President Trump announcing the US pull out from Paris in June 2017.
Getty Images
After a three-year delay, the US has become the first nation in the
world to formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
President Trump announced the move in June 2017, but UN regulations meant
that his decision only takes effect today, the day after the US election.
The US could re-join it in future, should a president choose to do so.
The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response to
the threat of climate change.
It aims to keep the global temperature rise this century well below 2C
above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature
increase even further to 1.5C.
Why has this taken so long?
The delay is down to the complex rules that were built into the Paris
agreement to cope with the possibility that a future US president might
decide to withdraw the country from the deal.
Protestors objecting to President Trump's climate policies
project their message onto one of his hotels.
Getty Images
Previous attempts to put together a global pact on climate change had
foundered because of internal US politics.
The Clinton administration was unable to secure Senate backing for the
Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997.
So in the run up to the Paris climate talks, President Obama's negotiators
wanted to ensure that it would take time for the US to get out if there
was a change in leadership.
Even though the agreement was signed in December 2015, the
treaty only came into force on 4 November 2016, 30 days after at least 55 countries representing 55% of global
emissions had ratified it.
No country could give notice to leave the agreement until three years had
passed from the date of ratification.
Even then, a member state still had to serve a 12-month notice period on
the UN.
Trump: The world won't laugh any more at US
So, despite President Trump's
White House announcement in June 2017, the US was only able to formally give notice to the UN in November
last year. The time has elapsed and the US is now out.
What will the withdrawal mean in practice?
While the US now represents around 15% of global greenhouse gas
emissions, it remains the world's biggest and most powerful economy.
So when it becomes the only country to withdraw from a global solution
to a global problem it raises questions of trust.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry holds his
granddaughter as he signs the Paris agreement at the UN.
Getty Images
"Being out formally obviously hurts the US reputation," said Andrew
Light, a former senior climate change official in the Obama
administration.
"This will be the second time that the United States has been the
primary force behind negotiating a new climate deal - with the Kyoto
Protocol we never ratified it, in the case of the Paris Agreement, we
left it."
"So, I think it's obviously a problem."
How is the US pull out being viewed?
Although this has been a long time coming, there is still a palpable
sense of disappointment for many Americans who believe that climate
change is the biggest global challenge and the US should be leading
the fight against it.
"The decision to leave the Paris agreement was wrong when it was
announced and it is still wrong today," said Helen Mountford from the
World Resources Institute.
"Simply put the US should stay with the other 189 parties to the
agreement, not go out alone."
The formal withdrawal has also re-opened old wounds for climate
diplomats.
Getty Images
"It's definitely a big blow to the Paris agreement," said Carlos
Fuller, from Belize, the lead negotiator for the
Alliance of Small Island States
in the UN talks.
"We actually worked very hard to ensure that every country in the
world could accede to this new agreement. And so, by losing one, we
feel that basically we have failed."
Others say that the US pull-out is partly due to the failure of the
Obama administration to have the Paris agreement ratified by the US
Senate.
"What Obama did at the end of his second term was fundamentally
undemocratic, to sign up to a Paris agreement without going to the
Senate and the Congress and instead doing it via executive order,"
said former UN climate chief, Yvo De Boer.
"And then, in a way, you're setting yourself up for what has happened
now."
Could the US re-join the agreement?
Yes, it could.
In fact, while on the campaign trail, Joe Biden said he would seek to
re-join as soon as possible - if he was elected President.
Under the rules, all that is required is a month's notice and the US
should be back in the fold.
However, even if the US chose to re-enter the agreement, there would
be consequences for being out - even for a few months.
"We know that the UK and the EU and the UN Secretary General are
planning an event on 12 December, on the fifth anniversary of the
conclusion of negotiations for the Paris agreement, where they're
going to try to drive more ambition," said Andrew Light.
"Under the Paris rules, the US will not be able to participate in
that."
Not everyone in the US is upset to leave the Paris agreement?
President Trump made leaving Paris a key part of his election platform
in 2016, tying it into his vision of a revitalised US with booming
energy production, especially coal and oil.
