The US comes out of the Paris Climate Agreement: what it threatens

The United States formally filed an application to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, signed almost three years ago by almost 200 countries to combat global warming. Edition with the BBC told who will win and who will lose from the decision of US President Donald Trump to go against the international community.

Фото: Depositphotos

Tramp He pledged withdraw the signature of Barack Obama under the Paris Agreement as soon as he won the election. However, the acceptance of applications for withdrawal from the contract was opened only on November 4, three years after its entry into force.

Trump did not delay, and on the same day he instructed the State Department to write to the UN. Thus, he launched the exit process, which will end in a year - exactly the day after the 2020 presidential elections, following which Trump expects to stay in the White House for another 4 years. Climate will likely be one of the main themes of the election campaign, and its outcome will determine the fate of US participation in the Paris Agreement.

Critics of Trump’s decision say that it will harm the United States more than the climate, since the country will lag behind the world in “clean” technologies, receive less investment in renewable energy, and further lose its credibility as a world leader and access to world markets.

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Trump claims that failure will support the American economy and employment in industry and energy. They make the USA the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere after China.

“The Paris agreement imposes unnecessary restrictions that would bankrupt American companies while foreign producers continue to pollute with impunity,” Trump reiterated his position at an oil and gas conference in Pittsburgh in late October.

“We will not allow foreigners to enrich themselves at the expense of Americans. And I'm not ashamed. This is “America First,” he repeated his campaign slogan, leaving no doubt that in two weeks he will send a letter to the UN and the Paris Agreement to the shredder.

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Against all

Countries that signed the treaty committed to keeping the global average temperature rise to 1,5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This is the only way to avoid climate catastrophe and preserve life on Earth in the form in which we have seen it so far, scientists warn.

Trump said that he was ready to return to the negotiating table and revise the agreement so that it was more beneficial to the Americans. There is a problem with this.

Firstly, the contract does not impose any strict obligations. Each country is free to set goals to reduce and neutralize emissions, and no one bothers the United States to do this without withdrawing from the agreement.

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Secondly, it does not provide for any penalties for failure to fulfill self-established goals.

And thirdly, to return two hundred states (almost all countries of the world) to the very beginning of the painful negotiation process is already unrealistic. Over the past couple of years, debates about whether to fight climate change have subsided, and even skeptics like Russia ratified the Paris Agreement.

Scientists and activists are increasingly loudly calling on world leaders to go further and achieve full neutralization of emissions by the 2050 year. The current rate of warming is still twice as high as stated in the Paris Agreement.

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This is fraught with natural disasters that will worsen global poverty, increase migration, undermine the economy - and even if the goals of the Paris Agreement are achieved, this will not be enough. warned recently the International Monetary Fund.

At the UN climate summit in September, 77 countries, including Germany, pledged to neutralize emissions by 2050, and another 70 pledged to review their environmental strategies based on the latest scientific advice by next year - including China, India and the EU.

Bankers and investors are reconsidering their approaches to investing trillions of dollars, switching to dirty energy and climate pessimists, and are increasingly willing to finance “clean” technologies and alternative generation.

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Developed countries are accelerating the transition to electric cars and subsidizing a business that reduces emissions. All this requires a gigantic investment. According to analysts at the American bank Morgan Stanley, 14 trillion dollars should be invested in renewable energy industry alone before 2050, and electrification of vehicles will require another 11 trillion dollars.

Therefore, Trump critics fear that the rejection of the Paris Agreement will leave the United States behind progress. And it will undermine the position of American manufacturers in the world, because the ghost of environmental protectionism is already roaming around Europe.

The new European Commission, which performs the functions of the EU government, has barely waited for its appointment and hastened to dust off the idea of ​​a carbon tax. Its goal is to protect European producers from competition from companies from countries where greenhouse gas emissions are less strictly regulated.

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But tax is still far away, and US elections are close. Trump goes to them under the banner of protecting jobs in industry and traditional energy. Critics doubt that the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will bring it closer to this goal and nod to the statistics: now in the US more people are involved in the production, installation and maintenance of solar panels than in the coal industry.

Trump’s demarche in two years could not split the global climate consensus. But it can be more destructive if other countries follow the US example. Reception of applications for withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is open.

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