Official White House Photo taken by Pete Souza
On Saturday, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping formally agreed to ratify the Paris Climate Agreement, marking a great leap forward in tackling global warming. Before Saturday, 24 countries accounting for 1.08% of global greenhouse gas had ratified the agreement. For the agreement to go into effect, 55 countries producing at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions had to ratify, so the 1.08% figure was particularly pathetic. Perhaps “Paris Climate Disagreement” was a more accurate moniker.
China and the United State combine for 37.98% of global carbon emissions, over 35 times the amount of those 24 countries combined. After the world’s two largest superpowers pledged to ratify the agreement, 20 other nations announced their intent to do the same, with most aiming to get it done before 2016 was up. It is looking more and more like the Agreement will become a reality.
The Paris Climate Agreement was sealed on December 12, 2015 as part of a conference for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The agreement was formally signed by many nations on April 22, 2016 (Earth Day), and currently has 180 signatories. Signing the agreement and ratifying it are two very different things though, and with the addition of the U.S. and China, only 26 of these signatories have ratified or acceded to the Agreement.
The Paris Climate Agreement is far more aggressive in reducing carbon emissions than previous climate treaties and agreements. It aims to (1) hold the increase in global temperature below 2 °C, and ideally below 1.5°C, (2) help people adapt/become more resilient to the adverse impacts of climate change and keep a high standard of living in a low-emissions world, and (3) appropriately allocate capital towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building resilience in the face of climate change. Furthermore, countries aim to reach the peak of their greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible. For many developed countries, this has already happened, but other rapidly developing countries such as China have seen their greenhouse gas emissions sharply increase since the dawn of the 21st century.
Credit: Wikipedia user Enescot
The Agreement does not spell out explicit emission cuts for each country. Rather, it delegates this power to the countries themselves in the form of “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) that each country sets for themselves. The Agreement does state that these cuts must be “ambitious,” “represent a progression over time,” and aim to achieve the purposes of the Agreement I listed above. Each NDC is a “goal” for the country rather than a binding international contract, so there are no explicit penalties for missing these targets and no means to enforce them. Instead, as stated by U.N. assistant secretary-general on climate change, there will be a “name and shame” system if countries fail to meet their targets, and a “name and encourage” one for those that meet them. Should the Agreement come into action, let’s hope there’s more encouraging than shaming!
Obama has recently come under fire by some for using executive action to officially “ratify” the Agreement instead of delegating ratification to the senate. Because the Agreement is not a formal “treaty,” Obama can use executive action and bypass the senate. Seeing as a ratification requires at least 2/3rds approval by the senate, Obama was wise not to delegate these powers to the legislative branch, as it probably would have been shot down in the senate. After all, in a 2015 amendment, 49 senators voted “nay—human activities don’t contribute to climate change” (all Republican) compared to 50 who voted “yea— human activities contribute to climate change.” No democrats voted nay, and the only Republicans to vote yea were Lamar Alexander (TN), Kelly Ayotte (NH), Susan M. Collins (ME), and good ol’ Lindsey Graham (SC). These folks deserve a pat on the back for standing up to the rest of their party and saying that science is more important than being controlled by special interests… but that’s a topic for another blog.
The Kyoto Protocol
Another global attempt at reducing carbon emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, was first drafted in 1997 and went into effect in 2005. It was the first international treaty that put restrictions on the amount of greenhouse gases that countries could emit, and it laid the path for the Paris Climate Agreement 18 years later. However, as the below graphic shows, it did not produce the results environmentalists were hoping for.
Where did the Kyoto Protocol go wrong?
The Kyoto Protocol was built upon a carbon “cap and trade” system. Cap and trade is a market-based mechanism that gives countries, industries, or other organizations separate “allowances” of carbon emissions that they must not exceed. If a country/organization does not use all of their “carbon allowance,” they can trade some of that allowance to another country/organization in exchange for money. Cap and trade had been used before to reduce emissions – in the Clean Air Act of 1990, it was instrumental in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants in the Northeast. And it seems like a great plan on paper, since corporations and countries will take much better care of the environment when there is a financial incentive to do so.
With the Kyoto protocol, different countries needed to have different carbon caps. It wouldn’t make sense to give the same carbon cap to New Zealand and the United States, as emissions from the U.S. are dramatically higher. New Zealand could rake in profits by selling their excess allowances while the United States would take on more and more debt. As you can imagine, there was a lot of bickering and arguing to get the highest cap possible. Brazil, India, and especially China (which emitted less CO2 than the U.S. at the time) argued that it was unfair to give rich countries large caps now when they had already gone through their industrial revolutions and complained about how the caps adversely affected their own industrialization. And while they were correct that it would be “unfair,” giving developing countries caps as high as their developed counterparts would not be effective in reducing carbon emissions, defeating the point of the Protocol altogether.
Because of this conundrum, only 84 parties signed out of the 192 parties to the protocol. Although the U.S. signed, it never ratified, as we were more concerned with increasing competition from China (who ratified in 2002) than reducing carbon emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol was very much a “top-down” order that could either be effective or fair, but not both. On the other hand, the Paris Climate Agreement gives countries their own liberty to reduce their carbon emissions. Now, we just have to see if countries will follow through.
One way YOU can help is to vote YES on I-732 this November, a proposed, revenue-neutral, carbon tax. Amazingly, environmentalist groups like the Washington Environmental Council, the Sierra Club, and Seattle’s own Climate Solutions actually oppose this initiative because it is neutral, so contact them too and see if you can talk some sense into them. I will write a blog about this soon – in the meantime, I encourage you to read Cliff Mass’ latest blog on the subject.
We should all be encouraged that the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries have pledged to reduce their emissions. But as I’m sure you know, there is still a ton of work to be done. Let’s not let this opportunity – or any of those that lie ahead – slip away. We are the self-proclaimed leader of the free world with regards to liberty, national defense, and technology. Isn’t it about time we did the same with climate?