His perspective on the Paris agreement was that it was unfair to the
US, leaving countries like India and China free to use fossil fuels
while the US had to curb their carbon.
"I'm not sure what Paris actually accomplishes," said Katie Tubb, a
senior policy analyst at the
Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank.
"In terms of getting to the end of the century, if the goal is to
reduce global temperatures, it just can't be done on the backs of the
industrialised world."
"No matter what you think about global warming, and the nature of it,
the pace of it, you have to take these growing economies seriously,
and help them and I just didn't see Paris getting to that end, in any
efficient or constructive manner."
How have US opponents of the pull-out reacted over the past three
years?
In the wake of the President's announcement back in 2017, a number of
states and businesses have pledged to continue cutting carbon and to
try and make up for the Federal government's decision to walk away
from the US commitment under Paris.
Among them are
America's Pledge, put together by former California governor Jerry Brown and the
former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.
They say that states and cities will help cut US emissions by 19%
compared to 2025 from what they were in 2005 - that's not enough to
make up for the US promise under Paris but it keeps those targets
"within reach".
At UN climate talks, groups representing states and cities
that want to remain in the Paris pact have made their
presence felt. Getty Images
"The public understands that fighting climate change goes hand in hand
with protecting our health and growing our economy," said Michael
Bloomberg in a statement.
"So despite the White House's best efforts to drag our country
backward, it hasn't stopped our climate progress over the past four
years."
On the business front, there has been growing pressure from
shareholders of large fossil fuel-based industries to face up to the
climate challenge.
A proposal filed by BNP Paribas Asset Management won a 53% majority
vote at Chevron - it called on the oil giant to ensure that its
climate lobbying was in line with the goals of the Paris agreement.
Will other countries now leave the agreement?
"I don't think anyone will follow Mr Trump out of Paris," said Peter
Betts, a former lead negotiator for the UK and the EU in the global
climate negotiations, and now an associate fellow at
Chatham House.
"Nobody has in the last four years and I don't think they will in the
future."
Some are worried that the US withdrawal will see other countries adopt
a go-slow attitude, at a time when scientists are saying that efforts
should be speeded up.
China's President Xi speaking to the UN on climate change,
seen on an outdoor screen in Beijing.
Getty Images
"They are biding their time, they are saying that if the US is not in
then we don't need to rush to do anything at this time'," said Carlos
Fuller, lead negotiator from the Alliance of Small Island States.
"I think they are hedging their bets to see what kind of a better deal
they can get out of it, and not actually withdraw."
Others are hopeful that the US withdrawal will drive a sense of unity
among others, and see new leadership emerge.
"The EU green deal and
carbon neutrality commitments from China, Japan and South Korea point to the inevitability of our collective
transition off fossil fuels," said Laurence Tubiana, one of the
architects of the Paris agreement and now chief executive of the
European Climate Foundation.
"There were always going to be speed bumps as the global economy
shifted off oil, gas and coal - but the overall direction of travel is
clear. As governments prepare stimulus packages to rescue their
economies from covid-19 it's vital they invest in technologies of the
future, not the past."
Republican climate denial is even scarier than Trumpism.
Credit...Pavel Lvov/Sputnik, via Associated Press
Author
Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography.
The most terrifying aspect of the U.S. political drama isn’t the revelation
that the president has abused his power for personal gain. If you didn’t see
that coming from the day Donald Trump was elected, you weren’t paying
attention.
No, the real revelation has been the utter depravity of the Republican
Party. Essentially every elected or appointed official in that party has
chosen to defend Trump by buying into crazy, debunked conspiracy
theories. That is, one of America’s two major parties is beyond
redemption; given that, it’s hard to see how democracy can long endure,
even if Trump is defeated.
However, the scariest reporting I’ve seen recently has been about
science, not politics. A
new federal report
finds that climate change in the Arctic is accelerating, matching what
used to be considered
worst-case scenarios. And there are indications that Arctic warming may be turning into a
self-reinforcing spiral, as the thawing tundra itself
releases
vast quantities of greenhouse gases.
