Trump Has Damaged the Paris Agreement, Say its Architects

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One year on from Donald Trumpโ€™s announcement he would withdraw the U.S. from the UN climate pact, leading figures assess the โ€œdireย consequencesโ€

On the first day of June last year, Trump ended months of speculation by siding with conservative aides who had urged him to remove the U.S. from the Parisย deal.

That โ€œreprehensible decisionโ€ has had โ€œdire consequences,โ€ย Laurent Fabius, the former French prime minister who presided over the Paris talks in 2015, wroteย on theย Profiles of Paris websiteย lastย week.

Todd Stern,ย Barack Obamaโ€™s lead climate envoy who forged compromises withย China to make a deal possible, said: โ€œIt is really damaging for the United States to be on the wayย out.โ€

The U.S. position is โ€œunderminingโ€ย continuingย negotiations on the implementation of theย Paris deal, Stern told a meeting held by the World Resources Institute (WRI) to mark the anniversary of the Trump announcement โ€“ and the reaction has been a โ€œmixedย bag.โ€

Initially, it brought statements of resolve from many countries to uphold the agreement. It also spurred aย large coalition of U.S. cities, counties, states and businesses to declare โ€œwe are still in,โ€ย despite federalย policy.

โ€œEighteenย months later, that same decisiveness is very much evident,โ€ saidย Paula Cabellero, a former climate diplomat and director of WRIโ€™s international climate program. โ€œTrump can announce what he will, but the reality on the ground, in the U.S. and around the world, is that efforts to tackle climate change continue regardless andย unabated.โ€

Stern said: โ€œIt wasnโ€™t a foregone conclusion that other countries stayed in [the deal] and doubled down on their general determination not to walkย away.โ€

But Obamaโ€™s climate champion was less sanguine about theย broader impact of the U.S. positionย on theย international stage. Stern said he had visited the last two UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany,ย speaking with dozens of nationalย representatives.

โ€œIn the absence of the United States, you have a phenomenon of a fair number of countries, I think, trying to pull back a little bit on some of the things that were agreed to, some of the compromises thatย wereย reached in Paris,โ€ heย said.

During what Stern described as theย โ€œbig momentโ€ in Paris, the U.S. had convinced countries toย make concessions โ€œmaybe past even the point where they were entirelyย comfortable.โ€

โ€œSo having done that, [for the U.S. to] turn around and say โ€˜actually never mind, weโ€™re goneย โ€“ that is a veryย difficultย dynamic,โ€ saidย Stern.

The Paris deal allowed countries to set their own climate targets. Collectively, theย initial national goals would only limit warming to around 3C โ€“ falling short of the โ€œwell below 2Cโ€ goal. The agreement put in placeย legal mechanisms to compelย nations to revisit and increase theirย ambition.

โ€œWhen you get to the point of talking about ratcheting up what youโ€™re going to do, looking at the United States not acting โ€ฆ I think some countries will say Iโ€™m going to do more, and some countries will say we are going to do less,โ€ saidย Stern.

Report:ย U.S. launches nuclear initiative to cut carbon with Canada, Japan, UK

The rules to govern the Paris deal are still being thrashed out. Countries will meet in Katowice, Poland in December to pin down theย details.

โ€œSome ofย [theย ways to raise ambition] are under threat in the ongoing negotiations, quite frankly, because the U.S. is no longer displaying that level of leadership,โ€ saidย Selwin Hart, who ran the UN secretary generalโ€™s climate change team during the Paris talks and is now Barbadosโ€™ ambassador to the U.S. โ€œIt is absolutely imperative to have the U.S. at the table. Were it not for the leadership of the Unites States โ€ฆ we would not have had the Parisย Agreement.โ€

Caballero and Hart were also addressing the WRIย event.

Over the past year, some ofย the state department diplomats that worked on the Obama team have remained in post.ย They maintain a constructive, although diminished, presence at the talks. Under the leadership ofย Trumpโ€™s firstย secretary of state Rex Tillerson, the climate team was downgraded, butย observers have said U.S. diplomatsย continuedย many of the positions adopted by the U.S. underย Obama.

Now there is new leadership at the state department, with Koch brothers allyย Mike Pompeo taking over. Trumpโ€™s new national security advisor, John Bolton, is a long-time critic of the Paris deal. The new dynamic in Washington, D.C. will be closelyย watched.

Laurence Tubiana,ย a French diplomat who worked with Fabius to broker the Paris deal, told Climate Home News upcoming meetings between Chinese and European ministers would be crucial for damageย limitation.

โ€œNow who is teaming up or balancing or discussing with China?โ€ she said. Unless the EU canย replicate the U.S.โ€™s diplomatic heft in partnership with China, said Tubiana, โ€œI think we are losing totally theย game.โ€

Many invitees to Trumpโ€™s speech in the White House Rose Garden one year ago wereย from conservative think tanks. They had lobbied Trump over many months to withdraw from the Paris deal. For some, the anniversary represents a still unfulfilled promise. Under the rules of the deal, Trump cannot leave the agreement until the day after the next U.S. presidential election inย 2020.

Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Chris Horner said in aย statementย Trump should send the agreement to the U.S. Senate and recommend they rejectย it.

โ€œWe hope president Trump will consummate the announced withdrawal โ€ฆ by doing what the French, Germans, Italians, and others did: send it to the elected body that has the express, constitutional role for approving these types of commitments. Otherwise, all of the administrationโ€™s regulatory gains could be for nothing, and American taxpayers will be left on the hook,โ€ saidย Horner.

This article originally appeared on Climate Home News.

Main image:ย Trump announces he will leave the Paris climate deal in the White House Rose Garden on 1 June, 2017. Credit: White House, publicย domain

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