The United States’ second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement was not unexpected. Even before the current president, Donald Trump, was re-elected, promised for months He said he would pull the country out of the UN agreement to limit global warming: Paris Climate “tearing”
Still, the sound of Trump’s black sharpie Scratching the signature line Executive Order — “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements” — Climate experts, diplomats and concerned members of the public from around the world Historically largest source of emissions greenhouse gas Turn your back on the consensus.
The 2015 Paris Agreement is a treaty signed by 196 countries that agreed to limit global warming to “below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)” and ideally limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Since then, countries have met almost every year to sort out the specifics of the agreement and reach, at least in theory, further agreement on how to address climate change. This annual meeting, known as the ‘Conference of the Parties’ or COP, is the main place where the US withdrawal is felt.
Some of the most immediate impacts will be financial. Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, which will take a year from the date Trump notified the United Nations of his intention, means the United States will no longer contribute a flow of funds to help poor countries transition away from fossil fuels and prepare for their impacts. of climate change. President Trump’s executive order said the U.S. “withdrawn and abolished.” International Climate Finance InitiativeIt sets out a government-wide strategy to scale back public investment in international fossil fuel projects while increasing investment in clean energy and foreign adaptation financing.
For 2024, the U.S. Congress has appropriated a budget. 1 billion dollars The country has contributed to climate mitigation in developing countries. less than other countries The people most responsible for climate change are: Germany and Japan. Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific project run by three research institutes, has rated the US contribution to climate finance as “very inadequate”, but some experts have raised concerns that cutting off US funding could have a negative impact. I did it. cooling effect Contributions from other donating countries.
Nonetheless, it is unlikely that the pace of climate change will change dramatically if the United States does not participate in the Paris Agreement. This is due to several ways in which treaties are structured. First, the 2015 agreement did not bind the United States to specific emissions cuts. It simply required the United States to submit a “Nationally Determined Contribution” (NDC) every five years. The United States did a good job of this, but it was not consistent with the goals set by the signatories to the agreement. Former President Joe Biden has promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the last month of his term. 61-66% by 2035 — The goals submitted by the United States were considered by Climate Action Tracker to be: incompatible In line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to within 1.5 degrees Celsius.
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This also applies to all other countries that are parties to the Agreement. Not one at all Paris has set Paris-linked emissions reduction targets, and the United Nations Environment Program estimated in October that countries’ collective emissions reduction pledges would allow for this. 2.6~3.1℃ (4.7 to 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit) will warm by the end of the century. no way May 2024 Survey It found that 77% of the 380 members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading scientific authority on the subject, believe humanity is heading toward more than 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by 2100.
“Even before this administration came in, the global emissions trajectory was already far from where the science showed it needed to be,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists.
Second, countries are not in any way forced to adhere to the insufficient emissions reduction targets they submitted under the Paris Agreement. They are binding only if they are binding under domestic law, and the United States has never passed legislation applying them to the Paris goals. As of December, the United States’ NDC was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The goals claimed in many analyzes are:Where your hands can reach” due to investments made possible by Biden’s two signature climate bills, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. However, as of 2022, current U.S. policies can only reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 42%. That gap must be filled with additional action by states, cities, and private companies.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration also Oil and gas extraction increases to record levelsdespite repeat warning The International Energy Agency, an independent intergovernmental organization, has said new fossil fuel infrastructure is incompatible with a pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Sheila Olmstead, a public policy professor at Cornell University, said the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is “potentially largely symbolic.” She said what ultimately matters is what the Trump administration does domestically. Examples include vehicle emissions standards, greenhouse gas limits on power plants, and clean energy subsidies under inflation reduction laws. $137 billion It can be used for renewable energy infrastructure and climate resilience.
Olmstead said it remains to be seen what Trump can accomplish in terms of rolling back these policies. But he has already rolled back vehicle emissions standards, halted climate spending under the Inflation Reduction Act, and expanded oil and gas drilling on federal lands. State and local resistance could at least partially thwart the president’s plans. For example, the US Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors whose states account for more than half of the US economy, sworn honor The United States’ most recent NDC was submitted in the final days of the Biden administration.
Still in December Analysis of Rhodium Groupan independent research firm, found that a deregulatory agenda of the type Trump is beginning to enact could lead to a 24 to 36 percent increase in climate pollution in 2035 compared to current policies.
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A US withdrawal “threatens to reverse hard-won gains in reducing emissions and puts vulnerable countries at greater risk,” Evans Njewa said. name. Njewa chairs the Least Developed Countries Group in the UN climate negotiations, a bloc of 45 countries including Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Niger that advocate for ambitious policies at annual climate talks.
Most experts are not concerned that the Trump administration will trigger a mass withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Cabe Gillanpour, vice president for international strategy at the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement would be “less significant” than it was during Trump’s first term because other countries had more time to prepare.
“I don’t think it’s in the interest of the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement,” he said. But the world “won’t be surprised this time,” he said. “America knows what’s going to happen.”
However, a climate conference in which the United States acts as a mere observer is unprecedented. The last time Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement in 2017, UN rules We made sure to proceed slowly. No signatory may leave the contract until “three years from the date of the effective date of this contract.” By the time the United States officially withdrew in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had occurred. The meeting is postponed until next year. — after Biden’s inauguration.
This time, there is no three-year buffer period, and it only takes one year for the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Trump may choose not to even honor the shortened schedule. According to his executive order, the country “will consider withdrawing from the Agreement and all obligations thereunder with the provisions of this notification effective immediately.” Participating delegation Negotiation of the YearScheduled to be held in Brazil in November. As COP31, the name of the annual climate conference in 2026, approaches, the United States will be officially relegated to observer status. You can still attend, but you have no decision-making authority and no obligation to submit new climate commitments and report on progress. them.
Without the United States participating in the Paris Agreement, other countries are likely to take their climate commitments less seriously. In particular, the following countries are currently leading the way: far-right climate denier. But according to Olmstead, the last time the United States declared secession, that wasn’t actually the case. “It had an energizing nature,” she said, prompting Europe and China to reaffirm their commitments to reduce emissions.
Meanwhile, some experts say the structure of the Paris Agreement is the root cause of its widespread failure to stem rising global carbon emissions. The bottom-up, voluntary nature of the Convention is often cited as follows: one of its great advantages And why it has been agreed upon by almost every country on earth. But this flexibility clearly becomes problematic if signatories, especially major polluters like the United States, decide not to do their fair share.
Olmstead said there are essentially two worldviews on solving the climate crisis. She called it “the mother of all collective action problems.” What the Paris Agreement demands is to value fairness and cooperation toward common goals. In contrast, the legislation enacted by the Trump administration is more isolationist, with “all countries acting only in their own interests,” and is skeptical about whether international institutions can be more than the sum of their parts.
“It’s unfortunate that that worldview is now being applied to climate change,” Olmstead said. “Because it doesn’t seem appropriate for solving the problem of climate change.”