Catastrophic
sea-level rise, heat waves that make major population centers
uninhabitable, and more are now looking more likely than not, and sooner rather than
later.
But the terrifying political news and the terrifying climate news are
closely related.
Why, after all, has the world failed to take action on climate, and why
is it still failing to act even as the danger gets ever more obvious?
There are, of course, many culprits; action was never going to be easy.
But one factor stands out above all others: the fanatical opposition of
America’s Republicans, who are the world’s only major climate-denialist
party. Because of this opposition, the United States hasn’t just failed
to provide the kind of leadership that would have been essential to
global action, it has become a force against action.
And Republican climate denial is rooted in the same kind of depravity
that we’re seeing with regard to Trump.
As I’ve written in the past, climate denial was in many ways the
crucible for Trumpism. Long before the cries of “fake news,” Republicans were refusing to
accept science that contradicted their prejudices. Long before
Republicans began attributing every negative development to the
machinations of the “deep state,” they were insisting that global
warming was a gigantic hoax perpetrated by a vast global cabal of
corrupt scientists.
And long before Trump began weaponizing the power of the presidency for
political gain, Republicans were using their political power to harass
climate scientists and, where possible, criminalize the practice of
science itself.
Perhaps not surprisingly, some of those responsible for these abuses are
now ensconced in the Trump administration. Notably, Ken Cuccinelli, who
as attorney general of Virginia engaged in a long
witch-hunt
against the climate scientist Michael Mann, is now at the Department of
Homeland Security, where he pushes anti-immigrant policies with, as The
Times
reports, “little concern for legal restraints.”
But why have Republicans become the party of climate doom? Money is an
important part of the answer: In the current cycle Republicans have
received 97 percent of political contributions from the
coal industry, 88 percent from
oil and gas. And this doesn’t even count the wing nut welfare offered by
institutions supported by the Koch brothers and other fossil-fuel moguls.
However, I don’t believe that it’s just about the money. My sense is
that right-wingers believe, probably correctly, that there’s a sort of
halo effect surrounding any form of public action. Once you accept that
we need policies to protect the environment, you’re more likely to
accept the idea that we should have policies to ensure access to health
care, child care, and more. So the government must be prevented from
doing anything good, lest it legitimize a broader progressive agenda.
Still, whatever the short-term political incentives, it takes a special
kind of depravity to respond to those incentives by denying facts,
embracing insane conspiracy theories and putting the very future of
civilization at risk.
Unfortunately, that kind of depravity isn’t just present in the modern
Republican Party, it has effectively taken over the whole institution.
There used to be at least some Republicans with principles; as recently
as 2008 Senator John McCain co-sponsored serious climate-change
legislation. But those people have either experienced total moral
collapse (hello, Senator Graham) or left the party.
The truth is that even now I don’t fully understand how things got this
bad. But the reality is clear: Modern Republicans are irredeemable,
devoid of principle or shame. And there is, as I said, no reason to
believe that this will change even if Trump is defeated next year.
The only way that either American democracy or a livable planet can
survive is if the Republican Party as it now exists is effectively
dismantled and replaced with something better — maybe with a party that
has the same name, but completely different values. This may sound like
an impossible dream. But it’s the only hope we have.
Tim Flannery has been speaking about climate change for decades – but
he’s finding it harder and harder to be the bearer of bad news
‘As the news darkens, I’m having difficulty talking to young people
about it’: Prof Tim Flannery.
Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian
Author
Tim Flannery
is a scientist, an explorer, a conservationist and a leading writer on
climate change. He has held various academic positions including
visiting Professor in Evolutionary and Organismic Biology at Harvard
University, Director of the South Australian Museum, Principal
Research Scientist at the Australian Museum, Professorial Fellow at
the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne,
and Panasonic Professor of Environmental Sustainability, Macquarie
University.
Being a bearer of bad news is never easy. I’ve been writing and talking about
climate change for decades now.
