By,
Col. Dr. Rakesh Shrivastawa
Registrar, PDEU
At the White House on Monday evening, Trump signed the order to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, shooting a letter to the United Nations explaining the decision. He also announced a "national energy emergency" to reverse many of the Biden-era environmental regulations. He mentioned that such agreements "do not reflect our country's values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives" and "unfairly burden the United States", citing costs to American taxpayers.
The US is the world's second largest annual emitter of planet-warming gases, and its total emissions since the late 19th Century are the highest of any country. Trump made a similar announcement in 2017 at the start of his first presidency, although it was three years before the US was able to leave the Paris agreement. His successor Joe Biden rejoined in 2021 at the start of his term as President. This time, under UN rules, the US has to wait a year until it is officially out. The US is the only one of the 194 member countries to have withdrawn from it and will now join Iran, Yemen and Libya as the only countries to currently stand outside the agreement. In addition. US President has also sought an immediate review of all regulations that hinder the development of domestic energy resources, including oil, natural gas and coal. Accordingly his ‘Dig- Baby- Dig’ call will open a pandora box all over the world to invest funds and extract more fossil fuels leading to greater carbon emissions and related effect on global warming.
This
action has worried the Environmentalists as it will have a cascading effect on
the pledges of Paris Agreement where they talk about global warming, net zero
emissions and funding from the Developed countries to Developing economies of
the world in following Paris agreement protocol and pledges.
What is the Paris Climate Agreement?
In Paris in 2015, nearly 200 countries agreed a series of measures to tackle climate change which were designed to avoid some of the worst consequences of rising temperatures. World leaders pledged to try to prevent global temperatures rising by more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial levels. India's updated climate pledge to the Paris Agreement and received the Union Cabinet's nod on August 3, 2022. The pledge will lay out India's clean energy transition pathway till 2030. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a net zero by 2070 target at COP26 in 2021.
The Paris Agreement (also known as the Conference of Parties 21 or (COP 21) is a landmark agreement on global Environment concerns. It replaced the Kyoto Protocol which was an earlier agreement to deal with climate change. 200 countries agreed to cooperate to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions and rein in climate change. The Paris Agreement works on a 5- year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by countries. In 2020, countries had submitted their plans for climate action known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
The agreement lists a series of commitments:
- To "pursue efforts" to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C, and to keep them "well below" 2.0C above those recorded in pre-industrial times
- To achieve a balance - known as net zero - between the greenhouse gases that humans put into the atmosphere and the gases that they actively remove, in the second half of this century
- Each country to set its own emission-reduction targets, reviewed every five years to raise ambitions
- Richer countries to help poorer nations by providing funding, known as climate finance, to adapt to climate change and switch to renewable energy
Why Donald Trump Pulled Out?
The Paris deal restated a commitment first made in 2009 that the world's richer countries should provide $100bn (around £82bn) annually by 2020 to help developing nations deal with the effects of climate change, and build greener economies. In 2020 only $83.3bn was raised, but the goal was eventually achieved in 2022, according to data from the OECD, external. In 2023, countries agreed for the first time that a fund should be established exclusively for loss and damage. This is money to help countries recover from the impacts of climate change. At COP29 countries agreed to update the 2020 goal. Richer nations committed to providing $300bn (around £245bn) a year to developing nations by 2035, with a broader ambition for $1.3tn to be raised from private and public sources by the same date. However, developing countries - which had hoped for more - criticised the $300bn figure as a "paltry sum".
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Trump believes that the United States is a country which has no Global obligations of this kind and no responsibility for historic emissions etc. He says, we will do what we have to do, you do what you have to, and that's his standard approach. Trump's new executive order, of putting America first in International environmental agreements like the Paris Agreement, aren't in line with American values, as per him, and that these agreements steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance more than the American people.
Trump described the global agreement as an "unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off". He further declared that the US would become a "rich nation again" by exploiting its "liquid gold under our feet." Drilling for Coal, Oil and Gas is straight away guided by USA interests and of course by the fact that, it will lower prices of oil that could help curb inflation in the United States. Citing the economy, cutting back on fossil fuel production will shrink U.S. economic growth and raise prices in the economic sectors dependent on energy. In line with this, Trump also claims that fossil fuels are the most efficient way to meet global energy demands. He wants to focus on manufacturing which requires abundance of energy and fossil fuel for USA are available in abundance and are much cheaper.
The first withdrawal, which came six
months into the Trump first presidency, was short-lived. The US had ratified
the Paris Agreement just a few months before Trump had become President. It has
a provision that does not allow any country to withdraw within the first three
years of ratification. There is also a one-year wait time for the withdrawal to
come into effect. So, by the time the US withdrawal became effective, it was
almost time to rejoin, with Biden winning the election.
The Paris Agreement’s objective
of keeping global warming below a certain level cannot be achieved without everyone’s
full participation in the common effort to reduce emissions. In many ways, this
second withdrawal could have a more far-reaching impact on global climate
action than the first. The decision has come at the start of Trump’s second
term and is accompanied by a slew of related decisions that threaten to
dismantle the entire US climate policy.
This time, the US withdrawal will become official
more quickly i.e. after a year. The US can keep participating as a party to the
Paris agreement until January 2026. That means it may try to negotiate at
the COP30
climate change conference in Brazil this year. COP30 is a big deal. It is when each country is due to
present its new NDCs. The US withdrawal means it is unlikely to bring a new
contribution to the meeting – if it attends at all.
Leaving the Paris
agreement means the US is no longer required to provide annual updates on its greenhouse
gas emissions. This lack of transparency makes it harder to determine how the
world is tracking on emissions reduction overall. There is a possibility that
many developing countries may not take their NDC goals seriously under this
excuse of United States pull-out and this is going to impact Net Zero goals in
a big way. The funding by West for Climate goals will shrink substantially as
they will follow US example. Further as the US holds the Veto in World Bank, it
may force the World Bank away from Climate financing.
India has to implement its ‘Vikshit Bharat 2047’ mission and ‘Make in India’ initiative and thus become a manufacturing hub in the world. In addition it aims for inclusive growth and raising the living standards of all its citizens. This is likely to double the energy requirements in next 10 years. India is investing a lot in renewables, but to achieve its goals, fossil fuel has to remain the mainstay for energy generation in years to come. In last few years investment in Power sector using fossil fuel was shrinking under climate pressure, which is likely to revive due to this Trump’s action. This may also lead to lower Crude and Gas prices thus economic advantage for India.
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World can also see a brighter side in it. Trump’s withdrawal can easily be reversed by a new US president after 3 years of USA withdrawal. In the meantime, we can expect other parties such as China and the European Union, to continue to play a leadership role, and others to fill the vacuum. There is a lot of opposition within USA also so the process may slow down but will not stop. Vast majority of the rest of the world is still pursuing emissions reduction efforts.
