Climate change: US formally withdraws from Paris Agreement
In June 2017, Washington served notice that it was going to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, to the disappointment of many other countries
After a three-year delay, the US has become the first country in the world to withdraw formally from the Paris climate agreement.
President Trump announced the move in June 2017, but UN regulations allowed his decision to take effect only today (4 November 2020), a day after the US election.
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 2ºC above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5ºC.
Why has this taken so long?
The delay is due to the complex rules that were built in to the Paris Agreement to cope with the possibility that a future US president might decide to take the country out of the deal. 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 Barack Obama’s negotiators wanted to ensure that it would take time for the US to withdraw 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 United Nations.
So, despite President Trump’s White House announcement in June 2017, the US was only able to give formal 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?
The US now represents roughly 15% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, but 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, that raises questions of trust.
For the past three years, US negotiators have attended UN climate talks while the administration has tried to use these events to promote fossil fuels.
“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, and in the case of the Paris Agreement, we left it.
“So, I think it’s obviously a problem.”
How is the US pullout being viewed?
Although the withdrawal 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 reopened old wounds for climate diplomats.
Fred Dzapata
Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online.
Follow us on Twitter: @asaaseradio995
#asaaseradio #TVOL