Constant exposure hardens one to even the most horrific reality, and I’ve
coped by acting like a jolly hangman – or at least not giving in publicly to
the helplessness I sometimes feel as I relate the latest findings.
But as the news darkens, I’m having difficulty talking to young people about
it. I can tell an optimistic story about developing technologies and the
role they can play in helping avert the worst of the crisis.
But we have now left action so late that some very severe climate impacts
seem unavoidable. When I try to imagine how I, as a young person, would
react to such news, I find it hard to continue my work.
I was recently asked to speak to a group of around 40 emerging leaders, all
in their 30s and 40s. The meeting was conducted early in the morning, via
Zoom. I began with an overview of the impacts of climate change as it’s
emerging, as outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s
sixth assessment report.
Tim Flannery’s The Climate Cure. ‘We have now left action so late that some very severe climate
impacts seem unavoidable,’ he says. Photograph: Text Publishing
The report, which is still being drafted, is filled with terrifying news of
melting ice caps, burning forests and climate tipping points being closer
than we previously thought. Because I deal with such matters every day, I’m
somewhat numbed to them. But I could see that they were having a profound
effect on my audience.
The group of emerging leaders I spoke to included a young executive from the
fossil fuel industry. During the discussion that followed, he commented that
most of the younger people in his industry, himself included, felt as I did
about the emerging climate crisis.
But while some have left to establish renewable energy companies, many more
have stayed on, regardless of their personal feelings. Changing one’s
career, especially if you’ve been successful, is not easy. Perhaps those who
remain fear that they will plunge their families into poverty if they try to
re-skill and seek work elsewhere.
The young executive then told us what it’s like to drive with his family
in his branded work vehicle. Abuse is frequently hurled at him by those
who despise what his company is doing, and that experience is shared by
his children. I watched the faces of the Zoom participants as the distress
of the executive grew. As parents we could all picture the scenario: the
children locked into place for a journey they can’t escape from, as
tension between adults explodes.
I know exactly how he felt. When I was climate commissioner, my older two
children were teenagers. On several occasions when I was enjoying a weekend
in the city with them, people shouted at me, “F– off Mr Carbon Tax”, and
other abusive things.
I could say nothing to the abusers, who were itching for a fight. And the
embarrassment and hurt on the faces of my kids still haunts me. As they grew
older, they came to understand that those who screamed at me were ignorant
and scared. But I didn’t do a very good job, at the time, of talking with
them about the reasons for the abuse.
The reaction of very young children to the climate crisis is of even greater
concern. What I didn’t realise, on the morning of that Zoom call, was that
my youngest child, aged seven, had not been asleep as I thought, but had
been listening to the entire presentation.
That realisation brought me up sharp. My son is a bright boy, interested in
science and space, so I’m pretty sure he understood what I said. And I’m
sure that the emotionally fraught discussion he witnessed had an impact on
him. But how, now, am I to talk to him about our future?
Our children carry the lessons learned in childhood far into the future. Uli
Edel’s 2009 film
The Baader Meinhoff Complex
documents the bombings, bank robberies and killings that were carried out by
radical gangs in Germany in the 1970s and 80s.
Based on detailed evidence, it makes the case that radicalised youth was a
response to the unacknowledged Nazi past of their parents’ generation. The
Baader Meinhoff gang grew up in a world where prominent Nazis remained in
positions of high authority. They acted as they did because they felt there
had been no justice – no reckoning for the horrific acts their parents had
been part of.
I strongly believe we need to speak with our children about the growing
climate threat: about responsibility, impacts and forgiveness. Yet as I look
at my young son playing with his Lego or reading his children’s books, my
courage fails me. I keep putting the discussion off, as I suspect many
workers in the fossil fuels industry do when it comes to speaking to their
children.
Yet if we fail to explain the state of the world we have created, and our
role in helping create it, I greatly fear that some in the next generation
will grow into very angry young people indeed.
Credit...Pavel Lvov/Sputnik, via Associated Press
