for privately-owned utilities and regional carbon-trading arrangements. Cities, with their high population density, centers of industry, and streets clogged with cars and trucks, are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Local measures to reduce emissions—such as transitioning to renewable energy sources, instituting effective recycling programs, and installing bike lanes—can have a powerful impact on global climate change. The success of these efforts, however, largely depend on support and funding from state leadership. Urban-led efforts to reduce carbon emissions are therefore likely to remain limited, thanks to significant demographic shifts in the past twenty years. As this year’s election results demonstrate, the political chasm between urban and rural Americans has grown wider. In 2016, 82 percent of urban counties, representing 160 million people, voted more Democratic than in 2004. On the other hand, 89 percent of medium and small counties, representing 67 million Americans, voted more Republican. Such increased polarization calls into question the success that mayors can expect if they do not have the support of their respective state governments. While 67 percent of major U.S. cities have Democratic mayors, 69 percent of state legislative chambers—where anti-climate change legislation originates—are Republican-controlled, and 56 percent of governors are Republican. Moreover, state leaders who oppose environmental regulations will have an ally in Trump’s EPA administrator, a staunch advocate of states’ rights to resist climate change regulations. States have long adopted policies at odds with federal guidance, including regarding healthcare access, marijuana use, and marriage equality, but with climate change the stakes are considerably higher. Over the next four-to-eight years, efforts to prevent an eventual global cataclysm will buck against this era’s defining political divide. While a dark prospect, some hope can be found in that the universal effects of climate change—from rising coastlines that threaten to drown cities, to extended droughts that could reduce crop yields—may spur support for environmental policies across the rural-urban divide. If not, then urban efforts to comply with the Paris agreement, while necessary to mitigate the ever-growing menace of climate change, may widen the already gaping chasm between urban and rural Americans. The implications of a divided polity may very well jeopardize the long-term climate change solutions on the federal level that are necessary to literally save the planet.